Esse 350 Greenswitch installation

tiny timy

Hi all,
I'm about to have an Esse 350 Greenswitch installed in my newly built home. I just want to find out about how to finish it, as in flue connection and insullation around it. Do i need to install a flexi flue liner, or can i build up a slope making the soot fall into the stove? and how do i pack up the stove all round it between the stove and the fireplace. Thanks in advance.

Shirleysrumbler

tiny timy wrote: »

Hi all,
I'm about to have an Esse 350 Greenswitch installed in my newly built home. I just want to find out about how to finish it, as in flue connection and insullation around it. Do i need to install a flexi flue liner, or can i build up a slope making the soot fall into the stove? and how do i pack up the stove all round it between the stove and the fireplace. Thanks in advance.

sorry for not spotting this til now, I've a mate who fitted my Greenswitch. He sells and installs stoves professionally. He packed the back of the stove with vermiculite(high performing insulation bead),this was filled over the top of the ordinary cast insert that fitted over the stove, he then connected to the flue with an adaptor and sealed with fire cement, then the marble surround was placed over the cast insert. Including a plumber for a day the whole job came to €400 but i had old backboiler exposed with fireplace removed and all old mortar etc. hacked away from Bacboiler and hearth. He didnt like the idea of "throating" as specified by Esse. The seven inch adaptor going into an eight inch flue is within tolerences accepted by manufacturers so job is quite good. Stove will heat four good sized doubles and therefore I use it for downstairs til an hr before bedtime and switch zones to upstairs then. V good system but I've observed the following.
A.Anthracite and timber is a very good combination.
B. Bottom drafter can be used to start fire although not recommended.
C.After installation Chimney should be well cleaned before use as I found a piece of Mortar at top chimney turn totally messed up Draught. My old backboiler could cope with this but stove could'nt.
D.Greenswitch will not bring Rads from -10 to say + 15(Oil will be needed as a backup) -1 to +15 is well within its scope.
E.In recent days as weather dipped below zero ,I've taken to heating system with Oil for about one hour and then switching to Greenswitch. This allows for much more even burning in Greenswitch for rest of night with resultant heat to rads being more even.

Have to say that if stoves are properly sealed(I've also got a Tripp 5 in a family room) they are serious heating appliances. Very best of luck with the Greenswitch, great appliance.

A05snow

Hi Shirleysrumbler
I just spotted this ,and just wanted to ask you about the Tripp 5 stove.
Is it an insert type ,and did you use a flue-liner in your instalation for this stove.
cheers & Thanks
snow

tiny timy

So, i've just installed the ESSE 350 GS, what an amazing piece of equipment. For the little size of it, it does some work. The fire box is huge and you can adjust the burn as you would like. I left it to tick over slowly over night and in the morning i had enough coals to throw on more turf and timber and up it went again. It's heating 17 rads no problem. Can't believe i went without this for so long. I guarantee you will notice a difference if you install one of these. Very easy to install too, my plumber said, in comparrison to other insert stoves, as the front can come off and you just put it back on when you have everything done. If you want any info just let me know.

davidod1

Hi Tiny Timy, I'd really like to know how you went about this. I think you mentioned elsewhere that you brought it in from the UK. Could you say where you bought it, how much it cost, how much was the transport and did you organise the transport or was it the supplier?

As a last couple of questions - for the moment I hope - how did you go about the installation? Was it a plumber, a fireplace man, a builder, an odd job man or DIY? How long did the installation job take?

I've been looking at this stove on-line for some time now and was coming to the conclusion that it was the one of the best. I'm really glad to see that you are so happy with yours.

Many thanks for putting up the info.

Dave

tm2204

Is this stove suitable as a complete replacement for OFCH?

I have quite a large house with 13 rads.

tiny timy

tm2204 wrote: »

Is this stove suitable as a complete replacement for OFCH?

I have quite a large house with 13 rads.

It does around 40,000 BTU so work that out against your oil boiler btu's and you get a good idea. Saves a hell of a lot of money on burning oil. I haven't had to put my oil on since i installed this stove.

soldsold

Im also considering this stove. What sort of price did ye pay for the boiler model?

Thanks!

tiny timy

Had to buy from England, the price delivered to my door from a foreign country saved me €400. I paid €1098 for it from qualitystoves.co.uk. That included delivery and the whole lot. Bloody rip off here for the exact same stove. No one here would do any deals, and i tried everyone up and down the country because i'd like to leave the money in my own country first.

