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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
These two books are the perfect starting place to help you get to grips with one of the most vitally important aspects of our society - our homes and living environment.

PLEASE NOTE: A download link for Volume 1 will be sent to you by email and Volume 2 will be sent to you by post as a book.

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    • CommentAuthorkirstycain
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2009
     
    Hi there we are after some advice please. We are about to commence an extension and renovation of old clay lump, semi cottage. We would like to use a wood fired back boiler to heat the house (will be 3 beds) and were originally thinking underfloor if possible as thought more efficient, how ever we both work so unsure if will be effective as wouldnt want it on all day when at work. We also considered some kind of solar water heater but unsure if this can connect into system or what to choose? and if we would need something else as back up in the winter? We currrently have electric emersion that never actually gets that hot. Theres no gas supply and not keen on getting oil. Any ideas would be greatfully received, oh and of course we are on a tight budget!!! Thanks, Look forward to hearing from you:bigsmile:
    • CommentAuthorDavipon
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2009
     
    If you put woodburners into the search box at top of main page you get lots of stuff,:bigsmile:
    • CommentAuthorMarkK
    • CommentTimeJan 14th 2009
     
    what you're proposing can be done, of course. It's really a lifestyle thing....if you have the discipline to keep the stove going when you need it, then go for it. If you want mod cons (heat on demand), then you need an automated boiler for back up.

    re your underfloor........ if you insulate your house as much as you can then it's not going to loose all the heat you put in. As to whether it feels warm...that's psychological.....if you come into a cold house and flip the radiators on that get nice and toasty in a few minutes, you touch it and it feels warm...... you put underfloor on with a flow temp of 40/50..... if it's sized properly, it'll still be throwing out the same amount of heat energy but at a lower temp (but more of it)...it'll still heat your house but you wont get that immediate fix of hightemp heat to your cold hands.

    hope that makes sense!
    • CommentAuthorBowman
    • CommentTimeJan 14th 2009
     
    You'll benefit hugely from a thermal store, lots here if you search. If you opt for individual programable room stats for the UFH you can set the temperature back to say 12 to 15degrees during the day, while heating the house while no-one is in it might be a little wasteful the response time to your evening temperature is much reduced. The thermal store is the key though.
    • CommentAuthorkirstycain
    • CommentTimeJan 14th 2009 edited
     
    Thanks for the advice, i will look into areas suggested, I hadnt even considered the thermal store, sounds interesting.
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeJan 15th 2009 edited
     
    How many hours a day would you want to have the fire running? Personally I wouldn't want to be lighting it before leaving for work. In which case I would want to "size" the stove and thermal store so that the energy put into the store from say 6pm to midnight was enough for all the heating from midnight until 6pm the next day and for showers etc. 6pm to midnight is 6 hours or quarter of a day so to put it simply the stove would have to provide roughly 4 times the power that the house looses plus some for the hot water.

    I would also design the system (and lay pipes when building the house) to allow something like a gas boiler to be installed easily later - just in case the novelty of a wood burner wears off. My elderly relatives are horified when I tell them that people want to use wood burners these days. They grew up with wood and coal and couldn't wait to get gas installed...but then they didn't have thermal stores.

    Don't forget to put a large log store on the plans. Ideally somewhere where it's easy to access from the house and the driveway. Think about the work required to move a ton weight of logs from where they were dumped around to the wood store every 6 weeks. I would look at something big enough to take 4-5 cubic meters of loose logs. Perhaps more if you want to season your own.
  1.  
    You are in exactly the same situation as me. I have opted for a wood burning range cooker (a great big storage heater) and seperate stove with back boiler to run my heating (radiators) and hot water. I admit that at certain times of the year I will use coal to keep both fires in all the time. In my defence, I guarantee that my house is colder than most people with gas or oil (or electric) heating, so I'll be keeping fuel usage down.
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