Silax, we have 2 HUGE log burning stoves... but they cannot be converted to hear the rads or water because they are on the other side of the house from the CH boiler etc. I investigated... also, I spoke to 2 friends who do have them to run their CH. They reckoned it took a vast amount of logs. We have plenty of wood.. I am about to get 4 trees chopped down in our spinney to be logged up and stored for next winter. This costs around £400 a tree ... I have a very big barn full of wood and this should last us this winter unless it is exceptionally cold. If you don`t have your own wood (and most people don`t) forget it. Round here, it used to be around 40-45 pounds a small pick up load of logs.This year, because of rising labour and fuel costs to transport the logs, they are quoting £100.There is also a dire shortage of seasoned wood. If we had to buy it, one pick up load would last us about a week and that is only for the stoves. To have a stove with capacity to heat water and run CH you would look at about 4 to 5 times that. And the work involved in keeping a wood burner with boiler going is formidable.I investigated having a wood burner with a back boiler on that side of the house... with a much larger burner than we have plus back boiler plus the pipe work necessary plus double lined new flues (H and S are very very strict about these stoves now) the total was estimated around £14K. !! We use one big wood burner in the sitting room off the kitchen which heats both rooms (there is also the aga )... and one in the big drawing room which we only light when we have everyone home, at Christmas as we don`t use that room so much. Yet we still use a big barn full of wood every winter as well as oil and electricity and we do NOT like over-heated rooms.
The trouble is if you have already got a system, then converting it from anything to anything else costs a fortune. If you have a small new house and are starting a system from scratch, if you can have a woodburner with a back boiler, and have your own supply of wood, then it would be reasonably economical. (even if very hard work.) But of course having the wood supply is only half the battle... to actually fell the trees and chainsaw up a barn load of logs is either a job for a young strong chap - which we do not have - or you pay people to do it, and labour and chainsaw costs etc. are high. You can`t just use the local handyman for what is a highly dangerous professional job - I had a young chap who cut the grass and he offered to do it. But I wouldn`t dare employ him without proper equipment and public liability insurance.. none of which he had any prospect of getting. Mowing the lawn one thing, felling trees and using a chainsaw quite another. Risk just too great.
So thanks but it`s a non-starter.
I also investigated wind and solar. I am not a big green and 'global warming' is one of the biggest cons in history ( it has actually been getting cooler for the last 8 years and in any case the global temp is all to do with the sun, nothing to do with us.. world has been warming and cooling of its own accord since time began. But I thought wind and solar might be worth looking at.)
I had a man come from a wind turbine firm. For all our needs, we could install 4 big turbines on the hill, and sell any surplus to the grid. But 1. we would always need electricity back-up because there is only power when there is wind... and the cost was about 30K. Solar, only useful when it is sunny, cost to install about 22K. No grants available.
I decided maybe at least our oil boiler could be replaced to make it more efficient. It is only 6 years old but I know they have got much much better. Man came. Yes, he estimated we could save perhaps 10% of oil costs. Maybe 12% at a push. Cost of new boiler and flue plus VAT.. 3,500 ..
so I`m knitting us all new jumpers.
Seriously, many people in the country are living in old draughty houses. I do not mean the rich. I mean farmers and the like in older farmhouses. They heat with either oil or LPG, both of which cost a fortune and rising. And everything they try to do to cut the costs of heating costs a lot in itself. Gas ? What`s that ? Huge swathes of the country have no gas. Most of Devon, Cornwall, Cumbria and Scotland outside the town, only to start with. There is a lot of fuel poverty as well as every other sort hidden behind the pretty greenery.
Quote Reply
Originally Posted by vegyjones
...typical.....Germany are by far the leaders...
