Heating

[Chris]

Morning Guys,

Looking to sort the heating out gets cold in the winter.

My thoughts are: A wood burner which can heat the water and run some radiators.I’m thinking as we will be using the log burner may-as-well get one that can do the above as-well. Any of you guys have this sort of set-up? Is it working well -what are the running cost and was it expensive to buy and fit? Or over recommendations, will add we do not like the look of the electric wall rads.

Thanks

Guys

[andyh4]

I think it depends on whether this is a holiday home or a permanent residence. If the latter then I would say that you need a more automatic system than a simple wood burner.

Firstly my credentials:

In the UK the house we bought had exactly the system you suggest. Probably not designed as well as it could have been. Complete pain to run and operate. Chopping and storing wood in all weathers. The wood was cheap (council waste from cutting back roadside and park trees) but was only available when they were doing their work.

Balancing getting enough heat into the building during the hours you were there and ensuring the back boiler did not then overheat during the night was a pain. When getting in from work, the house would invariably be cold and the fire out. Getting it going might take an hour or more.

In spring and autumn you had to keep a close watch on the weather forecast in order to decide whether to light the fire or whether you could just rely on electricity to give you the hot water.

In the end we installed oil central heating and used the stove as a nice to look at back up.

In France we have followed a similar route with oil central heating and latterly a nice to look at wood burner to consume the result of completely gutting two buildings. This is certainly reducing our oil consumption but is no less work. At least it is not an essential to be kept going just to keep warm and have some hot water.

One thing to note is that if you are house proud, a wood burner will ensure that everything gets coated with a layer of ash - no matter how careful you are in removing the ash, or how careful you are opening the doors to put another log on.

[Théière]

The only ash problem we get is in the vicinity of the woodburner.

Don't leave out pellet stoves, less work than a normal wood burner, can be automatic timer started and run boilers.