Stove & Back Boiler Running Cost

BennyMul

Hi,
I hoping someone can help with my query
We are currently looking at installing a Stove + back boiler to save on the Oil usage over the winter months,
I am at the moment trying to find out how much it will generally costs to run (wood, coal etc.) to see if it is worth the expense of installing it as opposed to staying with oil or just installing a dry stove to heat the kitchen, sitting room,

We are looking at the Hercules 30B, (need to heat ~18 Rad’s of mixed sizes)
apologies if this was covered in other threads but I look and was unable to find any.

Thanks

DoneDL

BennyMul, tons of stuff if you google it. If you intend running a stove anyway it is worth connecting the stove to the heating system. The cost will depend on the stoves placement and how difficult the job is. Think about it as a long term investment especially if you have access to cheap timber etc.

Stove Fan

Hi, as you know the brosely hercules 30b has a 22kw output boiler to water and 8kw output to the room the stove is in. That is some heat to the room, ideal if your room is large or open plan/stairs.

The problem is there are too many factors to say how much fuel you would use as everyone has different comfort levels, ie. How many hours do you burn, how warm do you like it. Lit all the time or just evenings, etc.

The biggest factor is everyones home is a different size and with massive differences in the levels of insulation.

Just as a comparison we had a villager woodburner ALI 45,000 btu to water (13kw) heating an old 3 bed stone detatched house with average insulation. It had 10 radiators on the system although 2 were tiny.

Burning for 14 hours a day we used 20 cubic metres of softwood over 7 months. We used this stove for heating all the rads and ripped out the oil boiler. Wood was very cheap in France, half the price of the equivalent of oil heating.

If you use the stove mostly of an evening you may only use 1 tonne of coal. Unfortunately you will only know how much it uses until its fitted:(

We heat our Irish home with a boiler stove and i would say we save about 30-40 percent over oil heating. We used 2 tonnes of coal last winter and heat a 2 bed detatched spacious bungalow. We have 5 rads four doubles a towel radiator and heat the hot water as well. We have it lit from end of September to mid April or later.

Stove Fan:)

BennyMul

Thanks all for the feedback,
At the moment we are waiting to get a cost for the plumbing, (so far its dear)
but it looks like we will just install the dry stove, and get a feel for the running cost over the winter, if it proves not too costly to operate then move to stove with Back boiler next summer,

again thanks

Stove Fan

BennyMul wrote: »

Thanks all for the feedback,
At the moment we are waiting to get a cost for the plumbing, (so far its dear)
but it looks like we will just install the dry stove, and get a feel for the running cost over the winter, if it proves not too costly to operate then move to stove with Back boiler next summer,

again thanks

Although expensive but very good have a look at clearview stoves and woodwarm stoves as a large backboiler can be added at a later date to some models:). A lot of other stoves to have a decent sized boiler you would need to sell the existing stove and buy the wraparound factory fitted boiler version. It would be less hassle as the stove could be fitted without having to uninstall and sell. (most likely for less than you paid) and just simply fit the large boiler and plumb it in.

Stove Fan:)