Boiler Stove or just Oil with non boiler stove to heat house

ratedR

Hi all,

Looking for some advice.

Bought a house last year. Built in 1991, 2 storey, 3 bedroom detached. Garage converted into a 4th bedroom with an en-suite.

It's got an open fire with a back boiler to heat 9 rads and water, and also a kerosene burner.

I went through 1000 liters of oil over the course of the year, and over the 6 months of fire lighting, would have used a bag a coal every 10 days, approx, and a small bag of logs a week.

Once the fire was lighting for 2+ hours, the rads all over the house would be warm, and water in tank still hot the next day. Oil for an hour in the mornings an again in the evenings to initially heat up the rads.

The issue was the heat would not stay in the house once the rads/fire were cool/off as the original 1991 wooden single pane windows were still in, and the attic insulation is also there since day 1 - very thin and non at all in parts over the garage conversion. Walls were pumped at some stage with rockwool.

I've since had the windows are doors done, and the attic insulation will be done in the coming weeks.

My issue now is what to do for heating.

I like the idea of a fire also heating the rads and water so I'd like to go down the route of a boiler stove. The piping and pump is all there, and the tank is directly over the fire, so there isn't as big a job there as there would be if no plumbing existed. Ideally I'd be looking at a 21kw freestanding multi fuel boiler stove, and also keeping the kerosene burner.

People have told me I'd be mad to do this, that I'll be shoveling coal into something that big all day. That coal prices are going up, etc. Others have pointed out that I can also burn wood, and that I'm not restricting myself to a single point of heating - in a time when oil prices are also going up.

In my opinion, I've already had an open fire, and while it was hard enough on coal, it wasn't terrible for what it did and surely the stove will be far more economical than the open fire?

My other option is to put a non-boiler stove in there. But I feel that that will just heat the room its in and possibly the rooms around it, but the upstairs will depend on more oil than I had previously been using - which has also gone up in price. I like the idea of a fire heating more than just the room it's in.

The complete outside option is that the neighborhood has gas piped in, so I could go for the gas combi boiler for rads and water, and non boiler stove for the sitting room.

I'd just like some thoughts and opinions on what best to do.

Thank you

Forge83

Unless you have access to free or cheap solid fuel then a boiler stove does not make sense financially.

Would suggest your window upgrades and insulation will already make a big difference in heat retention. However closing your chimney with a room heater stove would be another good option as you get a heating appliance and improve your houses heat retention at the same time.

Note- An Open fire boiler is only 20/25% efficient so there’s massive waste there.

As for the oil vs gas, the cost of changing over your system would negate any benefit. You might be better off upgrading your oil boiler to a high efficiency condensing boiler like a Grant Vortex.