Solid fuel heating problem

nehie

The stove is bigger than it looks in the picture alright. It looks like the sort of brute that should be able to heat your whole house effortlessly...

When the plumber installed this new, secondary system (with the stove) the only problem he foresaw was that the boilers inside both the range and the stove would be heating each other up. He didn't foresee any of the rest of this messing.

I'm hoping it's the pump, as you suggest, and that fitting a second pump might even solve it? I confess I've been secretly hoping all this time that it was nothing more serious than an airlock!

I'll do the test you recommend with lighting the fire and checking the pipes. I do find plumbing very confusing though - all that business with gravity! - so don't hold out much hope of diagnosing it myself, but finding a good plumber has proved to be a problem.

!! IS THERE ANYONE HERE IN COUNTY CLARE? !!

Thanks so much for all your help, and for going to all this trouble

The Glass Key

Just glad no ones told me I'm talking complete rubbish..... so far

The principles are very simple when you draw them out on a piece of paper try http://www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk/ and start at http://www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk/articles/connecting-a-wood-burning-stove-to-central-heating/ for some basics. I'm not quoting that so you can go and do anything yourself but it might help you see where the problem is so you will know if what the plumber is suggesting will be any good. Don't jump straight on the idea of an injector T as a solution to all your problems but it could help the issue.

I'm not a plumber but I wouldn't use two boilers with one coil fine if you are only using one boiler at a time the flow should stay in one pipe system and perhaps slowly heat the other one but nothing terrible, with both boilers on who knows and you can't for safety reasons put anything like a valve in those pipes to and from the boilers. So before we even start we have what I think is a show stopper, however while I don't like that it doesn't stop heat going to the rads if the pump is pumping water from the boiler to the rads.

The one pump you have (might you have another hidden somewhere?) can really only pump the water around one system either the range or the stove and one set of rads. If you have both boilers trying to run the same rads that would be another issue.

How many rads on the range does the range heat different rads to the stove? Does the oil also heat the rads that could be complected as all the systems will be interconnected.

nehie

They (stove and range) are both on one system, as far as I know. So what should happen when they're both going is that they have enough capacity between them to heat up all the radiators. That was the theory anyway although it's failed abysmally. In practice the range seems to heat the radiators near it exceptionally well and doesn't venture too much farther.

I should mention the range is on ALL the time in winter. It's a little old cottagey setup and we keep the range going overnight, so the kitchen won't be Arctic in the morning and we'll have hot water (there's no immersion).

The oil burner heats all the radiators just fine – apart, as I mentioned, from the little constant leak from the expansion pipe when it's running. It's not a serious leak but it's there. It's only when the stove is lit that we have serious trouble.

Thanks again, Glass Key, and I'm going to do some swotting now on your links.

The Glass Key

The only good solution I can offer is to separate the systems and put in a second cylinder nearer the stove and heat one part of the cottage (must be a big cottage) from the stove and the rest from the range. So heat say the bedrooms off the new stove and light the stove in the afternoon/evening and if you have two bathrooms then range/oil for one and use the stove for hot water for the other. Guess that's a no go idea, but might be a fall back if all else fails?

We have two cylinders because I wanted a system for our new range with no pump at all the range does hot water for the kitchen (only a small 3kW boiler for DHW iirc) and just so we don't waste any hot water we have a second hot water tap over the bath. The power can (and sometimes does) go out here and we can still cook and keep warm and thanks to a quirk of the local mains water supply we get a nearly weeks worth of water after everyone else runs out (2 inch supply is downhill half a mile long and only feeds two houses).

Dtp1979

There is no problem having 2 solid fuel appliances heating the one cylinder. Dual coil obviously. All that's needed is the know to pipe it correctly and most importantly safely. OP keep trying different plumbers till your satisfied. The only plumber I know down around there is well retired now. Maybe he'd have a look for you at it and guide you. Jim Matthews is his name. His used to ( and maybe still does ) teach in the college in Shannon, beside the airport. Ring the college and they'll give you his contact details

The Glass Key

Dtp1979 wrote: »

There is no problem having 2 solid fuel appliances heating the one cylinder. Dual coil obviously. All that's needed is the know to pipe it correctly and most importantly safely. OP keep trying different plumbers till your satisfied. The only plumber I know down around there is well retired now. Maybe he'd have a look for you at it and guide you. Jim Matthews is his name. His used to ( and maybe still does ) teach in the college in Shannon, beside the airport. Ring the college and they'll give you his contact details

2 solid fuel appliances and one coil, the other is attached to the oil boiler.

