stratford insert stove poor performance

gunners111 · 30-01-2015 8:57pm #1

just fitted a stratford eb 16i insert stove very disappointed with heat to room and rads ,flexi flue has been fitted so think instalation was pretty good, room is not that big 14 x 11 ft taking ages to warm up and using loads of timber and turf, has anyone any ideas

Sanchez83 · 30-01-2015 11:51pm

If it's using loads of fuel I would think there is a problem somewhere.
What is your chimney draught like?
Could the chimney be robbing the heat due to excessive up draught?

gunners111 · 31-01-2015 12:08am

don't think its chimney when I close thermostat, fire dies down the, just noticed water in taps seem to be very hot. stove has been burning fairly hard for twelve hours today rads are bit hotter now also bled some air out of them ,but stove heat to room still not great

charlie_says · 25-02-2015 7:37pm

Yes I've had similar performance problems with my Stratford EB16i.

After spending close to e2500 on it including the fitting I'm not massively impressed with it. I don't think it's the stove though as they have an excellent reputation and others have great experience with it. I think it's either an installation or chimney problem. New pump was installed to the existing system and seems decent. The stove is the sole entrance to a 3 storey chimney on the ground floor.

My problems are:

Heating the 8 (most not very large) radiators is a what I would describe as adequate at best.

Bugger all heat to the room. It's supposed to be rated between 1-5kW to the room but it puts out very little even after being on for hours with a fairly raging fire.

Uses up too much fuel. I burn kiln dried ash (occasionally good smoke giving coal) and it tears through the logs only to provide the the OK heat to rads and bugger all to the room. I have to have all the controls up to the max to get this little heat, so it burns everything quickly. If I turn the controls down the fuel does last a good long time but delivers poor heat.

Also unless you open the door very carefully (leave it ajar for a minute or so before I gingerly open it) to load fuel a good wiff of smoke will escape into the room.

Sigh....

I think I either have a down draught or an up draught problem. I would love to be able to find a definitive way to test this. Trying to put cowls on the chimney is not a cheap solution and I'm uncertain of it's effectiveness. I get quite loud wind noise (certainly louder than the open fire) when there is a bit of a gust outside. Also should I try to refit my cast iron door due to the expansion of the unit after the first few fires and the seal being not quite snug?

Any heating guys know where or what I could do to diagnose the problem? There seems to be a multitude of things that can go wrong with these things but when they work they are awesome. Also everyone seems to have different opinions - are chimneys very unique in their characteristics? Arrgh!

Many thanks....

gunners111 · 27-02-2015 12:36am

the Stanley erin was supposed to be rated the same KW to water as the stratford eb 16i, but stratford was rated 1-5kw to room where as the Stanley was only rated 3kw
I found the Stanley much better to heat room, I am beginning to think I may need a different cowl, had the chimney lined when I changed stoves wonder if this is the reason for such poor performance
any thought appreciated

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gunners111 · 27-02-2015 12:38am

stratford eb 16i stove stove poor performance

there does seem to be a lot of the heat going up the chimney, you can hear it is quite loud even when there is little wind outside if you open damper fully burns loads of fuel for little heat, my stratford replaced a Waterford erin free standing stove which was much more economical to run and gave out way more heat.

I wonder if changing the cowl will help

any plumbers got any ideas could it be it takes so long to heat the rads and water it is starving the room heat ,room is only 13ft x 12ft

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dathi · 28-02-2015 11:50am

charlie_says wrote: »

Yes I've had similar performance problems with my Stratford EB16i.

Uses up too much fuel. I burn kiln dried ash (occasionally good smoke giving coal) and it tears through the logs only to provide the the OK heat to rads and bugger all to the room. I have to have all the controls up to the max to get this little heat, so it burns everything quickly. If I turn the controls down the fuel does last a good long time but delivers poor heat.

...

your stove has a 16kwh output and is 71% efficient . wood has 4kwh per kilo so to get the max output from your stove you would have to burn 5.7 kilos of wood per hour

gunners111 · 28-02-2015 3:15pm

I am burning a mixture of good quality turf and well seasoned ash ,still the performance not great , is there any way to test if there is an excessive up draught before I look into changing cowls the cowl I just installed is a brand new anti rain and bird one

dathi · 01-03-2015 11:56am

turf has a worse kwh than wood at 3.8 kwh so you will have to burn 6 kilos of turf per hour to get the max output from your stove the heat going up your chimney is the 30% inefficiency

The lips · 19-07-2015 7:15am

Was there any resolution in these cases?

