rayburn "living with"

[Tom]

I am not going to take him up on the counter offer and do some proper r and d.

A wise decision

 

[CliffordPope]

We have just replaced an old Rayburn that was falling to pieces with a reconditioned 70s Royal from Hodges Range Cookers. It cost about the same price as a good secondhand one, but was entirely rebuilt, all parts re-enamalled. We could specify fuel, left or right handed oven, one or two lids, F or C, colour, etc.

The solid fuel models are slightly different and are not all optimal for every purpose, but specifications can be altered to order:

1) The boiler can be standard, ie hot water only, or higher ouput (up to 5 radiators) or have a completely different fire box and boiler and run full central heating. From experience you can run slightly more radiators but you have to keep it burning hotter.

2) Pure coal/anthracite fireboxes are different from wood-only ones. Coal strictly speaking needs an additional vent to give upper air to ensure complete combustion - it is a slider just inside where you put the fuel in. You can get way with the wrong one to some extent, eg if you burn a mixture

3) The grids differ for coal and wood. The circular kind is meant for coal, the front/back slotted kind for wood. That's because the ash is different. But again, you can get away with the wrong kind, but you need to go carefully with the riddling or you loose all the log embers through the larger coal holes.



We do all our colder months cooking on the Rayburn, and it burns continuously. The kitchen is always warm, outlying rooms less so. It runs 3 radiators easily.
Cooking is straightforward but you need planning. Keep a large kettle half on the hob, for drinks but also to get things like pans of potatoes off to a good start with hot water.

I wouldn't dream of using it in the summer, it would be overpoweringly hot. We use an emmersion heater on Economy 7 and a 1930s Radiation New World on LPG for cooking.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Did somebody mention a wood burning/multifuel esse? Tell me more. I did not think that it had entered the market yet.

 

[Flyfisher]

There is info on both btus and radiator surface area square footage but it still looks underpowered as all our rads are quite big.

I am notgoing to take him up on the counter offer and do some proper r and d.

I started a spreadsheet about a year ago for this very thing and it quickly became quite complicated, not in a complex way but in a lots-of-factors way (if that makes any sense). Room sizes, thermal performance of the walls, inside walls, outside walls, temperatures on each side of the walls, target room temperatures, window sizes and thermal performance etc etc. No wonder people use 'rules-of-thumb' to size such systems and this must be where the 'too many radiators' thing comes from.

The bottom line is that the heat source will only deliver a maximum of [insert BTU/KW rating here] and it can be divided among as many radiators as you wish but the end result will depend on the space being heated and how quickly that space loses heat, through draughts, ventilation and conduction. The numbers can quickly become quite scary though if trying to maintain the whole of an inefficient house at tee-shirt temperatures.

My current thinking is for a stove/boiler arrangement just to take the chill off the whole house and then stoves/fires only in the occupied rooms.

 

[JoceAndChris]

'Marm, well done for not rushing into this and keep us posted with details of the system you choose. It's all so tricky.

I've been keeping an eye on the 8 rads over the last couple of days, as this is the first winter for us to properly monitor how the thermostat/ automatic timer arrangement is working. I've just noticed that if you turn the rads up to the maximum setting (6) in the main reception rooms then the bathroom one doesn't get hot at all, but if you turn them down to 4 - which is still hot - then all rads are pumping out lovely heat.

I must spend the rest of today blu tacking newspaper over the skylights, stuffing paper in crevices etc.

I think FF's idea is excellent, have a central system but also individual heat sources - that's sort of the system here but the old open fires are just so inefficient.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Joss - if you PM'd yamin I'm sure she'd tell you all about her new Esse - but I think you're sorted already?

 

[skier-hughes]

Our buffer tank is situated in what was our low loft, cold north side storage room. I built an insulated room inside this using kingspan equivalent and we have only a few degrees heat loss over night.
The tank is 5m from the fire/back boiler, but maybe 10m from the rayburn. With those pipes being in the house it doesn't matter if they lose any heat, it's heating us up Our Solar panels also have a run of about 10m down to the tank.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Joss - if you PM'd yamin I'm sure she'd tell you all about her new Esse - but I think you're sorted already?

Yes I am sorted but am intrigued as I was told by Esse that they were not bringing out a multifuel one this year

Anyway my Son has bought the latest Everhot for his small one up and one down stable at the end of my ex's barn--- so Everhot now adds another dimension to our PPUK range cooking debates. Anybody got one to tell us about?

 

[Schoolmarm]

Esse have a woodburner, not a multi-fuel I think Jocelyn.


Graham, I saw your buffer tank and it isn't as monstrous as I thought.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

aah, maybe that's it then. sorry.