Who has a thermal store?

[betterwhenthesunshines]

Is it worth the installation cost?

We have existing solar thermal tubes, in need of a good clean. The current woodburner is not connected to the water system but we are having some building and re-plumbing done and are thinking about a woodburner (14kW output) whch links to a thermal store.

But it's expensive. Does it work? How long does it 'hold' the heat for? eg. would you still get hot water in the morning from heat stored from the woodburner the night before?

Any well-insulated cylinder (which a heatstore is, though it works the opposite way) will stay hot for more than 24 hours.

From what you say, I am guessing you do not have a gas boiler.

14kW is about enough to heat a typical modern house, if pumped to radiators. It will consume a lot of wood, though. It would be interesting to know what the total installation cost, and the running cost, work out at.

Thanks. Good news about the heat retention.

We currently have a Rayburn ( which is going as I'm afraid I don't like cooking on it) which does the water / heating on its second boiler. We also have an open fire in the sitting room (rubbish) and a large old woodburner in the hall. Which is welcoming, pumps out the heat fairly centrally, but it soots up the glass as it just has open air vents on the front. It also means we have to keep 2 wood fires going and then we still have to fire up the boiler / immersion for water and heat to the rest of the house.

The whole fireplace area is going to be rebuilt so I am looking at this double sided boiler which you would be able to see from both the hall and the sitting room, seems to have about the right amount of heat to the room and a lot to water. Perhaps too much, but all the other boiler stoves are really old fashioned looking.

I like this one but I don't think you can add a boiler to it.

We will also need an oil boiler for back up and to heat the house for periods when we are not there in the winter. Dartmoor. Too complicated!

btw, what's the reason you need a heatstore rather than a big cylinder? Will they be using it to drive the radiators when the boiler is out? I don't know how quickly it will be drained of heat if so.

I like your double-sided boiler but not keen on storing wood in living rooms because of the dirt and insects.

Maybe we could just have a big cylinder? I thought a heat store was a better way of doing it - can have solar thermal, woodburner, oil boiler all feeding in to it on open system. No need for storage of large amounts of hot water under pressure like a Megaflo. But taps/ showers etc can all be mains pressure as the heat is just transferred rather than the hot water in the thermal store actually being used to come out of the taps.

I know you can use woodburners on pressured loops, but wasn't sure about the solar thermal.

I know what you mean about wood, but at least this way you could build in a wood store so you don't have to tromp it through the house on a daily basis!

yes, if you want mains pressure HW you would need a thermal store or a megaflow. Then you don't need a cold water tank. However you must be sure you have a very good flow of water from the main or one tap will run slow when you turn on a second. This is very annoying especially if you are running a bath or shower.

Fill a bucket at the sink and see how many litres per minute you get.

Wouldn't that be dependent on the rubbish tap that's currently fitted?

Currently thinking it's all too complicated and should just run electric panel heaters, electric shower and a woodburner not connected to anything!

We have this stove which is similar in look to the second one you linked to. It is very efficient. We just have it linked to the hot water tank and the heating though not a store, don't know how that would work. Having multiple systems/options is a slight fantasy but the logistics of it confuses the hell out of me!

if you have a stylish Italian tap, yes, it will restrict the flow. use the garden tap or whatever cold tap looks old-fashioned, is not a ceramic, and seems to have a good flow.

Thanks for replying. Yes, that looks similar to the Stratford Ecoboiler that I have also looked at (although I like the look of your better, but I'm worried the window looks a bit small. I suppose that's the price you pay for a good heat output! 20kW total is a good output - currently I would say we use approx 12 logs a day for a 3-10pm burn. HArd to compare, but how much do you get through?

what about this Stovax one?

The one I linked to is the stratford ecoboiler, they are aarrow stoves (or aarrow are stratford, anyway they are the same) :). It is quite deep so you do get a nice view of the fire. We don't have the storage space to burn wood so we burn smokeless ovoids. We got the stove tail end of last winter to replace the old aarrow boiler stove that this eco range has replaced and we have used probably half to a third of the amount of fuel this winter and had the stove on 24hrs a day rather than freezing all day and lighting it in the evening to get hot water for hte dcs bath (it damps down very, very well for the night so that it pretty much doesn't burn anything just stays in enough to start up again when you open the airflow in the morning).

Piglet John - thanks - will use garden tap and watering can!