If you heat your house with solid fuel what do you do....

[Indith]

when you go away in the winter? With gas central heating we always had it to come on a little bit each day to avoid the pipes freezing, what do I do? Do I have to drain the system? I don't know how to do that

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sorry i can't offer you any advice on this but will be watching the thread with interest, as we have a solid fuel boiler. We only moved into the property in August so still getting used to it.

I do use another forum where i could ask about this and maybe get an answer. If so i'll come back and let you know.

thank you

We too moved here in August so still very much finding our feet.

first response is that you should anti-freeze to the system and set the pumps to run twice a day. But they didn't elaborate on that so it may not be very helpful.

My parents live up the road and pop in to top up our boiler with fuel so this isn't really so much of a problem for us.

What sort of boiler have you got? Ours is an ancient (but sturdy) Trianco anthracite boiler. I ought to get in touch with them really and see if they have any advice.

I wouldn't know where to add the antifreeze and we can't set our pumps!

We have an aarrow fires stove. Light fire, fire heats water, when water in storage tank reaches certain temp the pump kicks in and sends the water round the radiators circulating. It is old and basic! No timers or anything fancy.

i'd suggest getting in touch with Aarrow. These companies tend to be very helpful, i've had an Aarrow and a Clearview woodburner in previous properties and whenever i've got in touch they've been very helpful. They'll probably be able to put you in touch with an engineer to advise you on your particular system.
Hope you get it sorted.