Heat acumulator tank on rayburn?

[normandylumberjack]

Can anyone tell me if i can plumb a heat accumulator tank to my old solid fuel rayburn?

The reason i ask is i burn wood on it at the moment, but it wont stay in for the night. It leaves our house cold in the morning, and so we would like the abillity to set a timer/programer to warm the house in the morning.

We have got arround this by using coal, but its 20 euros a bag and this lasts only a couple of days....... wood is free to me so the cost of the acumulator will be returned in no time.

Also what size would be ideal for a 9 rad, large farm house. well insulated and double glazed, 170m2 floor space?

 

Any help much appreciated.

[WorcsWuss]

What Rayburn do you have? I see no reason why you can't, I think that's a prime example of what they can be used for.

I swapped my Royal for a reconditioned Supreme last year, and fitted central heating. We run it on smokeless, mostly because of a very convoluted flue. As you say, it stays in but costs a bloody fortune - even more than coal! I am seeking alternatives!

I'm considering a negative pressure flue fan to keep it drawing, then i can revert to hardwood.

If I swap to wood I would need to consider installing an accumulator, smokeless has some great qualities which I would miss if I go back to wood. An accumulator would help somewhat.

Edited February 13, 2012 by WorcsWuss

[normandylumberjack]

Thanks, its a Supreme- reconed in Hereford- great service.

I got an insulated flue from warrior in Cornwall, cost about a grand, but its great!

I put an external rodding point to keep the soot out of the kitchen.

[WorcsWuss]

Who reconditioned it?

My chimney runs up the centre of a pair of cottages [which the latest school of thinking says is the best place for it...] so external soot door is a non starter unfortunately.

Is your flue flexi or rigid sectional? I've heard good things about the sectional flues but they're pricey and I couldn't get one fitted in my place anyway....

I don't have an accessible register plate either, I think the previous owners fitted the shower enclosure over it.... This means annual sweeping from above, which means a flue fan will need to be easily demountable. It's all terribly complicated!

I'm still yet to establish the most efficient and economical method of heating the house!

[Justme]

We have a Rayburn SFW 212 that has a thermal store connected to it. That provides all our hot water & minimal "wet" heat via the rads. We have the rads come on for two one hour periods each day to warm the bed rooms. The main living areas are heated by the Rayburn its self or the Little Wenlock wood stove.

 

The boiler output on the SFW212 is just 2kw. As its run all day (and will stay in over night most nights) it can collect the energy slowly for releasing when its needed. I guess that it can make about 25-30kwh per day.

[Tom D]

I noticed on another thread that a lot of rayburn owners burn coal and smokeless, is this because you can't keep it in?

 

I can keep mine in every night, even on leylandii. In the 5 years we have had it it has never burned anything but wood. Tree surgeons buying coal seems like madness.

 

I can't figure out why some will go overnight and some won't.

 

TD Tree & Land Services Ltd.

[WorcsWuss]

I think it comes down to flue efficiency, how the chimney draws, how much heat output you're after etc... I could keep ours in all night on wood, but I'd get bugger all heat and a lot of soot. I heat a [relatively large] 4 bed house off ours so I need to keep it ramped up to keep the rads warm. This is partly to do with the pipework runs we were stuck with in our funny little house.... needs a lot of heat to get round it all.

The main reason I burn smokeless at the moment is just that, we're in a hole with a bendy flue so I need minimal smoke, otherwise it billows out of every joint and fills the house up....

[normandylumberjack]

Who reconditioned it?

My chimney runs up the centre of a pair of cottages [which the latest school of thinking says is the best place for it...] so external soot door is a non starter unfortunately.

Is your flue flexi or rigid sectional? I've heard good things about the sectional flues but they're pricey and I couldn't get one fitted in my place anyway....

I don't have an accessible register plate either, I think the previous owners fitted the shower enclosure over it.... This means annual sweeping from above, which means a flue fan will need to be easily demountable. It's all terribly complicated!

I'm still yet to establish the most efficient and economical method of heating the house!

 

I used a mix of the two, our chimney is too narrow to line, so, the flue runs into the register plate of the chimney, breaks through the wall of the stack into my bedroom with flexi, and up into the loft, and trough the roof with sectional. Used a stainless flashing plate and topped with a cowl. All made by mid-therm and the quality is fantastic.

[WorcsWuss]

Interesting... I hadn't thought of that.... I have the airing cupboard directly above the second 45 degree bend in our flue, I could bypass the chimney all together and take a new flue straight out the register plate & up through the airing cupboard, loft & out of a new cowl.... and make it nice and tall so it draws better.... hmmm... ideas....!

[Stereo]

It sounds like you want to store heat during the day to run rads at night. I would suggest going for a big tank if you want to do that as our underfloor heating will drain the tank of heat in no time.

 

One thing I would suggest looking at which we haven't got is a laddomat. The problem you get is that you are starting the fire each morning with a cold tank of water and it kills the performance of the stove for hours until it all warms up. I'm hopefully putting one of these in this year.

 

We have an Esse W23 which is similar to a Rayburn and it's brilliant when the water is hot but let the tank go cold and it's a pig and worse than useless. Lots of smoke, lots of soot because you have a constant flow of cold water coming into the boiler and it takes all the heat from the fire.