Is my oil burner too low?

theblueirish

Hi All,
Spending more time at home and finding its costing an fortune to run the heating. At the minute we have the oil on for 90 mins in the morning 06:30-08:00 and 120 mins in evening. 16:00 till 18:00 this is set on a timer.
We are also lighting a coal fire in the living room, this only heats that room although the pipes are there for back boiler.
Currently using about 70 litres of oil a week and 2-3 40kg bags of coal. My burner has a sticker on it saying 50/90 slimline kabin (this may just be the case.) and has reillo 70/90 marked on it.

My radiator sizes are below where it say x2 means double rads sizes are in mm and are approx.
downstairs.
480
600
1200x2
690x2
2000x2
1800x2
1080x2
880x2
upstairs
690
590x2
1300
1300
480
1090x2
1090x2

i am just loading photos of burner, pipe fittings, small orange tank in hotpress and pipes for back boiler that are not connected. if any of these help let me know and i will post them.

I am considering changing to or adding a back boiler or maybe a stove. any input appreciated.

dpofloinn

Are you are heating all the rads and hot water at the same time or do you have heating controls on the system?

theblueirish

All at the same time.

Billy Bunting

Guestimate around 7/8lts a day, you may need a service.

dpofloinn

I would say your boiler is under sized and is really struggling to heat 24 rads and hot water so it never fully gets up to temperature so it is constantly burning to keep up with the heat requirements .your burner being a 70/90 is burning approx 3ltrs (assuming it is in good order) per hour at 3.5 hours per day which is 10.5 ltrs a day oil being approx 95c per ltr which is E10 per day 7 days a week is E 70 .I think you should consider increasing your boiler size possibly to a 90/120 and invest in proper heating controls. ie zoning

crock!

I think you should have it set for 90000 btu and get this done by someone who knows how to set up the burner and instead of replacing boiler now why dont you get your house zoned in to 3 zones.then think about changeing boiler at a later date.we have all seen boilers running with wrong nozzle and or pump pressure.

TPM

roughly your rads and hot water are adding up to around 25kw or around 85,000btu.
the 50/90 and 70/90 refer to the heat output of your boiler/burner in thousand btu's. 50,000/90,000btu and 70,000/90,000btu
so your boiler is capable of heating everything for you provided it is set to its properly maximum output (correct nozzle size)

A 0.65 usgal/h nozzle at 9bar would give just under 25kw(85,000btu), using 2.62l/h

your 3.5h running per day should then use 9.17l per day/ 64.19l per week

These figures are not too far off your estimated usage of 70l per week, a service may improve your efficiency some what.
Heating controls, insulation improvements may also help. another thing to look at would be pipe heatloss from the boiler to the house.

The calculations are rough and may contain errors and as always open to correction

theblueirish

Thanks for the input lads, what does anyone think about putting in a back boiler?
The pipes are already there just were never connected. Can the be run with the oil or will it have to be separate?

Billy Bunting

Done correctly it can work well with the oil.

TPM

theblueirish wrote: »

Thanks for the input lads, what does anyone think about putting in a back boiler?
The pipes are already there just were never connected. Can the be run with the oil or will it have to be separate?

just because the pipes are there doesnt mean that they are plumbed in correctly.
In a way having them there is worse than not having them, if you have nothing you know exactly where the new pipes you get put in go and that they are correct, with existing ones once they disappear into a wall or floor you dont really know what happens them.

You need to get someone that knows and understands solid fuel boilers to have a look at it.

As bill said when done correctly solid fuel boilers can work well with oil, just bear in mind that solid fuel boilers are not as cheap to fuel as most people think