Solid Fuel Stove with back boiler

pander

Guys,
We finally got our stove installed, it will work along side the oil central heating. There is one big problem though.......its is not heating sitting room or rads properly.
It has capacity to heat 12 rads, BTU 45,000, and its not even heating the sitting room.
The plumber came back and installed a new pump but it still is not working properly. He has come back 3 times now and we still do not have a working stove.
Any ideas what it could be????

ART6

pander wrote: »

Guys,
We finally got our stove installed, it will work along side the oil central heating. There is one big problem though.......its is not heating sitting room or rads properly.
It has capacity to heat 12 rads, BTU 45,000, and its not even heating the sitting room.
The plumber came back and installed a new pump but it still is not working properly. He has come back 3 times now and we still do not have a working stove.
Any ideas what it could be????

Does it have a damper that can be used to bypass the back boiler? Something is stopping the heat getting into it I'd guess, or even with a faulty pump you would at least get some very hot pipes, and probably a lot of bubbling noises from the boiler as it overheats.

fmcc

Pander what stove did you get in the end and how many fires have you had in it?

Sleipnir

I'd suggest your plumber doesn't know what he's doing. He replaced the pump but was the original pump faulty? Obviously it wasn't the pump.

Electric pump on a solid-fuel stove with a back-burner is ill-advised to say the least.
What happens when there's a power-cut at 2 in the morning and the pump stops pumping the water around around?
I'll tell you what two heating engineers told me: it becomes a very hot bomb.

fmcc

sleipnir, I,m not a plumber but have a background in heating and afail this would only happen if it was a closed system meaning temp would build up and steam created giving rise to pressure and bang, in an open system the system will blow off hot water outside if it gets too much through an outflow pipe.

Sleipnir

fmcc, I'm not either but when I was looking into getting one, both engineers told me that as I wanted the stove more than 15 feet from hot water tank, gravity would not push the water through the piping more than that distance. It just wouldn't.

So they said the only thing you could do would be to put an electric pump on it but if it failed or there was a power-cut, the above would still apply i.e., the water would not be able to move the >15 feet from the stove to the hot water tank where it could expand.

As I say, I'm not a plumber either but I had two professional heating engnieering companies give me the same story. The only thing I could do was to put the stove closer to the hot water tank but I would have had to have the chimney lined etc and it all just got too expensive.

Maybe it was too difficult and they were just feeding me a line though.:D

But when you think about it, what does happen when the pump stops? If the hot water still moves around the system without the pump, why is it there?
If it's needed to pump the water around the system, what happens when it shuts down? With a gas or oil boiler, the burning and heating of water stops but it doesn't with a solid-fuel...

ART6

Sleipnir wrote: »

fmcc, I'm not either but when I was looking into getting one, both engineers told me that as I wanted the stove more than 15 feet from hot water tank, gravity would not push the water through the piping more than that distance. It just wouldn't.

So they said the only thing you could do would be to put an electric pump on it but if it failed or there was a power-cut, the above would still apply i.e., the water would not be able to move the >15 feet from the stove to the hot water tank where it could expand.

As I say, I'm not a plumber either but I had two professional heating engnieering companies give me the same story. The only thing I could do was to put the stove closer to the hot water tank but I would have had to have the chimney lined etc and it all just got too expensive.

Maybe it was too difficult and they were just feeding me a line though.:D

But when you think about it, what does happen when the pump stops? If the hot water still moves around the system without the pump, why is it there?
If it's needed to pump the water around the system, what happens when it shuts down? With a gas or oil boiler, the burning and heating of water stops but it doesn't with a solid-fuel...

A back boiler should have a vent pipe to the water tank in the attic so that if the circulating pump stops for any reason when the fire is lit then any excess pressure will simply blow off into the tank. The normal circulation to the hot water tank has nothing to do with it since it isn't supposed to rely on natural circulation. It doesn't matter how far away the hot tank is as long as there is an electric pump and a vent to the attic.

Personally I would think it extremely unlikely that a new pump failed and had to be replaced. It sounds much more like a damper problem to me. As already posted, supply details of your boiler and someone may be able to help.

demanufactured

You say its not even heating the sitting room.........

what kind of fire are yo lighting??

slystallone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/60170398#Comment_60170398

Do they usually not have electric pumps?

TimHorton

13 yr old thread !