Open fire or stove...

Over the last three weeks in my house I have removed our old Stanley Super 80 solid Fuel range from the Kitchen which was converted into an Oil burner way back in the early 90's. It was an absolute pig of a thing, guzzled oil and never gave much heat to the heating system, really really inefficient.

I also had a back boiler in the living room fireplace, the back boiler sucked the heat from the fire resulting in no proper heat to the room and only a tiny contribution to the overall central heating system. As part of my project I disconnected and the back boiler from the system and drilled it and for the first time ever the open fire in the living room actually provides nice heat as the back-boiler was sucking heat always. I will remove the back boiler entirely and fit a small stove in the living room next year as an open fire is a disaster with ashes and dust and quite often on a windy night the smoke would get blown back down the chimney and stink the whole place, a stove by its more sealed nature helps solve that problem also.

So I replaced the Stanley Super 80 with a Henley Blasket 21kw stove which will drive the central heating and hot water. Simultaneously I fitted fitted a high efficiency Firebird Heatpack 26kw outside boiler as I am still retaining the oil fired option but I expect the new stove to provide the lions share of the heat now instead of the oil. I also pumped the cavity walls during the summer so I'm expecting this winter to have a much warmer house for far less money which will repay the large capital outlay for the stove, oil boiler and installation costs.

The whole thing is a big undertaking but I am glad I've done it because the Firebird boiler provided the first true proper heat this house ever had as the old Stanley Range was beyond useless in that it was underpowered for the size of house also.

I went for a proper registered plumber and I must say it is the way to go, very professional and exact to his standards and absolutely no short-cuts taken and everything done to code and perfection. Yes it will cost me more but I have always believed if something is worth doing it is worth doing right.

There is also alot of cowboy chancer bob the builder types out there now doing stoves as they are selling very well and the Stove industry is undergoing something of a boom and there is also alot of no name unbranded chinese junk stoves on the market. A neighbour of mine called to see my stove install the other day as a new stove he fitted two years ago saw the entire grate melt and its now pretty much useless.