DIY putting a back boiler/wood burner stove in

newbie2013

Before anyone says, no im not going to do this myself unless its safe enough. First of all, i built my own house and installed the heating system myself and done all plumbing work. Its a 5 bed with an open fire and oil heating and all the pipework and fittings are done in plastic with push fit fittings with a fitting here and there done in compression fittings.

Im wanting to know what needs done so i can install a wood burner/back boiler so i can heat all the rads in the house and what would be best models to use.

Im near sure that ive to run inch pipe from the stove/wood burner to the hotpress. I was also thinking of building a stone fireplace so i can hide the pipes behind this instead of lifting floor, run the pipes in the celing and connect to the hotpress.

Can anyone talk me through it. Were expecting her brother home from oz for a month and hes a plumer/heating installer and will call him in to give a hand if i take this on if easy enough to do. Sick of burning oil like theres no tomorrow

megamonsterboy

Hi

I've just taked delivery of a boiler stove this morning

I have a 5 bed house with 23 Radiators and oil fired heating, so most stoves weren't powerful enough

I got a Stratford EB 25, its a 37Kw stove, with 25Kw to the heating system
I have to replace my immersion tank with a dual coil tank and plum the boiler to the tank
I'll also need a connection to my overflow tank to releave presure if required

My plumber tells me I need to replace my current mantle piece because of the heat, but the stove supplier says the stoves temperature control system will reduce it's output to 3.5Kw once the water has been heated so it won't be necessary

My plumber is starting on Monday

PM me if you want more detail, otherwise I'll post an update here next week

Mega

newbie2013

megamonsterboy wrote: »

Hi

I've just taked delivery of a boiler stove this morning

I have a 5 bed house with 23 Radiators and oil fired heating, so most stoves weren't powerful enough

I got a Stratford EB 25, its a 37Kw stove, with 25Kw to the heating system
I have to replace my immersion tank with a dual coil tank and plum the boiler to the tank
I'll also need a connection to my overflow tank to releave presure if required

My plumber tells me I need to replace my current mantle piece because of the heat, but the stove supplier says the stoves temperature control system will reduce it's output to 3.5Kw once the water has been heated so it won't be necessary

My plumber is starting on Monday

PM me if you want more detail, otherwise I'll post an update here next week

Mega

Pm me the price of the materials you used and keep us updated on the installation please

freddyuk

I would think you need to do a calculation for heat requirement of each room and DHW cylinder capacity. You already have radiators so these should be sized correctly for the room spaces. Once everything is up to temperature the salesman advises the stove throttles back automatically? For such a large stove I would be wondering how quickly or effectively that happens as if your living room is not pretty large it will end up roasting? A large stove and flu is giving off a lot of heat and cannot be instantly turned off.
If you have a free supply of fuel then consider a dedicated log boiler which is designed to do the job. If you want to have a woodburner then just link it to the DHW and maybe a radiator as an overflow.
If you don't have a free fuel supply have you costed the stove fuel against the oil system which may just need an efficiency check. Logs are not cheap and need storing and drying? You will need a fair amount of fuel for such a large stove. If you are using lot's of oil then a woodburner is not going to make the system more efficient if it is losing heat because of air leakage/draughts/lack of insulation/lack of system controls etc.
Having all your heating source in one room seems a little worrying to me. A couple of smaller efficient stoves would be very good at keeping the house warm whilst the oil just backs them up if you have another room to install in.

megamonsterboy

freddyuk wrote: »

I would think you need to do a calculation for heat requirement of each room and DHW cylinder capacity. You already have radiators so these should be sized correctly for the room spaces. Once everything is up to temperature the salesman advises the stove throttles back automatically? For such a large stove I would be wondering how quickly or effectively that happens as if your living room is not pretty large it will end up roasting? A large stove and flu is giving off a lot of heat and cannot be instantly turned off.
If you have a free supply of fuel then consider a dedicated log boiler which is designed to do the job. If you want to have a woodburner then just link it to the DHW and maybe a radiator as an overflow.
If you don't have a free fuel supply have you costed the stove fuel against the oil system which may just need an efficiency check. Logs are not cheap and need storing and drying? You will need a fair amount of fuel for such a large stove. If you are using lot's of oil then a woodburner is not going to make the system more efficient if it is losing heat because of air leakage/draughts/lack of insulation/lack of system controls etc.
Having all your heating source in one room seems a little worrying to me. A couple of smaller efficient stoves would be very good at keeping the house warm whilst the oil just backs them up if you have another room to install in.

