efficent heating for large living room

cute geoge

My home is currently heated with oil which I manually adjust and I have a back boiler solid fuel stove in the large living room of 250 sq feet.During the winter with oil heating during cold weather ,this room needs the stove lit to be comfortable and it has 2 double rads .At this time of year the room temperature of this room varies between 15-18 degrees without any heat ,like it could do with a boost to be a constant 18 degrees but as I would not need heat in any other room the oil is left off and I dont be in the humour to light a fire to heat this room .What are the best options to change from the solid fuel stove in the living room ,would an oil stove be a good option,

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058353264/efficent-heating-for-large-living-room

What's the insulation like? What's the windows like? Open chimney?

No point in looking at bigger stoves if most of your heat is leaking out.

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122185309#Comment_122185309

plasterboard 25ml insulation only ,double glazed pvc windows ,chimney is flu lined .my current solid fuel stove which is big takes a long time to heat up room ,I wonder would an oil stove give a quick burst to heat up room and I could then manually adjust the temperature to keep room at 18/19 degrees .My current stove has back boiler and just does not throw off much heat it seems for ages and by the time it heats up ,its time to go to bed

Shoog

This is an ideal candidate for a room pellet stove. They are self lighting and can be set to come on at a timer. They also have thermostatic control so will modulate with demand. Most can also be ducted to distribute the heat to another room.

zg3409

The easiest is probably making sure you have thermostatic valves on all radiators and turning all off except for the rooms you need.

You may be able to manually turn off all radiators already.

Often certain rooms are colder due to a fireplace, lots of outside walls, ground floor no heating from underneath unlike upstairs, north side of house no sun etc. In some cases adding more radiators in the coldest rooms can help. Ideally with thermostatic valves in all rooms set to mid position then the coldest room should get more heat and all rooms should end up the same if heating is on long enough.

In your case the 2 radiators should be enough to top the room up by 3 degrees on colder summer days and there may be no need to heat the rest of the house. There is a cold spell at the moment after a hot spell so you notice the drop. I would not go ripping anything out. Instead just try turn all other radiators off. If you have zones on heating use them.

Typically the advice should be insulate, insulate, insulate but typically that makes areas cooler in summer.

Feel free to asked questions and put up photos of heating controls and the knobs on the end of the radiators.

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122185372#Comment_122185372

I have the termo valves on the rads and no problem turning off the rads in the other rooms but when the oil heating is heating the living room 2 rads ,the solid fuel stove with back boiler also heats up and also the hot water cylinder heats water that is never used so I dont know is that very efficent

enricoh

Get rid of the back boiler stove and just put in a stove that heats the room. We put on an extension n insulated it well 50mm + slab iirc. Put that expensive tape around windows. Keeps the heat great.

The ma has a Stanley Erin, eats 3 times what my stove takes and both roughly the same size. Has a pellet burner in sunroom - I'm not a fan , needs servicing, pellets expensive and hassle to get. My mate does stoves - he has taken plenty out to replace with stove

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122185417#Comment_122185417

I think you are right about replacing back boier stove but would an oil stove be a better bet then solid fuel and no more messing drawing in fuel and drawing out ashes

enricoh

I don't know about oil stove tbh, but heard good reports. One of the few jobs that doesn't bother me is ashes/ fuel for stove!

POBox19

We've got a similar set-up, oil and back boiler with fire front to make it a stove.

We found that if the oil is running the stove boiler must be isolated from the system for the rads to get the heat. Otherwise the heat is going into the stove boiler and back to the oil boiler leaving very little in the house.

Vice versa if the fire is lit the oil boiler must be isolated by closing one of the return valves to it. It will take about an hour for the first heat at ~50º to begin pumping into the system. A bit longer if the back boiler is not clean. Once it is up and running the whole house gets warm and thanks to reasonable insulation stays warm overnight.

It's a decent enough set-up but is becoming a bit of a drag working return valves, thermostats and the timer with each switchover. Looking now at replacing the back boiler with small, 5-7Kw, non-boiler stove and leaving the rads to the oil system exclusively.