What size Boiler stove to go for...?

kildaredave5

After delving into the never ending world of stoves i find myself with more questions than answers than i started out with.I have thrawled the boards to extend my knowledge somewhat of the different type of stoves and their outputs.I am looking for some information about the type of stove i should choose and the kw needed.The house i live in is 8 years old with good insulation.The house is 1360 sq ft(127m2) and the room to where the stove will be installed is 15ft*14ft*8ft.As my wife stays at home all day with the kids we have decided to install a boiler stove as the price of oil is ever increasing and at the moment oil is our only means of heating the house.

Our rads are as follows.....
sitting room 1000mm x 500mm double
hallway 900mm x 500mm single
kitchen 900mm x 500mm double
playroom 800mm x 500mm double
utility room 400mm x 500mm single
bedroom1 800mm x 500mm double
ensuite 400mm x 500mm single
bedroom2 700mm x 500mm double
bedroom3 800mm x 500mm double
bedroom4 600mm x 500mm double
bathroom 500mm x 500mm single

We also have the heating zoned so am wondering if it is just worth heating the downstairs rads during the day and switching over to the upstairs in the evening as this would mean we could purchase a smaller boiler stove.
Some people with similar sized houses in our estate have installed the boru carraig mor 20kw boiler stove, 4kw to the room and 16kw to the water but i have read some negative reviews as they are somewhat cheaper too.Also am looking to have a stove with an enamel finish.
All your help is much welcomed and appreciated to a very confused to be, stove purchaser.

emg74

Hi - We have a similar sized house to yourselves (125sqM) but ours is a bungalow. It is also zoned - there is a bedroom zone (which is 4 bedrooms / ensuite / bathroom / rad in long part of corridor & a couple of small rads in wardrobes.) The living zone is the living room (where boiler stove is), kitchen, utility & sitting room (which has its own non-boiler stove)

Last year we upgraded our original stove (Charnwood country 6 - which just heated cylinder) the Stratford EB12 HE stove. Best money ever spent... So far we have used the oil for about 10hrs all winter... When the cold snap was in it a couple of weeks ago. We just heat the bedroom zone off the stove and the heat from the stove heats the livingroom / kitchen / utility (heat in living room approx 25degs when stove up & running)

The water heats very quickly and once up to heat it is very fuel efficient. We are burning a mix of timber, smokless coal & some turf. I work 3 days and am home the other 4. Even on the days that I am working, the heat in the rads had kicked in by around 7pm so nice & toasty when the kids are heading for bed. On the days I am home, there is heat in the rads all day even with a small fire.

There are a couple of bigger models of this stove, we bought the EB12 as we only ever intending heating the rads in half the house,

The stove cost approx €1500 and as the pipes were already in place from old stove there wasn't much plumbing to be done.

Just noticed that you are looking at enamel finish- the EB12 is just a matt finish which is good with us. We didn't mind what finish the stove was

http://www.stratfordboilerstoves.co.uk/models/stoves.html

kildaredave5

Hi emg74,
thank you for ur reply.Where did you buy your stove? i probably would prefer to buy one as local as possible, be it in Kildare or even in ireland. What kw does the stove give to your room? For us to install a boiler stove we need to run pipes from our sitting room downstairs to our water tank upstairs which involves lifting floorboards and cutting out wall slabs which is quite a big job so i am trying to get as much information as possible before deciding what to do.Of course a plumber will be doing it at quite an expense so i want to choose the correct boiler stove.As my wife is here with the kids during the day anyway with the open fire lighting we might as well be heating rads off it.

emg74

Hi - Glad the info was off use to you - I just found an old post of mine with a list of the rads we are heating - they are as follows :

Bed1 1600 x 500 (single)
Bed2 970 x 500 (Double)
EnSuite 500 x 500 (single)
Bed3 1200 x 500 (single) & Rad in wardrobe 400 x 500 (single)
Bed4 1200 x 500 (single) & Rad in wardrobe 400 x 500 (single)
Bathroom 900 x 500 (single)
Hall Corridor 1400 x 500 (single)

The output to the room is between 2-6kw - It is okay for us as the living area is small. If you are heating the whole house, the rads in your downstairs would also be on when the stove is on whereas ours are not. When we bought ours, the shop was recommending the bigger model and I can't say 100% if we would have been better to buy bigger than we needed to have more heat to the room BUT we are 99% happy with it, some cold evenings it would be nice to have a bit more heat in the room but overall it is a fantastic stove. If you look at the brochure on the stratford website (http://www.stratfordboilerstoves.co.uk/public/pdf/stratford_brochure_2012.pdf) , it gives details of all the outputs and the dimensions of the stoves.

We bought our stove from a guy in Kilkerrin, Co. Galway called Alan Gordon ([FONT=Georgia, Times, serif]Tel: +353 93 - 45764 Fax: 093 - 45764 E-mail: alan@gordonheatingsupplies.com) .

They are outside Tuam in the countryside. Loads of stoves & very helpful.

If you contact Stratford they will give you a list of suppliers in Ireland.

Hope this helps,
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PS: Last night lit fire about 6.30pm. Cylinder in hotpress was pretty cold as shower was used in morning. The fire consisted of about 8 softwood blocks of timber to get it going, followed by a small bucket of smokeless fuel. That was it for the night, Produced full cylinder of water and heat in the rads for the night. Livingroom was at 24.6 degs when going to bed last night at 11pm

loca

Hi all, we are doing a 1000sqm conversion and the moment and have a stove and backboiler going in. We have 9 rads to heat including doubles, water for bath, showers etc. Its our main source of heating, we have high ceilings.
Plumber said we need 17KW so a 20/21KW stove would be good.
I saw a 23KW stove which is exactly the one I'm looking for but Im wondering what would the stove be inefficient with the extra 3 KW or would I be burning extra fuel with the higher capacity stove?
Basically is there any harm in getting the higher capacity stove?