Wood / Solid fuel burning stoves

Ballard · Post by **Ballard** » 29 Aug 2006, 13:43

I bought an Aarow stove... look at the eco-burn it seems to do all the things required above.

http://www.aarrowfires.com/

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 29 Aug 2006, 14:07

Thanks for all the info MisterE - will try to ingest it and come back with any questions.

Pippa · Post by **Pippa** » 29 Aug 2006, 15:14

MisterE wrote: But then they refered me to two other companies of theirs lol Yoman Stoves and some other one. Yeoman Stoves can be refitted with a boiler, so off to read their website, but they do look a bit cheap lol

Plus lack of info and conflicting info onsite - pah sod stovax they claerly cant be bothered lol

We've got a Yoman stove which we bought because it was cheap and it is crap! It leaks air and as a result you can not shut it down as you should be able to even though we have had a throat plate put in to restrict the draw. My personal experience would be therefore don't go for Yeoman unless Stovax can convince you that they have improved it greatly.

Its still better than an open fire though. I am hoping to install another stove (it will be our third - greedy I know - maybe we will be able to sell one in the future - maybe we will have too!). This time I am considering an oil one - well oil may be a dam sight easier to get hold of than wood in the future and at least the delivery infrastructure is in place (and so is our storage) - needs to have manual ignition though - don't know if there is one on the market that works that way.

MisterE · Post by **MisterE** » 29 Aug 2006, 16:05

Firstly thanks ballard and I?ll be looking at that. Well just got back from Cowbridge to a damn good stove supplier to see a clearview. OMG man o man these stoves are good. In the flesh they appear much better. The build quality is awesome. To fit the boiler is easy, but it comes factory fitted anyway. The fire burns lovely in them seen one burning. The ability to tighten the doors onto the seals for when they shrink is great.

The salesman was good, he met my first rule ie that he has a stove in his home that he runs. Those that don?t I end the conversation there and then lol. He said most go for the woodwarm because they have more fire to boiler combos in fact I am considering one as they got a 9kw (in total) with removable 30,000 btu) which would give me less heat to the room which could be a good thing for me. They use all the same systems as clearview but have riddling whereas the clearview does not. Plus they have single glazed doors, where as clearview have double glazed. Looks wise I prefer clearview by far. The salesman had a clearview, I asked what he had before I told him what I wanted

I am 99.9% certain I will go for the clearview 650 with 27,000 btu based on looks, build quality, efficiency, features like hinges that can be tightened, customer service seems to be very high. Only thing at the moment is will 5kw to room be too much. With my ducting system the salesman and clearview both think that it will be fine ? but I?m going to check out ballard?s stove first. Whatever happens I?ll be buying this week and so far its clearview all the way for me.

Also many thanks Pippa for your honesty. Stovax lost my vote on the phone. If you can?t sell your product then imagine their support. PS I?ve been having the same posting probs too with multiple posts lol. Also I seen a burner somewhere on my travels that burns wood, coal and oil. I?ll see if I can find it. Plus I?m certain it was one that qualified for the grant. But lets be honest 99% of the grant system is pants ? it would cost you more to go through the grant system with their approved fitters charging over the top prices for parts and labour than to buy the parts and fit yourself or pay a plumber/heating engineer who is local and someone you know. Right off to look at aarow fires. Wasn?t sure about aarow as I didn?t know anyone who had one and wasn?t sure if the boilers could be changed. Anyhoots I can see light at the end of my tunnel and its great

Ballard · Post by **Ballard** » 29 Aug 2006, 18:00

My friend has a clearview, they are v'good.

However I love my little Aarrow, great build quality, works a treat; make sure you get a flat top and enough height above to put a kettle, Coffee pot or saucepan on.

The one I've currently got has the ability to retrofit a back boiler however when we do the kitchen we will fit a multifuel range cooker that does the lot, and if fuel gets pricy we will probably live in the kitchen and backroom like our grandparents.

