Rayburn boiler up to the job?

[jimbo5050]

The house that we moved into has a Rayburn Regent oil fired cooker/water heater in the kitchen. When I had it serviced I was informed that it was originally a solid fuel burner which had been converted.
The water that it heats is stored in an emersion heater tank in the loft and the water is scorching hot. No need to switch on the emersion at all usually.
A small central heating system was also added by the previous owners (6 small radiators) but all that happens when the pump is switched on is that the hot water disappears from the emersion, one or two of the radiators become very luke warm and that is it.
I have tried leaving it on for hours but it just stays like that. I have also tried just leaving one radiator on but nothing improves the situation.

 

[kevplumb]

pumped heating is piped off the gravity primary by your description

only realastic answer is to pipe them from the boiler tappings

in answer to the subject i fitted one in a bungalow with 12 rads and it laughed at it was solid fuel tho client was a coalman

 

[oilman]

Regents have a heat output of about 10,000 btu to water. Any more than this and the burner will struggle. The control system on the heating side has to prevent the boiler temperature dropping, so it needs flow and return stats. There's quite a lot to these things.

If you must have central heating, add a boiler. You CAN run it into the same system, but it is NOT a diy exercise, and most "heating engineers" will not be able to do it either.

 

[kevplumb]

apologies oilman
the rayburn i fitted wasobviously up to the job

 

[oilman]

apologies oilman

the rayburn i fitted wasobviously up to the job

But the one you did was solid fuel (according to what I read). They were designed for it, but oil vapourising conversions haven't got the heat available. The Novelle and the 498K can cope, but they have two burners, one for cooking and a monster for heating.

 

[jimbo5050]

Thanks for the help.
Looks like I'll just have to fork out for a boiler then!!