We recently moved to a largish,2700 sq ft, south facing bungalow in Sussex and want to cut down on the amount of LPG,which was already installed before we arrived, used to keep the central heating system going.

The roof space is fully insulated and the cavity walls filled and all the windows double glazed.

We added a 30 tube evacuated solar panel in the summer which provided all the hot water required without having to resort to the LPG.

We now want to get rid of the old cooker and replace it with a Rayburn/Esse type one
a/ to cook from
b/ to heat the kitchen
c/ help warm up the cylinder water so that the LPG does'nt have to kick in so frequently to keep the central heating upto temperature.

Would I be rigt in thinking that I need a 3 coil cylinder to take the 3 heat sources, ( Solar,Rayburn/Esse,LPG) and that by investing in a Rayburn/Esse to help boost the water temperature in the cylinder that the call on the LPG will be far less?

Would a 3 coil water cylinder be the same as a heat store?

Would a Dunsley Neautraliser need to be fitted?

What would the best arrangement be to save on the use of LPG?

Do not want to go to the expense of taking the LPG out,and also want to have the comfort factor of the Rayburn/Esse.

Any information would be gratefully received, and if any plumbers, who live near Battle, East Sussex, would be interested in plumbing in the Rayburn/Esse please get in touch.

Rgds DES

David,

I can only comment on your plans for the cooker as this mirrors what we have done in our property. We've got an ESSE W23 which we use to cook/heat up the kitchen/warm up the cylinder water so that, in our case our oil boiler doesn't have to kick in to top up the heat very often. The dealer that supplied the W23 'designed' the link-up system between the cooker/oil boiler using thermostats and solenoid valves. Our local plumber piped it all together and it works OK but we DO get problems with the oil boiler locking out when the whole lot's running together.

I'm no heating engineer/plumber but most people seem to suggest that in our application, a neautraliser would have made more sense. (Although our plumber said that you get problems with systems incorporating these as well)

We're happy with the ESSE W23 - the 'new' (rebadged) SFW boiler fitted Rayburns still have the boiler in contact with the firebox, so your woods not going to burn as cleanly or efficiently.

plumbing all the heat sources into a tank/s gives the best flexibility and redundancy. if the rayburn packed up, you loose those radiators or would have to reroute their supply if you wanted to rearrange your system in the future.

Further to above comments.We have also added a wood burning stove in the lounge.Would it also be worthwhile linking this upto the hot water cylinder/s to further boost the heat entering the system, and therefore further cut down on the times the LPG has to kick in, or would this be overkill? Understand if this is done the heat given out into the lounge will be less.Also the lounge stove is about 24' away from the hot water cylinder/s so presumably any heat given off by the stove might loose alot of it's input travelling to the cylinder/s.The intended introduction of the Rayburn/Esse will only be about 5' away from the cylinder/s.Being a bungalow everything is on one level and we have a sort of utility room backing onto the kitchen in which the LPG boiler ( an Ideal Mexico floor stranding model),hot water cylinder, and all controls, are housed.The normal water tank is up in the loft more or less over the Ideal Mexico and hot water cylinder.

The current hot water cylinder already has two coils one for the solar the other for the LPG heating aspect.If we add the Rayburn/Esse heating input can this be put into a separate cylinder,or can it be put into the current cylinder by changing the pipe work around for the solar coil to accept the Rayburn/Esse heat and get another cylinder for the solar heat, or would it be better to get an altogether bigger cylinder that has three coils to take the three heat inputs ( solar,LPG,Rayburn/Esse) or even a four coil cylinder,if they are available,if it's thought worthwhile to link the longe stove upto the hot water cylinder.Just trying to make use of the heat generated by the solar,Rayburn/Esse,lounge stove in the best possible way so that we don't have to use the LPG so much.
If all this is possible what is the best method to adopt for controlling the heat input into the hot water cylinder/s so that the whole thing does'nt explode?