MisterE · Post by **MisterE** » 29 Aug 2006, 18:19

Which aarow have you got Ballard? Cheers

More for snow hope. Nice diagram here http://www.woodwarm.co.uk/page75.html

Pete_M · Post by **Pete_M** » 30 Aug 2006, 07:56

Just like to add my vote for the clearview we have a pioneer 400 which works well and seems to be strongly built, good air control and loads of heat. We dont have a boiler option on it though.

Ballard -
I am also starting to consider a second stove to act as a cooker and water heater in our (smallish) kitchen. Have you done any research yet? The pioneer oven looks like it could do the cooking but doesnt seem have a back boiler. I dont think the esse unit has a boiler either.

Also saw this sad comment on e-bay next to a Rayburn (already sold) :

"I am selling this unit on behalf of an elderly neighbour who can no longer manage to carry the fuel in from outside the house.."

Pete M

Ballard · Post by **Ballard** » 30 Aug 2006, 08:42

Ok,

In the front room (too distant from the hot water for a back boiler) I have an acorn five:-

In the dining room I might fit a Chilli penguin (poss with back boiler)
It has a great little cooker in the top which acts as a night storage heater when a concrete block is inserted.

http://www.chillipenguin.co.uk/fat.html

And in the kitchen I will fit a range cooker with back boiler ie:-
However more research required on this one.

http://www.broseleyfires.com/cookers_su ... tures.html

Unless someone informs me otherwise I feel that the range cooker is good for the back boiler (look at how your granpa did things).

MisterE · Post by **MisterE** » 30 Aug 2006, 18:27

Thanks Pete for the vote. Also Ballard some of that kit looks stunning!

Well I bit the bullet and ordered the clearview 650 with 27,000 btu boiler ?1500ish direct from clearview. I'll be installing everything in October. I'll take photos of the lot and put up a website too so others can see it all go in from scratch. Got to find a suitable twin cylinder now.

Just one question if anyone with a stove can help? Is your cylinder directly above the fire ie on second floor or loft. I'm thinking of moving mine so it is directly above to help the thermosyphoning (I know this is the best place, (but how flexible can we be with the placement for thermosyphoning). At present my cylinder is on the second floor but 4m at a right angle to my fire/back boiler (gas) with 28mm pipe. It would be great to keep it there, but if not then I'll have to move it to the loft, which means I got certain space restrictions. (I dont want to have to pump the flow n return of the 28mm to the cylinder ie powercuts). Regarding my loft it can be done but I'll have to use a cylinder that is either 1200mm high, or a cylinder that lays on its side, or a cylinder no higher than 1600 with the header tank built in. Mmmmmm its all design choices in it

Any advice always appreciated.

OOOOoooooOOOoOOoOo I got a stove \o/ and 3 ton of wood already season and stacked out the back, ready to rock

Joules · Post by **Joules** » 31 Aug 2006, 11:32

Way to go MisterE!

I for one will be very interested to see/hear how you get on, as I haven't taken the plunge yet.

On another point, loking at Ballard's picture of the Chili Penguin and thinking about a second stove location in my house, what's the score on routing the flue out through a wall? What are the options of location if, say, you don't have a chimney at all?

MisterE · Post by **MisterE** » 02 Sep 2006, 00:34

Just deciding now whether to get a twin coil cylinder or a thermal store. MacDonald Engingering are knocking out thermal stores for not a bad price. About ?800 for twin coil soild fuel/solar. Trouble is I'm wondering if my 27,000 btu boiler on the stove will heat it up enough to allow for space heating too. With a twin coil system I'd get hot water and 4 rads. But with thermal store I got to allow 5-6kw for hot water, leaving only 2-3 for space heating. I suppose I'd have to lower the temp of the store by sending my heat to space heating. But surely I'm just burning more wood to do what I could do with a twin cylinder anyways? Mains pressure hot water dont bother me. But I was interested in the thermal store because if I let the fire go out say overnight, and then in the morning I want a bit of heat, I could use the stored heat in the thermal store to provide some space heating. Hence providing a touch of convience. But not ever owning one, I'm concerned on how much space heating you'd get out the next day. IE would it be luck warm rad for an hour, or hot rads for 10 mins etc? Thermal stores sound good on paper but I got some concerns at the moment. I dont want to run a bigger boiler and burn more wood to do the same thing that I can do with twin coil and burn less. Anyone got a thermal store running? If so please let us know how it works for you