But anyway, qualitystoves had a quote me a price special for a week, so i cheekly gave a price £200 less than the asking price and couldn't believe when they accepted it. Defo try England, because i'm telling you that you will not get it cheaper in this country

Shirleysrumbler

A05snow wrote: »

Hi Shirleysrumbler
I just spotted this ,and just wanted to ask you about the Tripp 5 stove.
Is it an insert type ,and did you use a flue-liner in your instalation for this stove.
cheers & Thanks
snow

Tr5 is a free standing stove. Due to design it is actually better performing thann the Esse GS. The Tripp is connected with a 5inch to eight adapter. now when it's burning efficiently the fumes actually smell more like oil fumes than solid fuel fumes. with dry timber on it's own you have precious little ash in pan. always use good coal. I've used euro fuel's colombian gold(great title) and have burned a ton etween the two stoves since Nov. Recently resealed the whole tr5 setup including backing up the tig spot welds on the 5" to 8" adapter with a flue sealant bead. It really burns like atreat. The Tripp is also a lovely symmetrical piece of engineering in any room. Watch door seals as if c;asp isn't sealed it smokes like f***.

Shirleysrumbler

tiny timy wrote: »

So, i've just installed the ESSE 350 GS, what an amazing piece of equipment. For the little size of it, it does some work. The fire box is huge and you can adjust the burn as you would like. I left it to tick over slowly over night and in the morning i had enough coals to throw on more turf and timber and up it went again. It's heating 17 rads no problem. Can't believe i went without this for so long. I guarantee you will notice a difference if you install one of these. Very easy to install too, my plumber said, in comparrison to other insert stoves, as the front can come off and you just put it back on when you have everything done. If you want any info just let me know.

TT. What are you using -Uranium. MY GS will just about fire three large doubles and is under pressure to fire an 1100 sq ft downstairs. I know my run to the hotpress is about 11 metres could this be a prob. Also I've noted that with the upstairs zoned out, the heat seems to leak back through the return pipe. system has replaced an old back boiler- Oil still neede to heat during frosty weather.

tiny timy

Shirleysrumbler wrote: »

TT. What are you using -Uranium. MY GS will just about fire three large doubles and is under pressure to fire an 1100 sq ft downstairs. I know my run to the hotpress is about 11 metres could this be a prob. Also I've noted that with the upstairs zoned out, the heat seems to leak back through the return pipe. system has replaced an old back boiler- Oil still neede to heat during frosty weather.

I'd imagine the 11meters of a run to the hotpress isn't helping, as you have to heat the length of that first and any heat there will be lost going to the cylinder. Just burning simple Turf and split logs.

soldsold

Thanks for the reply with the price you paid TT, good to have a target price! best I can see for the boiler model is 1190 sterling, qualitystoves.co.uk have it at 1340 stg.

Im wondering if this stove will put out too much heat for my room which has a very low heat load - it's airtight, has 9 inch pumped bead cavity wall and a foot of EPS under the floor with minimal thermal bridging (Quinn-lite blocks in foundations, softboard cavity closers at eaves, etc). The room is 6m x 5m but open plan on both sides of the chimney into a dining room 5m x 4m and kitchen 6m x 4m.

Im also looking at the clearview pioneer 400 but that just has a 2.5kw boiler (8000 btu).

Im weighing it up as:

Pioneer 400:

- Easy to light
- Very attractive dancing flames
- Will heat hot water
- Uses very little wood, quoted as 1kg per hour - so less loads of wood to bring in on winter evenings, and less to buy and store
- Very controllable so less likely to overheat the room
- Very highly regarded as one of the best stoves around
- External air supply although not very well executed according to forum poster that bought one. Also the pioneer I looked at didnt seem to be very room sealed.
- Nicer looking stove (just my opinion of course) than the ESSE GS
- Wouldnt expect it to smoke when lighting or refuelling

Esse 350 GS:
- Heats a number of radiators, not just hot water
- Cheaper
- Will allow me to heat the house without using oil until well into the heating season. Major plus.

What I'm wondering is:

What's the Esse like to get going?, does it smoke?, does it use a lot of wood in say six hours burning in the evening? does it have a nice flame? (the pioneer really does have an attractive flame pattern especially as it afterburns the gases in the fumes, you could look at it instead of tv)

Any comments would be very welcome, these are the only two stoves I have found that have a boiler, minimum heat output to the room, and an external air supply.

Thanks!

S

rezzer

Hi all. I'm Going to be installing an esse 350gs soon as well.
I have a question I would like to direct mainly at Shirleysrumbler & tiny timy.

