Considering wood-fuelled cooking

tattercoats · Post by **tattercoats** » 28 Sep 2007, 12:00

...or wrap them in towels and use to warm the bed?

Bedrock Barney · Post by **Bedrock Barney** » 02 Oct 2007, 22:30

Ballard wrote:
And I'm going to put in one of these...

http://www.esse.com/main.php?ePage=cook ... =woodfired

word of caution, you'll use A LOT of wood.
We ordered one of these today. Hope we've made the right decision. Won't arrive until just after Christmas. I'll let you know how we get on. Some excellent discussion and useful info over on the Country Living forum regarding the Esse.

http://www.countryliving.co.uk/index.ph ... /topic/816

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 03 Oct 2007, 12:49

I think these really come into their own if there are people round the house all day, otherwise you tend to be heating an empty house. Some enviro-purizt even described them as The SUV Of The House but I think that's a bit harsh. Don't end up with no-where else to cook though, I remember seeing (feeling!) one alight at a neigbour's place in that hot summer 2003, talk about hell's kitchen!

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 03 Oct 2007, 15:53

I hope you've looked into fitting and flu costs? We're having a rayburn put in at the mo. The rayburn was ?150, the fitting is a fortune. Especially when you have to get a new DHW tank with enough coils for existing boiler, rayburn, solar etc.

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 03 Oct 2007, 16:21

RenewableCandy wrote:I think these really come into their own if there are people round the house all day, otherwise you tend to be heating an empty house. Some enviro-purizt even described them as The SUV Of The House but I think that's a bit harsh. Don't end up with no-where else to cook though, I remember seeing (feeling!) one alight at a neigbour's place in that hot summer 2003, talk about hell's kitchen!

I know what you mean. We're using a big hot water tank as a buffer for ours. We purposely bought a small output rayburn (4Kw to room and 2 Kw to hot water when burning wood) so that we don't have something too big for the house. I plan to use a big hot water tank to store all of the boiler heat through the day (2KW = 2000 joules per second, or 7.2 KJ per hour. Over a ten hour day the rayburn will produce 72 KJ of energy that needs to be stored.

I have calculated that a 300 litre hot water tank raised from 25 dec C to 80 deg C will store

300 kg * 4.187 x 10^3 * 60 deg c = 72 KJ of energy. I'm going to run the radiators directly off the hot water tank, allowing me to use the heat stored through the day to run some radiators at night. Should work a treat.

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 04 Oct 2007, 00:04

Rayburn going in today....

Country wines going well...

and a barrel of beer because we've got a few friends visiting at the weekend....

lancasterlad · Post by **lancasterlad** » 04 Oct 2007, 07:54

and a barrel of beer because we've got a few friends visiting at the weekend

"slurp" - what time shall we all arrive?

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 04 Oct 2007, 08:36

I find peak barley a very difficult concept to come to terms with.

MisterE · Post by **MisterE** » 04 Oct 2007, 10:24

looking good there sunny jim!

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 04 Oct 2007, 11:22

Why, thank you MisterE.

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 09 Oct 2007, 16:34

Rayburn now installed and working well!!!! Only run it once so far as it's too warm yet to run it!

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 09 Oct 2007, 16:49

Can we pioneer the concept of a Rayburn-Warming Party

?

MisterE · Post by **MisterE** » 09 Oct 2007, 17:35

That looks cracking, wish I had the room for one. Ah one day when I win the lotto and move to the outskirts of our towny village and get me a nice bit of land - ahhhh one day.

PS I dont fancy my chances though as I dont buy lotto tickets lol

tattercoats · Post by **tattercoats** » 09 Oct 2007, 17:43

Sunnyjim, are you keeping an alternative means of cooking as well? Or are you living on sandwiches and salad when it's too warm to fire it up?

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 10 Oct 2007, 10:46

Yeah, we've still got the standard LPG cooker, but I'm planning to build a nice solar cooker for the summer months, and we do tend to eat alot of salads in the summer. It's those spring and autumn days when it's not cold enought to light the rayburn, and not hot enough to cook in the solar oven.

I think for days like that I'm going to build a nice little rocket stove for use in the back garden. Or a clay oven. Or maybe just fire the rayburn up. It only takes 40 mins to get up to cooking temp. It seems really efficient to me, but strangely I actually feel worse burning wood than the LPG! I think with the wood the fact that it's been a living thing, and you can see it and feel it, and you have to chop it and season it gives a greater respect for it than the invisible smelly stuff that I simply can't relate to. Weird eh? I should feel much better about buring wood, as it's carbon neutral etc etc, but I can't get over the fact that the tree could perhaps still be absorbing CO2 and emitting oxygen. Or that it once did. Or something.