Solid fuel boilets

volvos70

Looking around for a heating source for cottage renovation.likr the idea of these solid fuel boilers you load up with wood or coal and it should do the full day or so.have seen a few posts here on them but noghing recent.anyone have experience with these or recomend a specific one.ive about 10 rads going in to the house.ideas on running costs as well please.

Tom44

One load of logs to run 10 rads all day

Most solid fuel boiler heat outputs are calculated on a roaring fire.

mrblack

I have a karpat Solid fuel stove in garage which was installed in late 2014 when oil was still very expensive. Since the oil dropped down to current prices we only use the karpat when the forecast is for sustained cold spells. Its a bit of a pain to keep checking it and refueling every 90 mins to 2 hours. Wife refuses to use it of course and just presses the oil switch instead😒No buy in from herself..

I don't regret putting it in as it has easily paid for itself already. But it is a lot of work and smelly too when its refueling time. I used turf mostly with some timber in 2014-2016. This winter I am going to use coal mainly. I am thinking of pre-preparing by having some kindling soaked in diesel or kerosene to assist in the lighting up phase as sometimes the karpat was tricky to get fired up despite the fan and liberal use of firefighters to start off the turf. Get used to smelling like a fireman after refueling!

We did love the way it cooled down slowly late at night so by the time we were hitting the sack the bedrooms temperature were v pleasant. I generally ran the system at 50-55c usually instead of the 65c the oil boiler is set to. The lack of control meant the house was too warm sometimes which was a pleasant problem to have during calm cold periods in particular. I found 50c to 55c meant the fuel lasted noticeably longer.

The karpat has a blower fan with a controller which helps. But I would recommend setting up a camera in garage to enable temperature monitoring without having to go outside as frequently as I did/do/will. Remote control would be v handy too.

Emptying the ashes became a problem for me so I got a little metal wheelbarrow for temporary storage until permanent disposal at weekend. Buy an aluminum metal wastebin I think. The garage has gotten a lot dirtier as the checking and refueling allow smoke particles escape into the room. I wouldn't like to be the dog who has to sleep near it but so far no objections from him! I do like the flexibility it gives as I don't worry anymore about the house freezing if we run out of oil in a cold spell.
MrBlack