Back boiler installation

joannelohan

Thinking about getting a back boiler installed for an open fire.just wondering roughly what this costs?

Calahonda52

why the back boiler?
what other heating do you have in the house?

joannelohan

Calahonda52 wrote: »

why the back boiler?
what other heating do you have in the house?

We Have oil but we qre trying to move away from oil

Calahonda52

what about a stove with back boiler, plumbing for back boiler a bit tricky.
Open fire or stove as your only heat source is a lot of work

joannelohan

Calahonda52 wrote: »

what about a stove with back boiler, plumbing for back boiler a bit tricky.
Open fire or stove as your only heat source is a lot of work

Any idea of cost involved?

Calahonda52

stove could be 2,000, depending on house size.
why not post over in plumbing
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1320

Ubbquittious

I managed to do this for just under 2,000


Stove was 700 from donedeal and included a central heating pump. Bought 4 rads new. I had an advantage though that I was replacing another stove without a back boiler so I left the chimney untouched apart from giving it a clean. If you are converting from an open fire it's a bit more tricky but no huge expense in materials unless you decide to put a slinky up the chimney.

my3cents

Ubbquittious wrote: »

I managed to do this for just under 2,000


Stove was 700 from donedeal and included a central heating pump. Bought 4 rads new. I had an advantage though that I was replacing another stove without a back boiler so I left the chimney untouched apart from giving it a clean. If you are converting from an open fire it's a bit more tricky but no huge expense in materials unless you decide to put a slinky up the chimney.

The "slinky" (chimney liner) is highly recommended, you shouldn't really install a stove without it as an open fire chimney is only designed to work with a fire that wastes 60% of its heat up the chimney. Without that wasted heat keeping the chimney hot the chimney soots up far too quickly.

P_Cash

Just be careful as this was a thing to do in the 80s/90s only for people to realise that it gave very little heat output to the room.

As mentioned already the smart and most efficient is a stove with a back boiler, which is what i have myself, but i decided to only put it to DHW and 1 radiator.

Its a trick thing to decide. I've seen installations where it would take a bag of coal a day to heat up all rads to a desired temperature but then also overheat the room its in.
IVe seen also where the stove and heat output was perfect for the room its in in but only to slightly warm the radiators.

_Brian

We had a back boiler in our old house and it was good, wouldn’t replace oil for the convenience of the oil but heated a 2700sq ft house well.
Grant triple pass back boiler.

Took some heat from the room but not all and the room was large, 16*18

Stoves are better efficiency wise but not every room suits due to space.

An insert stove with boiler would be more efficient than a back boiler and take up less floor space than a stove of that’s an issue.

But I wouldn’t agree with some posts above that back boilers aren’t worth fitting, fit a good one and understand that heat now has two exits, some to the room and some to the boiler, so to keep the same heat to the room a bigger fire is needed.

Calahonda52

The key issue with bb/stove set up is that the heat needs to be used so the rad/DHW capacity must be up to removing the heat from the water.
The other issue is whats happens if you have just loads up with a bag of coal and there isa power cut?
Does your circulation still work without the pump or will it boil?

look here for safe plumbing setups: many plumbers do not understand these issues
http://www.systemlink.ie/support.html

Ubbquittious

Calahonda52 wrote: »

The key issue with bb/stove set up is that the heat needs to be used so the rad/DHW capacity must be up to removing the heat from the water.
The other issue is whats happens if you have just loads up with a bag of coal and there isa power cut?
Does your circulation still work without the pump or will it boil?

look here for safe plumbing setups: many plumbers do not understand these issues
http://www.systemlink.ie/support.html

I have the slightly unusual option of a UPS that should keep the pump going for a couple of hours if there is a power cut. If you are actually in the room when it happens the air controls work quite well to make the fire die down. Tis mostly timber I burn and wouldn't shovel in loads of coal cause I reckon it's bad for the stove.



A temperature gauge near the flow on the stove is great to help you keep an eye on it and give yourself a margin of safety so you don't overfeed the fire. Plenty people don't bother putting one in and I don't really understand why

Ubbquittious

my3cents wrote: »

The "slinky" (chimney liner) is highly recommended, you shouldn't really install a stove without it as an open fire chimney is only designed to work with a fire that wastes 60% of its heat up the chimney. Without that wasted heat keeping the chimney hot the chimney soots up far too quickly.

I know someone who had one fitted one and it burnt out quite quickly and had to be replaced with solid steel pipes. My own one has the oldschool ceramic chimney pots and it doesn't soot up much at all but the rectangular stone wall chimney is probably a lot more common in old houses with open fires