I am keen to get an eb16i fitted to my own house.

gunners111 · 23-07-2015 6:38pm

I haven't used stove recently but here is what I found works best, I turn off the valve to radiators upstairs at first then you need to get a good fire in stove at the start because it is sending the hot water to rads , after that it is good at heating the room when the room is warm then open valve to radiators upstairs . in general im happy with the stove as I said there are over twelve rads and a kitchen / living to be heated so you can expect to burn some fuel but when its up and running you can turn down air intake and its efficient enough.

happy with stove overall but be careful handle can get very hot.

ickmann · 24-07-2015 8:33pm

hi lads

I work with stoves to say the least and have a few questions for ye.

is the stove teed into an existing heating system?

are you using it to heat the rads on its own ?

the flexi flue is only use so it draughts at the correct rate so as not to send all the baffled smoke out to the room not heat ( as we know the idea of a stove is a cast iron box heating up on all sides to give off heat to a room), how was the flue connected to the stove?

is the stove insulated behind in any way so its not heating the blocks instead of the water ??

gunners111 · 28-07-2015 12:02am

hi ickman
yes the stove was tied into an existing heating system

the stove heats the rads and the hot water for shower and sink taps

stainless steel connection from flexi flue to stove with 45 degree bend sealed with heat sealant/fire cement.

we packed in as much insulation as we could behind and around the stove before fitting fireplace

ickmann · 28-07-2015 12:00pm

Ok, so we can assume it fitted more or less correctly.

how did you initially come up with the calculation of that kw output stove ?
were you told by the sales man that its only going to have 3 kw to the room and the rest to water, but thats only when its at working temps and not from cold
IF yor leaving you heating off and trying to heat the room and water and rads from the stove IT WONT WORK.

The correct way is to heat the rads initially by the PRIMARY HEATING SYSTEM, then after they reach temp., your stove should be lighting and then it will keep the hot water in the system hot.your heating pump should be at two on the box to push water upstairs if its a standard pump but ou could change it to a high head pump to push the heat quicker around the system reducing cool down time, also put in a system inhibiter to loosen up any sludge in the system to allow free flow.

Stoves are not designed to be a primary heat source for houses built here because we dont build passive houses and dont insulate pipes or walls enough.

if you can imagine it trying to hear x amount of heating system water in steel rads and copper pipes constantly that may not be insulated fully as well as tyring to heat a room from residual heat from the fire box after it heats the boiler., not going to happen.

and on the cowl, each cowl is designed for a very specific draught problem, bird and rains do what the say on the tin H and static anti down draught cowls allow your flu to exhaust whilst preventing gusts or prevaling winds to blow across the top of the flue and not go down or up therefore causing an excessive up or overdraught. spinning cowls create a shield and do the same job but they will cease shut into one fixed position due to over heating of the bearing and soot eroding the welds,soot being an acidic when mixed with any form of water.
just a thought do you have thermostatic rad valves? was the system balanced afterwards and did you insulate the back of the stove

gunners111 · 28-07-2015 7:48pm

chose that stove because it was the closest insert stove I could find to the Waterford erin which I had already been using and was do what I needed.
no there are no thermostatic valves on the radiators and I insulated all around the stove

ickmann · 29-07-2015 9:14am

if i were you i would swap heating pumps and fit thermo rad valves to all the flow sides of the rads, turn down the upstairs and leave the downstairs nearly full, turn off the rads your not using and the rad in the room with the stove that will boost the heat to the system
burn wood with coal with the air intake open less to furnace the stove after the rads have been heated by the primary heating system , then close off the air gradually to the stove, will taker bout an hour or so of fiddling around

ickmann · 29-07-2015 9:15am

but thats just a thought ,

gunners111 · 29-07-2015 7:41pm

thanks for advice, will take a little time to get used to how the stove works best I haven't really tested it out properly yet will consider changing valves

charlie_says · 03-08-2015 7:27pm

Got mine sorted.

Fitted a sensor which detects the water temperature in the stove out pipe very near the stove and only turns on the pump once a desired temperate is reached (40-45 degrees C). The rads are piping hot in only a few minutes afterwards.

Also once you get a fire going, fill the stove completely with wood making sure that none touches the glass of course but stack it up good otherwise it doesn't work as well. Apparently it is designed to be fully loaded to work properly, according to my stove guy.

Once I got this done, it works like a beast now. Also good quality fuel is a must.

richie574 · 25-11-2018 3:55pm

Hi just got a Stratford insert stove fitted, EB 16 i. Very dissapounted with its performance. There is very little heat to the room, I understood there is a thermostat on the side 1 to 5 but it’s just a damper. I know we don’t have thermostatic valves on the radiators and I said to the plumber to put a electronic valve where the pipe is connected to the coil it is going into the water cylinder as we have plenty of hot water but rads are a hit and miss. Also I know we have 3 circulation pumps all linked up together in the boiler heating system so I wonder is there a need for another pump for the stove possibly on the flow side. I understand mine is footed to the return to reduce corrosion etc. Deeply regret not getting the freestanding one. Could change it in a year and put the insert one somewhere else I guess ðŸ˜

stratford insert stove poor performance

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