Many thanks all

Also I should say the system will be backed up with solar from march on, when I fit it. Plus the old man whose a bit of an inventor is trying to knock up a bit of kit that will use the extra heat from the solar in the summer to run air con. Not that I need air con, but with 16kw of heat that needs to go somewhere on a real sunny hot summers day then why have a heat leak rad going nuts and a boiling cylinder, use it on something else for free

Pete_M · Post by **Pete_M** » 10 Sep 2006, 20:00

Just a quick correction - I said the esse doesnt have a boiler but I see that it does.

stove here : http://www.ouzledale.co.uk/cookers/cookerWood.asp
spec here : http://www.ouzledale.co.uk/pdfs/CookerSpec.pdf

Pete M

Bozzio · Post by **Bozzio** » 10 Sep 2006, 21:19

MisterE wrote:Thanks Pete for the vote. Also Ballard some of that kit looks stunning!

Well I bit the bullet and ordered the clearview 650 with 27,000 btu boiler ?1500ish direct from clearview. I'll be installing everything in October. I'll take photos of the lot and put up a website too so others can see it all go in from scratch. Got to find a suitable twin cylinder now.

Just one question if anyone with a stove can help? Is your cylinder directly above the fire ie on second floor or loft. I'm thinking of moving mine so it is directly above to help the thermosyphoning (I know this is the best place, (but how flexible can we be with the placement for thermosyphoning). At present my cylinder is on the second floor but 4m at a right angle to my fire/back boiler (gas) with 28mm pipe. It would be great to keep it there, but if not then I'll have to move it to the loft, which means I got certain space restrictions. (I dont want to have to pump the flow n return of the 28mm to the cylinder ie powercuts). Regarding my loft it can be done but I'll have to use a cylinder that is either 1200mm high, or a cylinder that lays on its side, or a cylinder no higher than 1600 with the header tank built in. Mmmmmm its all design choices in it Any advice always appreciated.

OOOOoooooOOOoOOoOo I got a stove \o/ and 3 ton of wood already season and stacked out the back, ready to rock

Hi MisterE,

I'm a heating engineer and have fitted many stoves and thermal stores/twin cylinders.

The current position for your cylinder sounds fine and I wouldn't bother moving it. The heat will find its way to the cylinder quite happily over several metres, even without much of a rise on the horizontal sections (due to parasitic circulation).

In your next question you raise some issues about thermal stores and the effectiveness of these when used with space heating and so on. Thermal stores need to be set such that the water they contain is stored at about 70-80 degrees C (higher than a normal cylinder). In my experience, this is only achievable with a solid fuel stove when the stove is fired for several hours per day and usually this will involve some back up heat source like an immersion or another heat source (solar panel in summer) to provide any shortfall. A regular boiler will on the other hand need to be fired for only 2-3 hours per day to keep a thermal store at the right temperature. If you use the store for space heating also then it is lilkely you will need to fire the stove for most of the day and the mornings will probably see the temperature fall within the store to give luke warm rads only. This of course depends on the size of your house, how well insulated it is and your rad use.

Some people only connect the 1st floor rads to a thermal store and have the whole system run using gravity circulation and no pump. This works well with small cottages; the rads working best when the store is up to temperature which means the store gets most heat first and the radiators don't starve the store too much. And downstairs, the stove provides most of the heat without the need for radiators. Again, if the cottage is well insulated then the results are better. Still, the stove will burn a lot of wood and you might still need some back up to maintain the store temperature - most people use the immersion heater during the day when at work.

