dual central heating system

jack67

hi the previous owners installed oil central heating in our house,im told from a plumber we had who installed a shower for us that its a closed system,my question is can we put a back boiler in so we can light a fire in the sitting room and have a dual system?i believe the original heating in the house was a back boiler(hope this makes sense to someone)any help would be very grateful tks.

Sparkpea

if your system is sealed/closed then no you cannot have a link up (back boiler that heats radiators), you could have a small back boiler that is linked directly to the hot water tank though which means you're fire will heat your hot tank but not your radiators.

if you want a back boiler you would need to change the system back to an open vented system with a feed and expansion tank.

Buford T Justice

As above, the short is answer is no, unless you want an open system

jack67

thanks sparkpea,do you know if would this be a big job to change the system into a dual system to heat rads etc from fire ,any idea how much it would cost?also would you have any recommendations on someone to do this job?

jack67

anyone?

Buford T Justice

You'd need a plumber to look at it, as you will need the following done for a start:

5 Gallon tank added to the attic space, with plumbing into it, along with mains. OSV pipe to the same tank for the OFCH, and a cold feed down to the system.

It depends on the state of the back boiler in the sitting room, if there is one, and how much plumbing is there for it in the first place, and if its working. This will also need to be plumbed to the existing CH system with some NRV's, and you will need a feed and expansion pipe plumbed into the tank in the attic. A circulating pump will need to be added to this, along with a stat on the pipe from the back boiler. It would be very difficult to give a price on this as without seeing it, you can't gauge the level of work needed.

Same goes for the scale of the job in hand too. If there is a back boiler there and plumbed, that makes things easier. If there isn't one, then the fireplace needs to come out and a back boiler put in, which can be messey. How easily it is accessed is another issue, in so far as a stat and pump needs to be added and power needs to go to it too......

Like i say, it will need a plumber to look at it.

Where are you based?

jack67

thanks for that fingers magee ,im based in the navan rd area d7.

amlostforwords

Hi some advice please, we had a duel system (BB and Gas) and had to replace the gas boiler a few years ago so went to a sealed system of gas heating only and no longer used the BB fire. I hope to go back to the duel system again and I think I have 2 choices, 1 being to get a new open vented gas boiler and reconnect everything again to bring the back boiler into the loop or 2 get a thing called a Heat Genie (about 700 euro just for the equipment)that combines both the open BB system and the closed gas boiler system. my question is has anybody installed the Heat Genie system and if so was it any good, or would I be better of to get the open vent gas boiler? Any advice please.