Feeding Rads from log burner

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Hi, I’d like some advice, I’ve had the idea of installing a log burner in my front room, but I’d like to go a step further and have it heat the rads eveywhere else in the house, I have a Worcester combi boiler fitted, and I was wondering if I could just t into the heating system down to the log burner and fit an additional ch pump to it get it circulating round, question is in by doing this am I going to cause fault with the boiler?
 
Fit a thermal store, expensive but you can link in gas/oil, solid fuel (log burner) and sola
 
Fit a thermal store, expensive but you can link in gas/oil, solid fuel (log burner) and sola
Well I was kinda looking for a easy/cheap way, but would you say my plan would work? Because I’d still like my boiler to heat water coming from the taps
 
Fit a thermal store, expensive but you can link in gas/oil, solid fuel (log burner) and sola
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Well I was kinda looking for a easy/cheap way, but would you say my plan would work? Because I’d still like my boiler to heat water coming from the taps
Wet woodburners are not cheap and easy.
Unless you get timber or coke free, the cost per kwh is higher than gas.
Your plan would work for 30 minutes or so.
If you are lucky the pressure relief valve in the gas boiler will do its job and prevent the whole system from exploding.
 
Well I was kinda looking for a easy/cheap way, but would you say my plan would work? Because I’d still like my boiler to heat water coming from the taps

Not that easy I am afraid. Solid fuel has very little thermostatic control, and needs some form of heat sink to dissipate unused heat. The system has the potential to boil the water, and needs to be built with appropriate safety systems in place. A combi is usually fitted on a sealed system, they would need to be kept separate, and connected to the Rads via a suitable Heat Exchanger.

Not really a DIY job, needs someone who knows what they're doing or you could create a potential bomb.
 
Adding a secondary uncontrolled heat source to a CH system will never be cheap and easy.
 
Wood has far less energy per cu.m than coal

You will be constantly shovelling logs into it.

I have a rural relation who put in a large multifuel, and wishes now she had bought a gas boiler. Multifuel are more efficient and cleaner than log burners.

A multifuel of modest size can easily heat a cylinder, and will be cleaner in use.
 
Torrent pipe example.PNG
This is the basic idea, as @algas said with first answer, the idea is the wood burner can get rid of the heat using thermal syphon, although it shows a pump, water can still circulate without it. There have been some ideas, the stove shown here Hughes Condensing Stove 2 small.jpgwas claimed to be condensing and super efficient, I wrote to them and asked what system was used to cater for power cuts, I got no answer, same with this wallnoefer.PNG one, great ideas, but not thought through, the rocket rocket-mass-heater-diagram.pngdoes seem to work, but not connected to the central heating, and near impossible to get home insurance with one fitted, so most these ideas are just that, an idea, which has never really been thought through.

The tank shown on the first diagram looks simple, but in real terms very expensive, only seen one fitted, it was fitted when the house was built, so the floor could take the weight of the two massive tanks, diagram shows one tank, but in real terms it was two, I would guess around 150 gallons of water, it was enough so when my brother-in-law who lived in the house visited his children in Germany by turning the temperature down when he left, the solar panels could not only stop anything freezing, but heat the twin tanks enough so at airport on return he could turn up temperature and have house toasty warm using the stored heat, and once home one fire in the evening would maintain the house temperature all day.

So on moving he thought good idea to get installed on new house, got quotes around £24k, no way at 70 would that ever pay back, so he like everyone else has a fire as back up should the oil fired central heating fail, but no back boiler fitted.

The problem with solid fuel is one can't simply switch it off, even with the simple side boiler fitted to my mothers Aga when the water supply was lost, it was a case of rake out the fire, lucky quarry tiled floors, as some ash would always fall on the floor, and she had two fires without back boilers so could still heat the house, but no cooked meals until water supply fixed.

The pipes Aga to cylinder we imperial but around 32 mm, and when she made cakes the water did some times boil, the noise told us what had happened and we would run off hot water, the header tank was steel, so boiling water in the header tank was not a problem, with plastic tanks they can fail
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so either metal or thermal setting not thermal plastic plastic needs to be used.

The report blames the lack of a cut out in the immersion heater, but had the tank been metal there would not have been a death, one normally sees the steaming water coming out of the over flow, but clearly no plastic pipes or tanks were used in the 50's when back boilers were common place.

I did see a narrow boat with a Aga with side boiler, it had two 12 volt pumps, from 2 batteries, so one pump would always work, also a weekly test was done to ensure both pumps worked, it was a DIY job by an electrical engineer and it was criticised as not being safe without a open vented header tank, it was open vented, but with a header tank the boat would not fit under bridges, as it was he lost his chimney due to a low bridge.

So in real terms a non starter, as unless done proper, you will have no valid insurance, due to the dangers involved.
 
Midnight requisition is the only method that springs to mind. Coal used to be easier (NCB donkey jacket, shoddy tipper van, drive into pit yard, load up, drive out).
Are but your not talking about digging it out of the ground at night like you went into a forest a 3am to steal the half wroten off cuts that the contractors could not be bothered with. You are talking about an actual working site where the coal is in a bunker and ready to be collected.

Are there any working coal mines left any more? I though the one in Maltby was the last they shut it!!! down
 
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