Thermal stores are great at overcoming the problems of connecting multiple heat sources but are no compensation for a gas/oil boiler and cylinder/rads system. In fact no system is (solid fuel or even heat pumps). If you are using solid fuel then you might be dissapointed if you intend to heat your house in the same way as with a standard boiler (although I'm sure you know this already so excuse my lecture). The key is to wear warm clothes, insulate to the max, stop draughts and reduce/reorganize your space around the heating elements of the house i.e. the stove and the few radiators you can run.

As for twin coil cylinders, the advantage is the temperature at which they work (being only 60 degrees C). Less heat is therefore required from your stove to heat your domestic hot water cylinder. There might also be an advantage in having stored cold water in your loft which could be useful if your local water pumping station stops working due to prolonged power cuts (although this might not affect you depending on where you are). But the simple deciding factor for you is over water pressure and if you have no preference for mains pressure hot water as you say then I'd advise going for a twin coil cylinder since the total volume of water the stove has to heat is much less and so less energy input is required overall. You are right to be cautious therefore. One of the problems of thermal stores is that you do need to keep them hot to have both your dometsic hot water and radiators at satisfactory temperatures. Twin coil cylinders are also half the price of thermal stores.

Also, I don't know what solar system you intend to use but I'd be interested to know whether it will work for air con. Most solar systems (except DIY or Solartwin - which never boils) let thermostats stop and start the pump as necessary such that no heat leak rad is required and few solar systems get to boiling point in the house especially if you have a large cylinder. The key to using a solar system is to use all of your hot water at night such that the store/cylinder is cold in the morning. The temperature differential will then be much greater and effectively you'll store more 'free' heat throughout the day as the temperature rises to 70/80+ degrees.

Hope this helps but feel free to ask more questions. I know I've rambled on a bit - late in the day and tiredness has set in!

Ballard · Post by **Ballard** » 10 Sep 2006, 22:10

Bozzio,

How common is it to back up a solid fuel/solar system with a standard boiler, or even a micro chp boiler ie:-

http://www.whispergen.com/

My thinking is that a diverse system would give you a greater range of options in the future (sometimes I might not have the time to run the solid fuel stove, or I might just want to use the solid fuel to reduce energy costs etc).

So a triple system consisting of gas boiler, wood stove and solar thermal system. I guess a Thermal store would work OK, or can you get triple coil cylinders ?

Bozzio · Post by **Bozzio** » 10 Sep 2006, 22:27

Ballard wrote:Bozzio,

How common is it to back up a solid fuel/solar system with a standard boiler, or even a micro chp boiler ie:-

http://www.whispergen.com/

My thinking is that a diverse system would give you a greater range of options in the future (sometimes I might not have the time to run the solid fuel stove, or I might just want to use the solid fuel to reduce energy costs etc).

So a triple system consisting of gas boiler, wood stove and solar thermal system. I guess a Thermal store would work OK, or can you get triple coil cylinders ?

Hi Ballard,

This tends to be the norm. Mostly I install them when people have a Rayburn kicking out constant heat and they want to use a normal gas/oil boiler to back it up with when needed but solid fuel stoves coupled with gas/oil boilers are becoming more common. The thermal store is chosen where mains pressure water is required and that is in most cases these days (everyone wants a bloody power shower). For the more visionary and eco-minded of us, the trusty old twin coiled cylinder proves more popular (certainly cheaper as I said).

Any heat source can be used with a thermal store so the chp boiler would be ok and the limit is normally about three sources (4 if you include the immersion heater)

I have to admit I have never installed a cylinder requiring three coils. I'm sure it must be possible to obtain as a special order if the cylinder is big enough. You can use something called a neutralizer which allows the connection of different heat sources without the need for a special cylinder. I have never installed one of these however and some manufacturers of boilers don't approve of them so best to check.