Dtp1979

The Glass Key wrote: »

2 solid fuel appliances and one coil, the other is attached to the oil boiler.

Ohhhh. OP get a plumber in. And don't light either would be my advise.

nehie

The Glass Key wrote: »

The only good solution I can offer is to separate the systems and put in a second cylinder nearer the stove and heat one part of the cottage (must be a big cottage) from the stove and the rest from the range. So heat say the bedrooms off the new stove and light the stove in the afternoon/evening and if you have two bathrooms then range/oil for one and use the stove for hot water for the other. Guess that's a no go idea, but might be a fall back if all else fails?

We have two cylinders because I wanted a system for our new range with no pump at all the range does hot water for the kitchen (only a small 3kW boiler for DHW iirc) and just so we don't waste any hot water we have a second hot water tap over the bath. The power can (and sometimes does) go out here and we can still cook and keep warm and thanks to a quirk of the local mains water supply we get a nearly weeks worth of water after everyone else runs out (2 inch supply is downhill half a mile long and only feeds two houses).

Cottage isn't that big (!) but it has a quirky layout because I wanted to build an extension without obliterating the original (famine-era) portion of it. So it's got a big ground floor.

Two cylinders might be a plan, though there would be a lot of reworking involved upstairs and so on. Power goes out here a lot too, as does mains water. You obviously live in rural Ireland as well! The joys...

nehie

Dtp1979 wrote: »

Ohhhh. OP get a plumber in. And don't light either would be my advise.

I will definitely get a plumber in. Thanks for your suggestion but Shannon is, inexplicably, 65 miles away from here so I doubt I could persuade him to come out. Just have to take my chances and hope I don't get another halfwit on €25 an hour.

I'll report back...

Dtp1979

nehie wrote: »

I will definitely get a plumber in. Thanks for your suggestion but Shannon is, inexplicably, 65 miles away from here so I doubt I could persuade him to come out. Just have to take my chances and hope I don't get another halfwit on €25 an hour.

I'll report back...

He thought in Shannon. I'm pretty sure he doesn't live there

The Glass Key

nehie wrote: »

Cottage isn't that big (!) but it has a quirky layout because I wanted to build an extension without obliterating the original (famine-era) portion of it. So it's got a big ground floor.

Two cylinders might be a plan, though there would be a lot of reworking involved upstairs and so on. Power goes out here a lot too, as does mains water. You obviously live in rural Ireland as well! The joys...

Funny you should mention that, our new range is in an extension to a very old cottage (pre first OS map survey at least) and to keep things simple I made it virtually self contained, biggest room is the extension.

We aren't that rural just 15 minutes from the nearest largish town but everything useful like broadband stops about 5 minutes drive up the road.

TPM

The Glass Key wrote: »

I have however seen a good few similar installs in recent years where there is no way a thermosyphon can ever be set up naturally and had to have a pump running in order to work - not saying the installations are correct though.

nehie wrote: »

Anyway I'm not ripping the whole thing out, one way or another. It's what we've got.

There are lots of solid fuel boilers that are in place and heating water (i refuse to say working) for years even though they are not correctly installed this may result in a system that provides heat but doesnt do it safely or efficiently.

An incorrectly installed solid fuel boiler can explode and potentially kill. When you hear a solid fuel boiler bubbling, gurgling, banging, singing the water in it is boiling this produces steam which expands at a rate quick enough to burst a boiler.

the water can boil if is not passing through the boiler fast enough in relation to the heat produced by the boiler(size of the fire) a circulating pump assists the flow, but the system must also allow for pump failure, or electricity outage.

and in relation to ripping it out, I am not saying you would have to but if it could potentially kill is it worth leaving it in.
have you considered replacing it with a nonboiler stove?