Rayburn? esse? help please.

[juliedaisy]

hi i am new to this forum but wondered if anyone could help. i live in a (soon to be) 3 bed cottage which is currently heated by a parkray fire. i want to remove this and i would love to put in something like a rayburn to provide hot water and heating. it would have to run on oil? what are peoples thoughts on these - i know there are diff makes including rayburn, esse, redfyre any thoughts on what best? unfortunately the budget will not run to a new one - what price would i be looking at 2nd hand? we have no chimney in the kitchen so think this effects flue type? what about costs - people keep telling me to beware as oil now so expensive?
sorry for all these questions - any thoughts appreciated
jules

 

[skier-hughes]

We have a large 3 bed farmhouse. 16 radiators heated by the rayburn. To heat the house and do the cooking we'd look at about £2,500 a year in Oil.......

As we do the kitchen we are looking at installing either a woodburning boiler or a new oil boiler seperate from the rayburn.

The older models are either on or off, obviously with a heat up or down control. New models have the ability to turn on and off like a gas boiler.

This would save considerably on oil, and I can't see the price of this coming down much if any at all, so a new rayburn would pay for itself in a few years, maybe 5 - 10 years for us, as we had a quote for about £8k installed. Whereas a new oil boiler and change the existing rayburn to cooking only would cost about £2k. Repay itself in no time at all.

I still need to do more research on the wood burner, which at present is a good idea as we can get lot's of free wood, but if this ends, I need to work out my costs.


Graham

 

[geoff]

If you don't have gas, your options are limited, especially if you don't have a chimney (bottled gas would be cripplingly expensive). I have been looking at refurbished oil ranges - try http://www.tradcookers.com/ and http://www.countrystyle-cookers.com/pages/rayburn.html
as they both do reconditioned Agas and Rayburns. The Rayburns look interesting as they both use pressure jet conversions which means they can be controlled by a timer etc. and should be more efficient - saving a lot of oil. The tradcookers oil burner appears to be able to run on a balanced flue - the only option if you haven't a chimney (I haven't a chimmney in the kitchen either). If they can work on balanced flue they suddenly become very interesting. Mind you, pressure jet burners can be a bit noisy because they use a fan, so try and listen to one first.

I haven't seen anywhere offering other makes - you'd have to risk ebay etc (possibly cheaper but risky).

Guesstimates of running costs on oil appear to be in the region of 0.5 - 0.8 litre to start up to temperature and 0.25 - 0.3 litre per hour after that to keep it at temperature - central heating costs should be around the same costs as a conventional oil boiler.

The only other option is solid fuel, but they are not controllable and would be a bit messy and time consuming - they're for cooking only, really, and think about the heat in the kitchen in summer if it's your only cooker......

 

[Anne]

Before you install one make sure you find a couple people locally who will service them. I've had to look over an hour away to find someone who deals with gas rayburns.

 

[MDE]

I have just removed a Rayburn Royal from my kitchen. It was working OK, but not what I wanted. I'd like it to go to a good home, so I'm happy to let it go for free if someone will collect it (Cumbria). If you want it reconditioned with a pressure jet etc., then you would need to organise for one of the previously-mentioned firms to collect it for you.

 

[juliedaisy]

thanks everyone for your thoughts - def need to look into this more. MDE think i have sent you a private message, re your royal. thanks again

 

[Penners]

Our last house had a Stanley range that did all the hot water, central heating and cooking, fired by oil.

Our present house has an Esse that does the same (16 rads in quite a big house, like Graham) - we had it installed because, having had the range previously, we'd never be without one now.

Our expenditure on oil in the current year is likely to be something like £1400-1500. The Esse has a distinct advantage over our old Stanley, in that it has two burners - one for heating and one for cooking, so these can be independently controlled and used.

If (like us) you have no chimney for a flue, you can have what's called a "power flue". This is a fan in a box that can be sited pretty well anywhere on the outside of an outside wall and draws the fumes out through a flue pipe. So as long as you have an outside wall somewhere reasonably near the range, you haven't got a problem.

 

[erusfarley]

I have just removed a Rayburn Royal from my kitchen. It was working OK, but not what I wanted. I'd like it to go to a good home, so I'm happy to let it go for free if someone will collect it (Cumbria). If you want it reconditioned with a pressure jet etc., then you would need to organise for one of the previously-mentioned firms to collect it for you.

Not to put a dampener on things but a Rayburn royal will not heat rads and hot water.
I also have an oil fired rayburn royal and spoke to many "experts" (i was hoping against hope to find a way of not spending on an oil combi) regarding connecting just to rads but apparently it cannot be done as the burner is insufficient. (mighty fed up I was)
have since put in an oil fired combi boiler and wish I hadnt bothered.
with the price of oil ever increasing it is seems to me to be the most inefficient way to heat a house, easy, yes, economical, NO.
I wish we had kept the rayburn for water and had a wood burner with back boiler for rads.
like I said I dont want to put a dampening spirit on things but think very carefully before spending a couple of grand on an oil boiler, I will never buy one again.

 

[Penners]

have since put in an oil fired combi boiler and wish I hadnt bothered.
with the price of oil ever increasing it is seems to me to be the most inefficient way to heat a house, easy, yes, economical, NO.

Yes, oil has risen in price a lot over the past year. But so has gas. Oil is still no more expensive than gas or electricity fuelled heating appliances.