Location of vent in room w/ solid fuel stove

GHER

Hi, can anyone tell me how I would find out where the vent in a habitable room of a new dwelling should be located? The room will have a solid fuel burning stove. I know there are several factors to be taken in to account such as size of room, orientation and location of applicance amongst others. The architect who should be doing this hasn't been able to answer it (don't ask)!! Should the installer be able to answer this and if not, where do I find out without going to much (if any) expense? I have checked the relevant sections of TGD already. What I'm looking for is guidance on exactly where the vent should be located. Or just to be pointed in the right direction would be great.
Thanks very much.

sydthebeat

GHER wrote: »

Hi, can anyone tell me how I would find out where the vent in a habitable room of a new dwelling should be located? The room will have a solid fuel burning stove. I know there are several factors to be taken in to account such as size of room, orientation and location of applicance amongst others. The architect who should be doing this hasn't been able to answer it (don't ask)!! Should the installer be able to answer this and if not, where do I find out without going to much (if any) expense? I have checked the relevant sections of TGD already. What I'm looking for is guidance on exactly where the vent should be located. Or just to be pointed in the right direction would be great.
Thanks very much.

the vent to supply air for a solid fuel stove can be the same as the vent giving permenant ventilation to the room.

for a solid fuel stove which gets its air supply from the room and exhausts to a chimney, there are no specific requirements for siting, orientation of location of applicane. (if it was a gas stove with no flue, then the regs are different!!)

This vent is generally located at a high level in the room, this is because warm stale air rises and can be exhausted by the vent.

The size of the vent shall be
"A permanent air entry or opening with
a total free area of at least 550 mm2 per
kW of rated output above 5 kW shall be
provided but in no case less than
6500 mm2."

GHER

Cheers sydthebeat, that's very helpful. Do you know if this info is in a particular guidance document and if so can you tell me what it is please? Thanks.

sydthebeat

GHER wrote: »

Cheers sydthebeat, that's very helpful. Do you know if this info is in a particular guidance document and if so can you tell me what it is please? Thanks.

yes,

TGD J deals with heating producing applicances. That is where the paragraph above is taken from:
http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/DevelopmentandHousing/BuildingStandards/FileDownLoad,1650,en.pdf


The ventilation regulations are contained in TGD F:
http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/DevelopmentandHousing/BuildingStandards/FileDownLoad,1647,en.pdf

GHER

Excellent, thank you very much.

logger

If you are building a new house, and you or you architect are concerned by energy efficiency then you should not have vents in in the wall but instead a heat recovery or pasivent system.

The issue with this then is how do you supply air for your stove, and the answer is though a separate pipe, that comes up under the stove and having a stove that can take an external air supply.

The problem with letting the room supply the air for the stove is that you are sending some of the air you went to the expense of heating up the chimney. This is not as bad as the case of an open fire, however it does have similar issues. For instance you end up with a draught in the room, because the air coming into the room replace the warm air that is sent up the chimney will come in under your door from the other rooms in you house and through the wall vent.

Sounds like your Architect is not too bothered about your project, and if that is the case, do you know also is he paying attention to other energy conservation measures. If not then my advice is that you should get a Ber assessment of your build to see what energy rating your house is going to get, when it is done right the assessor should then provide you with a list of recommendation on how you can improve. Under current legislation you will need to get A ber assesment and certificate after the build is complete. However if this is done in advance it will give you the information you need know to make decisions that will effect your heating bills for the next 20 years. The information gathered at this stage can then be used for the final Ber assessment.

Maybe your architect can tell you what energy rating your house is going to achieve, and what percentage of renewable technologies are being used to contribute to the houses energy needs. However if not then you need to do your own leg work.

I know the current regulations state that you need vents in the walls, however they are well outdated, and the new draft recommendations provide the advice you need.
http://www.environ.ie/en/Legislation/DevelopmentandHousing/BuildingStandards/FileDownLoad,17944,en.pdf

Everyone is now hung up on levels of insulation and U values, however what is the use of the best insulation money can by if you turn around and knock holes in your walls and allow the cold air to bypass all that expensive insulation, you'll just end up with lots of cold draughts in your new house, and the temptation then for some people is to block up these vents.

So simple answer:

If you want the best soloution :-
Buy a stove that can take and external air supply.
Install a 6" pipe from outside under the floor to come up under the new stove.
Make sure you have some form of mechanical heat recovery or controlled passive ventilation.

sydthebeat

logger wrote: »

Make sure you have some form of heat recovery, either passive or mechanical.

logger....

"passive heat recovery"...??

pray tell....

logger

sydthebeat wrote: »

logger....

"passive heat recovery"...??

pray tell....

