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I'm back on the house hunting trail, one of the houses we've seen still has a back boiler. It runs off multi fuel, so wood and coal. It also has a solar panel set up and dual fuel radiators. I'm slightly confused about such a set I've never seen such a set before. Anyone familiar with wood/coal back boilers?
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No experience whatsoever :S
Nearest I have is a wood burning stove. But it seem such a shame that I cannot harness that heating capacity combined with a back boiler as heat is the main product of the burning process. I could have installed a back boiler stove but the amount of cosmetic/structural damage to get to the cylinder was something I couldn't have coped with.
I'm imagining a a cylinder with a twin coil arrangement. One coil taking heat from the stove and the second from the normal boiler or an immersion arrangement.
When you say solar panels. Is that for electric or hot water? If it was hot water then it would require a storage cylinder.
Anything that has an alternative fuel is quite appealing. Providing it works
Last edited by: Fullchat on Mon 10 Aug 20 at 22:43
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When you say solar panels. Is that for electric or hot water? If it was
>> hot water then it would require a storage cylinder.
>>
Not entirely sure as we've not been around to view the property yet. All I can work out is that it's an odd set up.
>> Anything that has an alternative fuel is quite appealing. Providing it works
Having looked at it last night, I'm not sure it would work for us. The house does have what we need, so I've looked into ripping it out and replacing it with a heating oil system as there is no gas to the property.
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>> Having looked at it last night, I'm not sure it would work for us. The
>> house does have what we need, so I've looked into ripping it out and replacing
>> it with a heating oil system as there is no gas to the property.
Can you get gas to the property at any cost, or simply not at all?
When we moved here it was oil. I looked into changing to gas. It would have been 10k ish, 20 years ago.
We elected to stick with oil, but if I had my time again I'd have spent the 10k.
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Can you get gas to the property at any cost, or simply not at all?
I did a bit of research this morning and it turns out there is gas on the street.
I've done a rough quote and company are saying 900 quid. I don't think it's too bad.
>> We elected to stick with oil, but if I had my time again I'd have
>> spent the 10k.
We had oil a couple of houses ago, the price certainly went up and down more than gas.
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 12 Feb 21 at 10:50
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>> We had oil a couple of houses ago, the price certainly went up and down
>> more than gas.
I wouldn't replace a serviceable gas boiler with a heat pump, but if I was replacing a heating system in a house without a gas supply I would definitely go for the heat pump.
They will be dearer than an oil boiler to install but cheaper to run even before the RHI payments.
Bills should be roughly the same as gas.
Whichever you do it could turn into a bigger job of course if the existing radiator circuit is inadequate or in poor condition.
We're building a new house. I'm just having the gas removed and we will go with air source.
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Worth doing then. It's not so much the price of oil for me, though it's probably cost more than gas. It's the necessity of changing the oil tank every handful of years, for some thousands.
Each time it's put in according to regs, next time they always say not good enough anymore and it creeps further into the garden. Then you either have an old concrete base to remove and make good, at more expense, or leave a series of platforms.
I think we've had either three or four tanks in 20 years, and at about 2 to 3k a shot. The tank costs half that, the rest is installation/certification.
Also the warranty on them gets less each time.
I've started putting a car cover on them to protect from UV a bit. First sign of surface cracking, they get condemned. At the last annual boiler inspection this cover was noted and logged as against regs, on a serious looking form. Might block the vent, you see.
Add in suppliers who promise they will be there Monday to refill, then you have to chase them for a fortnight, they might begrudgingly then give you half what you ordered, plus sleepless nights while the thing runs on fumes and if it does stop then it's another callout and a fortune to reprime it...
No thanks, gas next time for us.
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When we moved to this house 40 years ago it was all electric with storage radiators Not good.
Fortunately British Gas were working on the gas main about 70 yards away. Got quote for about £400. The supply was installed in a day, using an ingenious device called a"mole" Best thing we ever did.
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We did the same in a house in Kent also about 40 years ago. There was gas in the road so it wasn't too expensive to get it laid into the house.
The house had a bodge of an Aga in one room and a fire with back boiler in the lounge, and the heating seemed to come from both - though in actual fact very little hot water got very far past where the pipework joined. So we have them taken out and replaced with a rather more boring but efficient and cleaner and more easily maintained gas boiler.
There was a small amusing side story about the Aga. I advertised it in the local rag and a bloke came and gave me £300 I think for it, saying he'd come back with suitable vehicle and mates to take it away. When it' had been sat in my garage fora few months with no contact from the bloke I was getting round to selling it again when he suddenly popped up. Turned out he'd been away at Her Majesty's pleasure for a stretch...
