Retro fit back boiler

[Shox Dr]

Thinking of fitting a backboiler to the wood stove.
Several reasons; remove excess heat from l/room, and bedroom above. Supply heat via radiators in master bedroom, and garage/workshop (below).

There’s not enough room at the rear of the stove to fit a back boiler. There is space between the firetop and the mable top. We regularly cook on the top so there is more than enough heat there. However there must be a reason why boilers aren’t fitted to the top of stoves? Any ideas why not?

Pipe work can go straight up into the loft, where I could place the header tank, and some sort of heat exchanger/tank. I’d like to tranfer the generated heat into the CH system, however this is a sealed system combi, can you get tanks with coils to supply heat and water. flatplate heat exchangers are cheap enough these days?

 

[fizzy]

On my old woodburner the boiler was L shaped - half went over the top and the other half down the back.
Remember you will need an access port for chimney sweeping if you have the boiler at the top.

 

[Fazerruss]

Hi Dave I'll ask my brother how he did it when he gets back from his jols.
He has pretty much the same set up as you describe. The wood burner boiler is in his workshop which is also plumbed into the house. The house has a standard combi boiler sealed system.
I'm fairly certain he just made the wood boiler part of the sealed system and it works fine.

 

[gaz1]

if you know your name of wood stove you maybe be able to find its addon back boiler some have them and some dont

some fires dont have them high up for 2 reasons thermal shock from flat cold water and also you can boil the water inside of boilers

 

[Shox Dr]

if you know your name of wood stove you maybe be able to find its addon back boiler some have them and some dont

some fires dont have them high up for 2 reasons thermal shock from flat cold water and also you can boil the water inside of boilers

It’s a Stova Riva66 inset. I rang them up enqiring about a cabinet, a very snooty woman told me Id have to buy a new fire at 3k so I build my own. So I’ll not both calling them

 

[knighty]

one thing is you don't want to cool down the firebox too much, it'll soot/tar up if you do

and the burn is more efficient the hotter it is... most people don't care about how efficient their wood burner is... until they swap to a more efficient burner and suddenly they only have to chop/store/carry half as much wood

how fussed are you about cooking on top of the marble? - you could always remove it and fit your heat exchanger there? - easier to do because it's not inside the firebox and you shouldn't have any problems cooling the fire too much?

you won't get as much heat out, but that depends on how much heat you need I guess


I've googled and can't see that same stove with a wet heat exchanger fitted (thought you could nick their ideas)

 

[gaz1]

i dont think your model has an internal boiler or was made for a boiler being fitted

however not the end of the world you can use radiant heat from your stove

as reference

https://www.glowing-embers.co.uk/ShopByBrand/AradaStoves/Add-InBoilerForAradaStoves

one thing he didnt also weld up the bars too the top plate which would stop it expanding as much thicker plate is better to use

 

[Gwil]

I added a coil made from 3/4" underground copper pipe to the top of my Canadian diesel stove, and a friend did the same to his woodburner. Both very successful- the coils went just out of sight above the window.

You can do it easily with the pipe filled with (dry) sand, wooden bungs in the ends and a blowlamp Three or even two coils will do it. The heat transfer is very efficient, perhaps better than with the back boiler.

 

[addjunkie]

My advice, bide your time they do come up used now and again. We have a stanley lismore stove and heat the house with it most of the time in winter.

 

[julianf]

There’s not enough room at the rear of the stove to fit a back boiler. There is space between the firetop and the mable top. We regularly cook on the top so there is more than enough heat there. However there must be a reason why boilers aren’t fitted to the top of stoves? Any ideas why not?

We had a top of the range wood warm stove. It had two L shaped boilers that covered the back and sides, and the the whole top was a water tank, with the flue attachment in the center of it.

Stove was rated to 20kw dry, and, depending on the boilers fitted, this was then split between room and water. With all boilers, output to the room was cut right back to 3kw or so, with the rest to water.

We did not install the stove, but they're a current model still, I think, so have a look on the woodwarm site for some numbers / ideas?