Hi Sydthebeat

Possibly an unfortunate choice of words, my mistake. While it is possible to design passive heat recovery systems, they would not be as efficient as the MHVR, and certainly a lot bulkier, I will edit comments to clarify.

"Make sure you have some form of heat recovery, either passive or mechanical. "

Should read

"Make sure you have some form of mechanical heat recovery or controlled passive ventilation."

However like most topics, there is a lot of debate on pros and cons of each, and whether or not they actually work.

Just offering an opinion and view.

RKQ

If its a new build and you need to comply with current Building Regs TGD F, then I would advise you to install the vent on an external wall near the stove / chimney. Because this stove or open fire will draw air from the vent, causing a draught in the room.

You will not want to sit in a draught, so position the vent to allow for this - your future comfort.:D

Installing a separate pipe vent directly to a stove with an air intake, is a good idea if you can afford same. It will help future proof your home.

sydthebeat

logger wrote: »

Hi Sydthebeat

Possibly an unfortunate choice of words, my mistake. While it is possible to design passive heat recovery systems, they would not be as efficient as the MHVR, and certainly a lot bulkier, I will edit comments to clarify.

"Make sure you have some form of heat recovery, either passive or mechanical. "

Should read

"Make sure you have some form of mechanical heat recovery or controlled passive ventilation."

However like most topics, there is a lot of debate on pros and cons of each, and whether or not they actually work.

Just offering an opinion and view.

thanks logger, i was just checking to see if you hd come across a product that i hadnt heard of...

theres a huge market out there if someone can come up with a passive heat recovery system with decent efficiency....

while waiting on that, i think winter rooms etc can be a good substitute...

gman2k

logger wrote: »

The issue with this then is how do you supply air for your stove, and the answer is though a separate pipe, that comes up under the stove and having a stove that can take an external air supply.

But another issue is finding a boiler model stove that will work with the external air supply. After talking to a number of suppliers I feel like I have been given the runaround....
Some suppliers are apparently developing these 'passive' boiler stoves, but I can not find any yet!
So I've a 4" steel pipe to the rear of my stove position at present in an air tight house with MHVR, but still no suitable boiler stove!

logger

gman2k wrote: »

But another issue is finding a boiler model stove that will work with the external air supply. After talking to a number of suppliers I feel like I have been given the runaround....
Some suppliers are apparently developing these 'passive' boiler stoves, but I can not find any yet!
So I've a 4" steel pipe to the rear of my stove position at present in an air tight house with MHVR, but still no suitable boiler stove!

Hi gman2k

We sourced the following stoves, T-Loft Plus and a topolino from Frontier Energy(Up North) energy, just do a search for 'Tonwerk' in Google and you should get the names of suppliers. It's about two years since I was looking around, however, if you get in touch with the suppliers of stoves like these, the companies that bring them in are sure to have alternatives. The only disappointment for us was that the stoves energy efficiency ratings are not recognised by sei for Ber cert, so your decision on whether to buy a product like this may or may not be influenced by this.

One of the stoves (Topolino) was just for space heating and the other T-Loft plus tops up our hot water tank cylinder. If you are considering heating rad's with this stove then it may heat one or two for you, but then don't expect it to contribute to your hot water, as with a lot of these stoves, they are designed for low energy houses and as such have low outputs, I think bot of our stoves have a combined output of 8Kw

These stoves are not cheap, however they do look great, and they perform well, Takes a bit of getting used to, as they are based on the masonry stove principle and act more like storage heaters.

By the way, these stoves with the addition of the MHVR are the only form of heating in our house.

Best of luck with your search.

gooner99

Hi Logger.How do you find the stove you use for space heating only.does it give a good heat output when it is lit and does the storage function work well.does one burn last long.roughly what sort of price are these stoves?
Thanks

logger

Yes they do heat the space's well, one room is quite large and can get up to 23-25 deg no problem. If this room is at 23deg when we are going up to bed, it will usually be at 21 the next morning that's when it's about 0deg outside, however we did notice when night time temp dropped to -6 it was only 18 deg next morning. The stoves however will still be warm to the touch and radiating heat though. This all this depends though on the heatloss of you house, so what works for us may not for others. The heat output of the stove in this room, is 4-5Kw max I think, and some of this is diverted to HW heating. We have the other stove with the higher storage mass in the sitting room which is a smaller space and this room will overheat if the door is not left open, again this stove has a max output of 4Kw, we are considering holes in the wall of this room to distribute the heat better.

Stove wre purchased from a company in the north, google frontier energy, shopuld get them if you want to check out pricing, there is also a supplier in Longford too, however they were not supplying them when we bought. Also factor in instalation and assembly costs.