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>>Anyone familiar with wood/coal back boilers?
Once a long time ago and once more recently with a boiler behind an aga.
Both an utter PITA on a hot day, because I didn't want the fires on. And an even bigger PITA in the winter if I came home after a few days away - which I did/do often. Not a problem if you don't travel so often of course.
Also, I had no solar setup, and that may very well make all the difference.
Of course, on the plus side, they do use heat which would otherwise disappear up the chimney.
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Both an utter PITA on a hot day, because I didn't want the fires on.
>> And an even bigger PITA in the winter if I came home after a few
>> days away - which I did/do often. Not a problem if you don't travel so
>> often of course.
Yes that's our concern, having had an open fire before it was a novelty at first and then just became a faff. I'd rather have something more modern and controllable.
>> Also, I had no solar setup, and that may very well make all the difference.
>>
Could do cost wise, it appears to have very generous feed in tariffs.
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Your level of feed in tariff was determined by the date of installation. The feed in tariffs are guaranteed for 25 years, tax free and inflation linked. There was a strong link between the cost of installation and the feed in tariff - each time the FIT was reduced down came the cost of supply and installation.
I'm on a fairly good one., not the best however. I only have a modest 14 panel south facing installation but I last year I was paid nearly £1600, and saved probably £300 or so on electricity.
They aren't particularly attractive and there was a time that they might put people off a house but they are financially a considerable asset IMO. You would need to make sure that the FIT is being signed over to you as I believe they could take your payments with them. They could also take the panels and inverter but the FIT would not be claimable by them on a new installation.
Generally speaking the cost of maintaining them is low. An inverter failure is about the worst that can happen and could set you back up to about £1k but they are reasonably rare (though I suffered two in quick succession under warranty!)
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The tariff goes to the new owner, that's what the blurb states.
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Sounds like one of these. I wouldn't think there are more than a handful still in use.
www.c20fireplaces.co.uk/parts/baxi-burnall
They made sense when houses were heated by open fires I suppose but with central heating? It would be more trouble to me than it would be worth. I can well see that solar thermal would be a good complement to it.
There have been some accidents when redundant ones have been panelled in, and someone has later revealed the fireplace and lit a fire and the redundant boiler - now without a water supply - has exploded!
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Heat to the boiler will of course reduce heat to the room. From my experience of holiday cottage rentals, stoves that run on wood and/or solid fuel don't perform well on either and are fussy to manage.
I once had a solid fuel Pither Studio stove with a back boiler. It was a dreadful stove - very hard to light and inefficient - so may not have been a good example of the setup but I spotted no saving on the gas bill. I replaced it with a Gazco room heater. The house also has gas central heating.
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The only way to have real multi source integrated hybrid heating and cooling, is to have it all planned into the house at design stage.
Everything else added piecemeal is just expensive inefficient sticking plaster. Unreliable and unmanageable.
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Bit of a follow up, turns out that the property does have mains gas but the current owners didn't want to use it so cut out a small section of the gas supply pipe and had it capped off. For whatever reason they preferred a combination of coal, wood and bottled gas.
So if we do go for it and get it, it'll be a case of fitting a gas boiler (possibly outside) and then rejigging the pipe work, which isn't half as much work as I thought might be needed.
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Beware of connecting a new hi-tech gas boiler to existing pipes & radiators. The grit, s***, rust etc associated with an old coal fired boiler can play havoc with new boilers.
Next door to me the new owner was warned by his supplier - the actual new gas boiler was fitted in no time BUT the floors were up & the copper hot tank junked & copper pipes replaced by plastic.
Floor boards did not survive the trauma as most split - new wooden flooring laid throughout.
He got the keys 12 months ago this week & the refurb took 8 months before moving in. Still at it but living in one half whilst the work progresses - took 2 x as long as forecast & nearly 3 x the cost - cash poor he now does a lot himself / pals BUT has workmen in when the budget allows.
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How old was the house?
Yes I had thought about the difficulties of just that, I guess it's a bit if a finger in the air type of thing. The house isn't that old, 1980s and it did have mains gas at some point. So at least it's not a hundred years old on coal.
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Nobody will give the extended warranty on a new boiler (7 -10yrs) with old pipework unless the whole system has been thoroughly (and 'professionally?') power flushed. Power flush can also reveal leaks or hidden corrosion weakness. In the 1970-89s there was some really dodgy copper pipe about that has succumbed to multiple pinhole leaks so factor in the potential cost of new ceilings and carpets!
Also be wary of old microbore systems that popular in new build at around that time.
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As part of a new boiler install and to make the warranty valid you have to have had a full system flush. Wouldn't that remove concerns over carp in the system?
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Back boilers - Fullchat
