Want to add second back boiler to heating circuit

rustynutz

I am living in a dormer house for the past 10 years. I currently have a Stanley Erin stove with back boiler in my main living area, this is supposed to heat the downstairs of the house (18 rads) but fails miserably, the rads never get beyond lukewarm usually. This is probably down to the fact that the Stanley Erin is only designed to heat approx 8 rads.

So my plan is, buy a Boru Carraig Mor 30kw stove for the main living area, and move the Stanley into my sitting room, I have just an open fire there at the moment without a back boiler, this fire is directly behind the fire in the living area.

My question is, would it be relatively easy to plumb the second back boiler to the heating circuit, seeing as the two fireplaces are back to back?

Would this be a good solution to my problem, I would be hoping to install a valve to allow any excess hot water to flow into the upstairs rads if both fires were on at once.

Are Boru stoves rated highly? Are there any other options I should be considering?

Any advice welcome

Dtp1979

rustynutz wrote: »

I am living in a dormer house for the past 10 years. I currently have a Stanley Erin stove with back boiler in my main living area, this is supposed to heat the downstairs of the house (18 rads) but fails miserably, the rads never get beyond lukewarm usually. This is probably down to the fact that the Stanley Erin is only designed to heat approx 8 rads.

So my plan is, buy a Boru Carraig Mor 30kw stove for the main living area, and move the Stanley into my sitting room, I have just an open fire there at the moment without a back boiler, this fire is directly behind the fire in the living area.

My question is, would it be relatively easy to plumb the second back boiler to the heating circuit, seeing as the two fireplaces are back to back?

Would this be a good solution to my problem, I would be hoping to install a valve to allow any excess hot water to flow into the upstairs rads if both fires were on at once.

Are Boru stoves rated highly? Are there any other options I should be considering?

Any advice welcome

It really depends on the location and ease of getting new pipes to the hotpress. Then you've to change the cylinder. Make sure whoever fits it understands solid fuel pipework as it can be quite dangerous if done incorrectly

Calahonda52

I think you are asking for lots of trouble as well as being very wasteful as you will need serious heat dumps as well as larger supply tanks.
If you look here,
http://www.systemlink.ie/schematics.html
Solid fuel is offered only once.

You can't be putting on / off valves on these systems as easy as gas/oil

The cold stove will always be acting as a rad when fire not lit as you cannot be putting non return valves on the flow and return pipes

cruiser202006

Have you an oil boiler? A solution would be turn on oil , heat up rads while your lighting stove, oil boiler goes off While your stove will keep rads ticking over then. By the time you buy stove, flues, cylinder, piping etc and get a plumber to install it safely you could be looking at 3-4k and then the expense of buying solid fuel to heat the rads

rustynutz

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I think I am going to forget about the second back boiler, after some of the comments here and researching a bit further it looks like it's not the way to go. I had a plumber look at it yesterday, he suggested installing a Heat Hero, apparently they make the system more efficient. He said he had installed 3 so far and all 3 customers were happy with the results. I am going to get a couple of phone numbers from him and have a chat with these people myself, has anyone else any experience with these units?

It still doesn't get around the fact that the stove I have isn't designed to heat the 18 rads I have, I spoke to a salesman for a stove supplier and she told me that a 4 foot single rad requires 1kw of energy to heat. Using this I calculated that all my rads equal 25kw. Now the Erin stove has a boiler output of 13 kw but by turning off some rads I'm hoping I can reduce my kw requirements, for example turning off the rads in the room where the stove is, and the back kitchen and toilet off it will reduce this by 7kw, the plumber agrees that the Erin should be able to do the job.

I do have oil central heating also. I'm finding the more I research stoves the more confused I'm getting, so many different opinions from so many different people. I have been told by a few that the boru stoves have issues with quality and boru refusing to honour warranty. A friend has 30kw one in a house similar amount of rads to me and while there is a lot of heat from the stove itself It doesn't heat the rads as good as he'd like. He has burnt out the grate inside 12 months (he sells coal so burns mostly coal in his).

The plumber that looked at the system yesterday commented on the fact that my hot water cylinder was sitting on the floor of my downstairs hotpress, he reckons the bottom of the cylinder should be no lower than the top of the stove, if this is true I'm wondering what other mistakes the original plumber may have made?

monseiur

I was in a similar position to you (in parents house) You will never heat your house properly downstairs using solid fuel unless you fit a massive stove and employ a full time stoker:)
Based on what I did my advise would be to use your Stanley range to heat domestic water only. Plumb stove to cylinder as direct cylinder system.
You can connect the oil boiler to cylinder using the internal coil to heat the domestic water the odd time when a fire is not required also fit an immersion.
Heat the whole house using by your oil boiler zoned as required. Insure that insulation in attic, walls etc. is up to standard.
As you have all rads, pipework etc in position already it should cost no more than €800
M.

rustynutz

Just to give an update on this, my plumber advised that I wont be able to fit a physically bigger stove into my fireplace due to width restrictions and access to hook up pipes etc.