I had a plumber out for a quote and a chat about what he would do.
he said he would use both flow and return's on the boiler. One side for the water tank and gravity feed and the other side only for the rads. He said that the water pump would be placed close to the floor and on the return of the rads feed pushing cold water into the stove. I ask would that not effect the flow pressure to the rads because its pushing into the stove and there are two outs so the pressure would be divided between both out lets. He thought not and said he has installed loads of back boiler stoves and there has never been a problem. Now I know it standard practice to put the pump on the return but thats mostly for systems that have one flow and return. If you look at the esse like below. On page 3 there is the recommended heating circuit. As fer as I can tell it says to place the pump on the flow. This would mean all the pressure is directed towards the rads.
My question Shirleysrumbler & tiny timy is where are your pumps placed on your systems?
I'm wondering tiny timy if your plumbing is done the esse recommended way so more of the hot water is directed that way and you are able to heat more more rads while Shirleysrumbler you may have your pump place on the return or you only use the one in and out.
I ask because I want to do it once and do it right.
Any recommendations on installers and plumbers in cork as well?
Any advice is most welcome.
Cheers..

http://www.esse.com/pdfs/op-manuals/stoves/350gs-install-operate.pdf

tiny timy

Hi Rezzer,

My pump is on the ground floor and is on the return side of the stove, pushing in the cold wter.

rezzer

Oh well that sorts that. Cheers for replying. It actually suits us more to have the pump placed on the return near the floor. maybe I'll stick with what my plumber suggested.
For the first time in my life I'm looking forward to the Irish winter.
Thanks again.

colsieb

I have recently installed the 350gs and I am very happy with it so far.

Installation was rather straight forward and I saved myself a fortune doing pretty much all of myself.

Given all we had was 4 storage heaters in our 3 bed semi the project turned out to be bigger that i'd first anticipated. Plumbed up as detailed in the manual

• 8 standard radiators including a Stelrad 600*800 K2 heat leak / gravity radiator (at the top of the upstairs landing - which pretty much heats the whole upstairs on its own).
• Managed to fit it along with my existing restored cast iron and tile fireplace with a bit of modification. (the person in the shop told me that they have NEVER managed to do this and I was wasting my time).
• My brother was the builder. We made a medium mix of cement,sand and vermiculite and put this halfway up the stove at the sides and back to hold it in place then finished all round and on top with firesafe insulation packed in the 6" or so gap all round. this helps heat the water better rather than the chimney breast in my opinion.
• My chimney was lined already but we put in a 6" 316L twin wall flex liner with an adapter fire cemented in place on top of the stove.
• Have not tied it into my hot water yet! next years project!!

Positives

1. Good heat to water, heats up all my radiators rather quickly.
2. Looks great along with my cast fireplace. I did not think a traditional looking burner would suit our council house, and with 3 kids running around the 350gs front is considerably cooler and safer than other models I have seen. Getting rid of the Jurassic park style fireguard was a major bonus.
3. Nice controls, plenty adjustments to mess around with.
4. Given the stove is rather narrow she sure is big in the firebox department. Other people seem to love this but the last few logs of the night can look a bit lonely.

Negatives

1. Does not seem to give much heat to the room. Manual says 3kw, this seems way higher than we get. I kinda expected to be stripped down to my underpants with the heat. That certainly did not happen.
2. Stove tars up very quickly if care is not taken to prevent it slumbering too much. Maybe this is my inexperience with stoves. Problem is less evident with more tuning of the thermostats.
3. Window seems to smoke up allot. We currently give it a wipe with an old cloth each time we stoke it. I cannot be bothered doing this for long. This may be down to the wood we are burning which could probably be dryer. Time will tell. Seasoned wood is not that easy to come by and I am a year behind!!
4. Stove needs to be run rather hard most of the time.

Advice

burn anthracite and wood.
Stoke it little and often.
Run it hot more than not.
Try not to slumber too soon it atall.
Buy a carbon monoxide alarm.

Cheers.

Delboy5

Looking at getting an Esse 350GS but dont have a clue about where to start.........

Moved into our house a few years back, our Sitting Room is currently a blank canvas, empty room, walls plastered, empty fireplace opening in the corner, one Rad. on the wall.

Is it too late for me now to put in a boiler stove, i never thought of plumping the fireplace for a boiler when we orginally built............

What do i need to do !?

tiny timy

Hi Delboy, Sounds like your too late unless you dont mind cutting a track up your wall and stuff. You will have to run copper pipes (2) flow and return. Ideally you would want your flow coming in at ground level, i stand to be corrected on that so talk to a plumber on your flow pipe location. Wheres your cylinder? You will have to run to this. If its directly above the fireplace then not so bad, but if its the other side of the house then you would need to go above the ceiling with the pipework, which would depend on weather you have an upstairs or not in relation to ripping of ceilings. Sounds like it would be a rather messy job to be honest.

Delboy5

Hi tiny timy, thanks for the reply, i had a feeling you were going to say something like that, my hot press is on the same floor as the sitting room, fireplace approx. 25ft away from the Tank......... Would it be possible to use the use the 2 copper pipes that run to the rad in my sitting room..........could i "T" off them or is that a stupid question !?

tiny timy

You'd really want to run that by a plumber,but what you would be doing there is heating the rads first before u get to the tank to heat your water.I wouldn't know for sure,as I said,you'll have to run it by a professional

Delboy5

Thanks Tiny Timy, ill get the plumber in and get him to suss it out........