Hi

On Thu, 9 Mar 2006 06:35:45 +0000 (UTC), HandyMart
wrote:

Any advice on using the back boiler in a wood burner to augment an
existing expensive to run oil fired Rayburn heating system? Has anyone
done this? What would be the best solution?

It's another of those 'it all depends' situations..... g

Firstly - what sort of woodburner do you have - and what sort of heat
ourput is claimed to the back boiler. Bear in mind that you'l only get
the claimed outpur with the woodburner going 'flat out' - which may
make it uncomfortably hot in the room which contains the woodburner.

AFAIK, there are two systems for 'coupling' boilers together. The
problem to to make sure that the 'cooler' of the two boilers doesn't
end up looking like a radiator, and taking heat from the other boiler,
rather than contributing heat to the system.

One system is a metal tank that sits underneath your existing hot
water cylinder - full details here....
http://www.dunsleyheat.co.uk/linkupsys.htm
and a discussion about its use here
http://www.newbuilder.co.uk/forum/in...zie_1129020452

The other system was a cube, about 1ft per side, which contained a
bunch of motorised valves - and acted as a kind of 'changeover switch'
between the two heating systems - controlled by thermostats. Can't
find a reference to it at the moment.... sorry

Both systems will involve a fair bit of re-plumbing to retro-fit....

If your central heating system is pumped (likely) then don't forget
that your woodburner will need a gravity-fed radiator 'somewhere' that
can dump heat in the event of a mains electricity failure. We lost the
mains back in January - by the time we'd got back from walking the
dogs the 'heat dump' radiator was far too hot to touch, the system had
boiled over, and there was a very 'hot' smell about the place.
Luckily, I've got one of those 12v to 240v inverters - so we were able
to run that from the car until the mains came back.

ISTR that Dunsley were very helpful when I contacted them....

A Google on 'Dunsley neutraliser boiler' will give you hours of
reading pleasure g

Good luck !

Adrian
Suffolk UK
http://www.brentnall.plus.com/bungalow.htm


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