Hello,very new to this,I would be greatful if anyone could give me advice on the following: we're thinking very seriously of doing without gas and adopting for a wood burning range with attached boiler for our central heating and hot water also adding solar panels.At the moment only companies that seem to have what we need are Aga-Rayburn,Essie and Brosely does anyone know of any other company or has anyone used these ans waht were your experiences,Louisa

Thanks

Hi,

Read this but don't let me put you off.

I am about to install a solar water heating kit from Navitron (£1000 app) and a Thermo sovrana solid fuel range cooker from Stoves R Us(£2000) add a 6m flue liner and associated parts (£450) alongside an oil fired condensing boiler(which cost 4 grand in itself to have installed). I am going to use an H2 Panel from Heating Innovations Ltd (£700). Copper tube and fittings (£250).
I've spent over £4 grand on stuff so far and i havent ordered the solar yet. (And i'm doing it myself). Add on scaffolding for the flue and again for the solar (I luckily don't need either) and you could be looking at another £1000. I'm not sure pennies come into it!!
Its worth it for us as the cost of the oil was running about £2500 a year on the old very ineficient boiler and that cost wont be drastically reduced by the new (condensing) boiler on its own.

The Thermo Sovrana was the cheapest range cooker of that sort of "suit anywhere" syle i could find. It has arrived and so far seems to look the part. I havent run it yet because it's not plumbed in so i cant really say anything about it other than it looks good. It requires a flue liner as with most stove installations.

It wont heat the whole house so the oil fired boiler will be there to bump it up. This requires the H2 Panel as you cannot simply mix solid fuel and automatic boilers in the same system. This is for many reasons - safety mainly but also in order that the solid fuel boiler output is fully utilised.

The solar is going to a separate cylinder to pre-heat the water feed to the main cylinder. I had to get a new cylinder so this is a way of using the old one and saving a bit on the plumbing aswell.

I'll come back to the forum with the results.

Hope this helps
Regs Dave

I am no guru but these links have loads of heating equipment.

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/
and
http://www.kotly.com/

Both of these sites were recommended by other forum members.
Louisa I am in a similar boat, I am looking to install a pellet boiler but am struggling to get accurate running cost and availability information (SW France), but finding this site and the associated links very helpful.
Anyway all the best...

MR

Hi, I have a solid fuel Rayburn in ther kitchen and a Coalbrookdale stove with back boiler in the lounge both connected to a Dunsley neutraliser. They heat 12 radiators and do the hot water and cooking. We burn mainly scrap wood/logs and a little coal.
We have a spare flow and return connection to take a future boiler or GSHP on the neutraliser. We have not felt the need to utilize this yet as the system works very well as installed.
We have had this system installed like this for 3 years now. It is heating a 3 bedroom barn conversion. Our house is very warm and almost free to heat.
If cost is an issue, why not buy a second hand Rayburn Supreme and get it stripped and re-enambled. Ours was brown when we got it. It is now claret and as new.
At this time of year outside temperature dropping to about 5 degC at night, we have been running just the stove in the lounge. This is a 10kw unit with 6 kw to the back boiler. We run it flat out (maximum air supply) on scrap wood with the radiator circuit pump turned on. This is sufficent to heat the house to about 21 degC. We even cook on the top of it so we dont need the electric cooker whilst the Rayburn is off!
The advantage of running the stove flat out on wood is that you get no tar deposits. Most of our scrap wood this year is soft wood so a little prone to tar. It is better to run one stove hard than have two on tick over. You get cleaner burning and better efficiency from your wood pile!

I'd be interested to know about Marshall woodfired cookers too. I've emailed several requests for brochures/info/etc and not had any replies. A dealer I spoke to said that they are still in the 'development stage'.

We've actually been using an Esse W23 for nearly two years and despite a few issues, it is a good cooker.

Louisa,

I've only just joined this forum so hope my comments are not too late. We were looking at the same and found a company called 'La Nordica' who produce fairly reasonably priced wood burning boiler stoves. They appear to also have reasonable outputs to contribute to your heating needs. I have no idea how good they are as I do not know of anyone who has one. We very nearly bought one but we want a boiler stove that that will do all our heating needs as well as DHW which is about 24kw in all and La Nordica doesn't quite do it.

Hope this helps. Wayne.

Thanks John.

You seem to be someone in the know? Do you know of any wood burning or multifuel boiler stoves that can produce 24kw from the boiler other than the Stratford TF90. We are in the middle of a new build in Czech and never fully considered our heating needs until now, as a result we have nowhere to put a wood gasification (high output) boiler so need to find a boiler stove that we can put in our lounge that will meet out heating and DHW needs. I really do not want to use electricity as our main source of power for heating.

Wayne.

Hello I am another late arrival to this forum. I was interested in the comments by Smashyd using the H2 panel from heating innovations. In my cottage in Ireland where there is no gas and with the price of oil going up I installed water filled radiators powered by two 6K amptec boilers. Very good but VERY expensive. I was interested that it would be possible to utilise a wood burning boiler stove as a primary source and the H2 would only fire up the amptecs when the need arises. Am I reading this right?

just read your msg Clovercott. Call Mike Smith at heating innovations ( www.h2panel.co.uk ) and ask him if it can be run with electric boilers. Our system is up and running with the h2 and is working very well. Log boiler + oil condensing boiler.

The Austrian company Lohberger makes some pretty impressive wood burning stoves and ranges with water heating options too. It is more hi-tech, heavier and more expensive than La Nordica models. I do not know who sells these in the UK.

I have used the La Nordica Sovrana a lot, but a model without water heating. It is simple, inexpensive and gives a lot of heat really fast. Great for winter mornings. It is relatively lightweight and does not retain much heat though. We installed a thermostat-controlled small fan ( Myson ASM 100 HM) through the kitchen wall, at ceiling level to move some of that heat around.

Also now have a Lohberger Varioline installed, no water heating, but do not have much experience with that yet. The build quality is very good and it is more solid than the La Nordica. Will see this winter how it works out.

Hope I am not stating the obvious, but do pay great attention to safety issues with any water heating thing. A steam explosion can ruin your home and your life. The central heating water circulation must allow pressure to escape at all times, and these vents must not be possible for any user,ever, to shut off with valves. There might be insurance issues, too.

Wish you all the best with your project!

We have a Stanley Donard range. Awsome bit of kit. Heats 10 rads+water.