Heating 3000 sq ft - Stanley comeragh 50 delux

Simplydee3

Hi, we have just bought a house, 3,000 sq ft approx, 2008 build, BER C1. Heating is oil central heating, non condenser boiler - and has guzzled €80 in 3 days!

We also have a Stanley comeragh 50 delux solid fuel range with back boiler. The rads are thermostatic and have turned all but 2 off ( 20 Rads in total) and the 2 that are on are still not getting hot.

We have an open fire - should we put in a stove with back boiler? Has anyone achieved a good temperature and heating 20 rads?

If anyone has suggestions re: alternatives, the Stanley issue or whether a condenser boiler will keep costs down id love to hear!

Wearb

How many litres are you talking about when you say €80?
Did this usage happen with just 2 rads on?
What make and model boiler?
When was boiler last serviced and what was the combustion results?

Simplydee3

Hi WearB
It was round about 100 litres from what I gather. For the first say - for 3 hours we had all rads on (20) as the house has not been lived in for a couple of months, on the second and third day we had 11 Rads on for approx 9 hours over the two days. I am unsure of the make/model, but will have that checked out this evening and no idea when boiler was last serviced, we did enquire from the auctioneer.

I have tried the stanley range with only 2 rads on and they are not heating.

Currently weighing up our options for replacing boiler to condenser, and getting a stove in the sitting room

Also hoping to have a plumber come look at everything this week

GY A1

Was the tank empty when u put 100 litres in.
My tank was empty and I put in 140 lires and it only went about 2 inches over the outlet pipe to the boiler.
You prob just need more in over the outlet hole.
The driver here said it usually takes 80/90 litres to even get up to the pipe out to the boiler at the bottom of the tank.
Have look inside

Simplydee3 wrote: »

Hi WearB
It was round about 100 litres from what I gather. For the first say - for 3 hours we had all rads on (20) as the house has not been lived in for a couple of months, on the second and third day we had 11 Rads on for approx 9 hours over the two days. I am unsure of the make/model, but will have that checked out this evening and no idea when boiler was last serviced, we did enquire from the auctioneer.

I have tried the stanley range with only 2 rads on and they are not heating.

Currently weighing up our options for replacing boiler to condenser, and getting a stove in the sitting room

Also hoping to have a plumber come look at everything this week

minikin

What’s your attic insulation like?

Wearb

Simplydee3 wrote: »

Hi WearB
It was round about 100 litres from what I gather. For the first say - for 3 hours we had all rads on (20) as the house has not been lived in for a couple of months, on the second and third day we had 11 Rads on for approx 9 hours over the two days. I am unsure of the make/model, but will have that checked out this evening and no idea when boiler was last serviced, we did enquire from the auctioneer.

I have tried the stanley range with only 2 rads on and they are not heating.

Currently weighing up our options for replacing boiler to condenser, and getting a stove in the sitting room

Also hoping to have a plumber come look at everything this week

If the house hasn’t been heated in a while, it will take a good bit extra to get fabric of house up to temperature. Have your boiler serviced and see what the plumber says about the efficiency of your heating system and house insulation.

Irish Steve

House here is similar sq footage, oil boiler, non condensing, and similar BER, albeit a lot older. 19 radiators, so not that different. Based on long experience, and hours counters on the pump and boiler burner, averaged out over the 12 months, if the heating is on, the boiler runs for about 50% of the time, and burns 1 us Gallon per hour, so if you had the heating on for long hours over 3 days, and were starting from cold, you could well have used 80 litres over that time period, but (we're Gas oil so dearer) on current pricing, that's nowhere near €100, Gas oil is closer to 60 cents a litre at the moment, so 100 litres should be around €60, which is still heavy enough. That said, once up to temperature, we're probably only running heating about 4 hours a day, with the run time of 50%, that's a burn of around 7 litres per day, so probably around €5.

Your boiler may have a different jet, which directly affects the oil usage per hour, our boiler could take a larger nozzle, but there's not a lot of point in us doing that, as it's not working that hard at the moment as it is, and while I don't have a recent flue gas analysis, I'm reasonably confident that it's running fairly close to the best efficiency that it can provide.

Hope that helps, while changing to a condensing boiler may help reduce the burn, there's a significant cost in the upgrade, which has to be factored in to the overall costings, a lot will depend on how long you intend to stay in that house, and if it's not long term, the cost of upgrading may not be recovered in the time you will be there.