Tired of being cold - solved

[white exec]

Does wood burning save money?
We pay about €50-60 for 1m3 of wood. We have electric under-floor heating (half-price 2200-1200h) in our main living area.
Two winters ago, we left the UFH off, and burnt more wood.
Saving in elec, €200.
Cost for extra wood, €200.

Last house in England was oil-fired Raeburn - for cooking, HW and CH. Now that was lovely. Ship's engine thrum.
Last cost about €700 a year in heating oil, which we saw go up from 8p to 32p a litre between 1998 and 2004.

[elma]

I've been feeling very left out of this thread having left behind both a burner and an open fire. Not going to feel like that for much longer, I'm moving in late January and part of my new role involves looking after 32 acres of Woodland. I predict a really big wood burner in my near future.

[Stickyfinger]

Free Wood ?......get one with a small back boiler to pre heat your hot water....

[elma]

I'm terrified of back boilers, the one in the open fire blew the lid off the hot water cylinder whilst my mate was sat on the toilet next to it. I lived in fear of the damn thing cracking and covering the house with superheated steam.

[Hell Razor5543]

Understandable.

[Gibbo2286]

My last house backed onto the forest and I could have had free access to the dead wood but I installed night storage heaters because I'd only bought the house to renovate and resell.
The people who bought it installed a big wood stove but the novelty of collecting wood soon went off and they installed an oil boiler instead.
Myself....mains gas central heating, I don't think there's a better system and I've had them all in my lifetime.

[CitroJim]

I'm terrified of back boilers, the one in the open fire blew the lid off the hot water cylinder whilst my mate was sat on the toilet next to it.

Wonder if he wondered if what he was doing at the time might have been the cause of it?

There's a (maybe apocryphal) tale of a person on board a DC-9 plane using the loo in the tail section when the tail fell off, as they were apt to along that time due to a structural problem and he was given to wondering if his actions in any way contributed...He survived allegedly... He floated down to earth still sat on the bog one assumes...

Seriously though, what happened to you and your mate is very scary indeed James and your hate of back boilers is well understood...

[xsaras4ever]

A back-boiler is only a means of heating water , just like any other heating system.

Its bad plumbing and lack of safety controls which causes accidents , not back-boilers themselves.....

However , we are not experts , so we are open to correction.

We installed our own heating system using a wood-burning Rayburn.

We have a pressure valve as near to the Rayburn as possible which exits to the outside world.

We also have a pressure bypass on the radiator circuit between the feed and the return and finally there is a return from the circuit to the header tank.

It was our first attempt at this type of installation so apart from suggesting a closed-system any advice will be welcomed.

[elma]

It was poor installation that led to it. I had a landlord that didn't like maintenance at all. Its a dramatic event that I'll never forget, I don't think back boilers are for me. Thinking about it I used to leave the bath tap on to release the pressure. Usually steam came out and sometimes water.

[xsaras4ever]

It would have been very handy if you connected a long hose to it - you could have steam-cleaned your engine bay very nicely........

[CitroJim]

It would have been very handy if you connected a long hose to it - you could have steam-cleaned your engine bay very nicely........

Good thinking!!!

[Stickyfinger]

Back boilers are safe, a badly installed one is a bomb.

Electricity is safe, badly installed it is a Tazer

[CitroJim]

Electricity is safe, badly installed it is a Tazer

True, says he now about to start some new bedtime reading... The Seventeenth Edition Wiring Regs...

A subject I retain a great interest in...

[Hell Razor5543]

A useful book to read (for those into electronics) is "The Art of Electronics". The third edition came out last year (2015)

[Stickyfinger]

A sparkie once described it as like being hit with a plank of wood then fired out of a catapult