The multi stove option wouldn't work, I only have 1 chimney and 4 rooms which would need heat during the day and 5 bedrooms for night

I'm sure there are options to work out the exact requirements, but I decided to got for the biggest one I could get and have the option to turn it down. I may build on at some stage

oisinbutler

newbie2013 wrote: »

Before anyone says, no im not going to do this myself unless its safe enough. First of all, i built my own house and installed the heating system myself and done all plumbing work. Its a 5 bed with an open fire and oil heating and all the pipework and fittings are done in plastic with push fit fittings with a fitting here and there done in compression fittings.

Im wanting to know what needs done so i can install a wood burner/back boiler so i can heat all the rads in the house and what would be best models to use.

Im near sure that ive to run inch pipe from the stove/wood burner to the hotpress. I was also thinking of building a stone fireplace so i can hide the pipes behind this instead of lifting floor, run the pipes in the celing and connect to the hotpress.

Can anyone talk me through it. Were expecting her brother home from oz for a month and hes a plumer/heating installer and will call him in to give a hand if i take this on if easy enough to do. Sick of burning oil like theres no tomorrow

one word of advice for you, the flow pipe from the stove has to go straight up. Going down will screw up the whole system. Are you using a closed or open circuit?

bbbaldy

If its a solid fuel burner it has to be an open circuit.

oisinbutler

As far as I know they use closed circuits in the UK for solid fuel

oisinbutler

newbie2013 wrote: »

Before anyone says, no im not going to do this myself unless its safe enough. First of all, i built my own house and installed the heating system myself and done all plumbing work. Its a 5 bed with an open fire and oil heating and all the pipework and fittings are done in plastic with push fit fittings with a fitting here and there done in compression fittings.

Im wanting to know what needs done so i can install a wood burner/back boiler so i can heat all the rads in the house and what would be best models to use.

Im near sure that ive to run inch pipe from the stove/wood burner to the hotpress. I was also thinking of building a stone fireplace so i can hide the pipes behind this instead of lifting floor, run the pipes in the celing and connect to the hotpress.

Can anyone talk me through it. Were expecting her brother home from oz for a month and hes a plumer/heating installer and will call him in to give a hand if i take this on if easy enough to do. Sick of burning oil like theres no tomorrow

You're going to need a dual coil hot water cylinder too. Make sure the second coil will work with a solid fuel heater. If you think you might get solar panels in at some stage in the future then get a triple coil now. It will save you having to change it down the road.
Stoves with back boilers are very tricky to get right.its all about the plumbing. I know a few plumbers and only one of them is any good at installing these. You'll need to connect a water pump too. Make sure to put that as far from the stove as you can otherwise it could get boiled.

megamonsterboy

8 weeks in and everything seems to be running fine

I have the Stratford EB 25 installed and fired up 8 weeks ago today

Firstly it has to be said that we have had a milder than average 8 weeks

The first thing that I hadn’t planned for was the size if the thing, it's massive and was not installed into the fireplace but put on the hearth, with the plumbing installed in the fireplace and cemented in.

Now I need to get a tiler in to tile the covered hole and extend the hearth
I’ve been using premium coal at €16.50 per bag, using 4/5 bags per week over the Christmas. This will reduce now that the kids have gone back to school

To start I have been lighting the fire and putting on 2 buckets of coal (20Kg) then topping this up over the day, The boiler has a control know so I can reduce the burn rate if the house gets too warm. When the temperature drops and I want to keep the whole house warm (I have a conservatory at the far end of the house that I spend a lot of time in) I do use more coal and the front room does get very warm. The second disadvantage is that it takes over an hour to heat the house in the morning, now that we are all up early again the house is cold and we have had to switch on the oil for 30 minutes. Having said all that it will cost me €1020 to heat my house this winter, last year 3 fills of oil were €2460 and coal for the fire was another €410

The boiler, flu, pumps, new immersion tank, pipes and fitting, (including dismantling and reassembling a huge fitted unit beside the fireplace) cost €4320

El Nino 9

Can i just say fair play to you for the honest reply & breakdown of your costs. Alot of people spend alot of money on these systems & after being installed cost more to run per annum than a well controlled heating system. I have a good friend who got an Olumbyrle stove with back boiler fitted on recommendation from a fella he knows to cut down on fuel cost but more importantly-to heat his main living room. Its a complete disaster as he has to continously stoke the coal fire to get rads & room to heaten. When he does this its burning coal like its goin outta fashion. No way economical.

Glad yours is working out & that its doing what it should do.