I’ve spent weeks researching this and thought I’d made a decision but then someone threw a spanner in the works so hoping for some good advice on this forum!
I live in rural France and have NO heating source other than wood. At present I have a small woodburner in the kitchen and electric radiators in the other rooms we live in. The woodburner is alight from 7am-7pm throughout the winter so I thought it would be a good idea to distribute the heat produced to the rest of the house.
I have since bought a Villager AHI (14kw) integral boiler and have been contemplating the best way to plumb it in. I don’t necessarily need it for DHW as this is supplied by a mains pressure ‘chauffe-eau’. I do want it to heat approx 12 radiators throughout the house (total heat requirement approx 14kw). Relying on gravity-feed only isn’t an option as the pipe runs will have to run up-down-and back up again in some places.
I had resigned myself to a thermal store, but the only place for one would be where the ‘chauffe-eau’ is at the moment and size / weight restrictions limits me to a 300 litre thermal store. Because it would replace the ‘chauffe-eau’ means that the TS will need an electric element for heating DHW in the summer, or at a later stage I could add solar input into it. However the costs are mounting and I’m now looking at well over £2k for a 300 litre TS with electric element, solar coil, panels and Laddomat charging unit. I had thought the TS system would be great and would be sufficient to distribute the stored heat for quite a while before I would need to light the stove again but the answers I’m getting back at the moment suggest it would only distribute heat for approx 40mins – 1 hour before becoming cold. And of course if I’ve used that heat to warm the house up before I get out of bed it means there wouldn’t be any heat left in the tank to heat the DHW, so no shower first thing. I’d have to wait until the woodburner was relit and reheat the tank.
Do I really need to spend £2k or can I install something much more simple?
So now I’m re-thinking…keep it simple! Can I simply connect the woodburner to a pumped radiator circuit and if so, would a Laddomat still be an advantage to prevent cold water from entering the woodburner? I wouldn’t need DHW so there would be no tank / cylinder…just the radiators. Of course I will have to make way for 1 or 2 rads (without TRV’s) to be gravity fed in case of a power cut to act as heatsinks, but would I have to use all 4 tappings of the stove to do that or can it be incorporated at the start of the pumped CH circuit. I realise that the house won’t be warm and toasty first thing in the morning but the £2k I would spend on a TS would go a long way to pay for running a small electric rad in the bedroom for an hour before I get up!
My question then really is this…a simple but safe pumped woodburner CH system without DHW or gas/oil boiler back-up.
I live in rural France and have NO heating source other than wood. At present I have a small woodburner in the kitchen and electric radiators in the other rooms we live in. The woodburner is alight from 7am-7pm throughout the winter so I thought it would be a good idea to distribute the heat produced to the rest of the house.
I have since bought a Villager AHI (14kw) integral boiler and have been contemplating the best way to plumb it in. I don’t necessarily need it for DHW as this is supplied by a mains pressure ‘chauffe-eau’. I do want it to heat approx 12 radiators throughout the house (total heat requirement approx 14kw). Relying on gravity-feed only isn’t an option as the pipe runs will have to run up-down-and back up again in some places.
I had resigned myself to a thermal store, but the only place for one would be where the ‘chauffe-eau’ is at the moment and size / weight restrictions limits me to a 300 litre thermal store. Because it would replace the ‘chauffe-eau’ means that the TS will need an electric element for heating DHW in the summer, or at a later stage I could add solar input into it. However the costs are mounting and I’m now looking at well over £2k for a 300 litre TS with electric element, solar coil, panels and Laddomat charging unit. I had thought the TS system would be great and would be sufficient to distribute the stored heat for quite a while before I would need to light the stove again but the answers I’m getting back at the moment suggest it would only distribute heat for approx 40mins – 1 hour before becoming cold. And of course if I’ve used that heat to warm the house up before I get out of bed it means there wouldn’t be any heat left in the tank to heat the DHW, so no shower first thing. I’d have to wait until the woodburner was relit and reheat the tank.
Do I really need to spend £2k or can I install something much more simple?
So now I’m re-thinking…keep it simple! Can I simply connect the woodburner to a pumped radiator circuit and if so, would a Laddomat still be an advantage to prevent cold water from entering the woodburner? I wouldn’t need DHW so there would be no tank / cylinder…just the radiators. Of course I will have to make way for 1 or 2 rads (without TRV’s) to be gravity fed in case of a power cut to act as heatsinks, but would I have to use all 4 tappings of the stove to do that or can it be incorporated at the start of the pumped CH circuit. I realise that the house won’t be warm and toasty first thing in the morning but the £2k I would spend on a TS would go a long way to pay for running a small electric rad in the bedroom for an hour before I get up!
My question then really is this…a simple but safe pumped woodburner CH system without DHW or gas/oil boiler back-up.
