Wood burning stove install

[Dave]

Hi, Im Dave and i thought (and CYE) yous might be interested in my recent stove install. I,ve not really posted pics on a forum before so bare with me. Can i upload pics direct from my pc or do i need to do it from photobucket?

[dave]

We had an open fire but after the chimney caught fire and destroyed the liner we decided we needed a better and more efficient way of heating our home. The fire had a back boiler which was heating domestic water and all the radiators so we decided to install something that would do the same. After some serious research we decided on a Boru Carraig Mor 20 kw multi-fuel stove which are made here in Ireland. I,ll chuck up pics from start to finish-a few stages are missing as i forgot to photograph them. 1 st up the open fire minus the surround,sorry that pic is too big so its just after the old back boiler has been dug out and the opening made bigger

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[dave]

The company we had in to line the chimney also opened up the space but knowing what i know now i could have done a far better job of it myself. Next pic hole opened,register plate and flue adapter connected to stainless flue. Hole looking ruff and ready

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[dave]

Hole starting to look like something and i'm starting to panic about the pipework. I blocked of the bottom pipe with a stop end and joined the top 2 pipes together,this ment my oil heating still worked without a problem because at this stage my stove was still a week away from being delivered.

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[dave]

Rather than remove the old hearth we decided to re-tile the old one with the same tile as we where using for inside the opening

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[dave]

Base and one side done.

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[dave]

This is where i,m missing a few stages,i was that busy getting the stove in i forgot to take pictues. After the lefthand side was done i tiled the back and then we fitted the actual stove leaving the righthand side open to sort the pipework. We fitted the 3 pipes,2 at the top and one at the bottom before sliding the stove in as it was fairly tight at the back.The stove pipe needed cutting to length so we just used a 5 inch grinder and a file to tidy it up. Next pic is after its all plumbed up and we have our 1st decent fire goin after a week or so of little ones. We also set the old surround on just to see what it looked like-Didnt like it lol

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[dave]

We decided the chimney breast needed skimmed and that a mantle shelf was the way to go,i,m kinda handy with bits of wood This pic just after getting the chimney skimmed.

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[dave]

My mantle before i got started 10x5 rough beam.

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[dave]

Wall painted,mantle made and up. I used a bit of 2"x3/8 steel plate routered into the back of the mantle,this then had 4no 6"x1/2" steel bars welded onto it and matching holes drilled into the mantle. My steel bracket was screwed to the wall and the mantle then slid over the bars until tight to the wall. The corbels are just for show but are drilled,dowelled and glued in place and i must say its solid as a rock ;D

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[dave]

I had to make an opening on the side of my chimney breast to get at the pipework which has now been finished off with a wee door-i'll take a pic of it tomorrow and post it up.I also fitted a pipestat which controls my pump for putting the hot water around the radiators and i find this works very well. I am bound to have left a stack of stuff out but if your thinking of doing this kinda thing yourself and i could be of any help just ask,my father in-law and i did this ourselves and it looks a lot harder to do than it actually is,just takes a bit of planning and a few days work but well worth it. We are burning seasoned hardwood and have only used 75 litres of heating oil in the last 7 weeks.

[cye]

Dave, this is great stuff and thanks for posting up your notes. What a cracking job! A fantastic example of how easy it can be to (largely) replace a fossil fuel heating source with a renewable one.


Can you provide some details on the plumbing layout in your house and how the boiler has been linked into the central heating? (I don't know enough about central heating plumbing options to figure out what the 3 pipes are for. I know that one needs a boiler flow and return, so that's 2 pipes, but I have no idea what the third pipe is)

[For others thinking of installing a boiler stove please note : You should only consider a solid fuel boiler of any kind if you have a vented hot water tank and not if your tank is unvented/pressurised. If you have an unvented tank, solid fuel is generally not suitable unless you add in a vented buffer tank and of course in such cases consultation with a heating engineer is essential.

Dave hasn't taken any risks here because (a) he clearly knows what he is doing and (b) the solid fuel back boiler pipework was already there and working.]

Well done Dave!

[dave]

Hi Cye, The top 2 pipes-1 is inch pipe and goes directly to your hot water tank and the other one is 3/4 pipe and its for the central heating/radiator loop and then the bottom pipe is inch pipe and its the return from hot water tank. I just plumbed the stove the same as my back boiler that came out as i knew it all worked. I light the stove and let it burn for about an hour to get the tank well warmed then turn the pump on to get the hot water circulating,as i've my pipe stat set at 60 degrees and controling the pump it only stays on for a few mins as the cold water from the radiators enters the stove and pass's the pipestat it turns the pump off.This on of cycle goes on for about an hour-hour and a half until all the water in the system is hot and then it stays mostly on.

[cye]

Dave, thanks for this. I've almost understood the plumbing but I don't think I'm quite there yet! Can you confirm the whether the following is right?

When the CH pump is off and the stove lit the heated water thermosyphons up to your HW tank? And if so, is there also a heat leak radiator )or heated towel rail or similar) on this thermosyphon bit of the circuit too or does the thernosyphon 1" pipe just go to the gravity coil in HW tank and then straight back to the stove boiler?

The CH pipe (3/4 pipe), when the CH pump is on, this essentially diverts the hot flow away from the HW tank & through the rads instead? And the cold return from the HE tank coil is shared/joined at some point with the cold return to the boiler?

And finally when your stove is not lit and the CH boiler is on, does this heat the boiler in the stove a little or is there some bypass mechanism to prevent the oil-heated water passing through the stove boiler?

Sorry for all the dumb questions!

[dave]

Yeah,when the pump is off and stove lit the water thermosyphons into the HW tank and for some reason when the house was built the plumber didnt put a heat leak rad in-must people have the bathroom rad for this. The bottom 3/4 pipe goes into a "T" piece in the wall-1 side is return from the HW tank and the other side is the return from the Radiator loop. When the pump comes on it then pumps water through the whole system so its heating the HW tank and the Rads. When the oil heating is on it actually heats the stove which acts like another radiator-surprising how much heat it puts out.