This forced me to look closer at the stove I have so I downloaded manual for the Stanley Erin and done a lot of research on how to get the most out of the stove, so armed with this info I set about taking the stove apart, particularly the area above the boiler ( I never had this cover off before, I didn't realise it had to be cleaned) needless to say after 10 years use there were a lot of deposits on the boiler and surrounding areas to be cleaned off, also changed ropes where needed and noticed some of the sealant on the flues needed replacing.

I lit a fire late Saturday evening (once sealant had set) and used plenty of eco bright type coal, set the primary damper to wide open and let the fire get good and hot. With all 13 rads (some doubles) on the heat was lukewarm but didn't reach 2 of the rads after about 2 hours, so I proceeded to turn off the 2 double rads I the room with the stove along with 3 other singles that aren't really needed, the results were very good. All remaining rads were almost as hot as when using the oil heating, rooms felt warm when you walk in to them and the room with the stove in it was the warmest I've seen it.

The conclusions I've come to are:
1. Keep your stove serviced regularly
2. Don't exceed the number of rads recommended by manufacture
3. You need a very big fire in order to get the kw output the manufacturer promise, I think coal is the only job if you want hot rads, I've used turf before with little success. Timber is supposed to be good too
4. Don't be afraid to experiment with the different settings on the stove, I had in the past left the primary air half open and used the secondary air knob to regulate the fire, this is incorrect, the primary air should be almost fully open if you want hot rads.

I'm delighted with the results I got from a Saturday spent tinkering and experimenting, hopefully this will help others who are having similar problems with their stoves.

TPM

rustynutz wrote: »

The conclusions I've come to are:
1. Keep your stove serviced regularly
2. Don't exceed the number of rads recommended by manufacture
3. You need a very big fire in order to get the kw output the manufacturer promise, I think coal is the only job if you want hot rads, I've used turf before with little success. Timber is supposed to be good too
4. Don't be afraid to experiment with the different settings on the stove, I had in the past left the primary air half open and used the secondary air knob to regulate the fire, this is incorrect, the primary air should be almost fully open if you want hot rads.

I'm delighted with the results I got from a Saturday spent tinkering and experimenting, hopefully this will help others who are having similar problems with their stoves.

that is a good description of how to use a stove, one thing I would add is to be careful you dont over fire the stove while trying to maximise the heat out of it or get more heat than it is designed to give

Pappacharlie

Just reading your posts there. I have a Stanley Erin stove and 14 rads some of those double. I agree that you must clean the boiler to max output. The fact is though that the Erin has a limited output to the radiators. The output to the room is quite high and when it is fully stoked up the room that the stove is located in can be too hot. Another useful addition I found was the installation of thermostatic radiator valves. This makes it easier to balance the heat in each room. One post suggested using the oil to get the water temperature up and then let the stove take over. This is a good idea. To be honest I find that since the reduction in oil prices it is much cheaper to use it to heat the house. I am using a nest thermostat and I am saving a fortune keeping the house temp around 20deg.
I have to say that the Erin stove is over rated and they are so common. Very few will admit that they are unhappy with them. A friend of mine installed a Stratford 25KW stove and it is a big upgrade but if you are buying fuel it is not cheap to heat a house. Apologies if this post is all over the place.

rustynutz

I am also considering thermostatic valves, particularly in the room where the stove is, then at least those rads will come on with the oil. In fairness to Stanley their stoves do heat the amount of rads they claim, the problem is they don't have any large output stoves in their range, most houses have more than 10 rads so id imagine people (like myself) are asking too much of the stove.

Also I think a lot of Stanleys reputation is built on reliability, I've had mine 10 years and I've not had to replace anything only ropes, as I mentioned previously a friend has a boru just over a year and he's already replaced the grate, plus its 30 kw but doesn't heat the 20 rads as promised by Boru.

rustynutz

Can anyone tell me if my plumber is correct in saying the hot water cylinder needs to be higher than the stove in order to efficiently heat the hot water off the back boiler? Mine is currently on the ground floor of the house sitting on the ground

Dtp1979

rustynutz wrote: »

Can anyone tell me if my plumber is correct in saying the hot water cylinder needs to be higher than the stove in order to efficiently heat the hot water off the back boiler? Mine is currently on the ground floor of the house sitting on the ground

Yes your plumber is correct