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Air intake for Multi-fuel stove


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48 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

http://www.c20fireplaces.co.uk/parts/baxi-burnall This take air from outside for an open fire. The In Laws had one

 

Indeed.  Taking the air intake for stoves from outside a house is increasingly common practice, but not (yet) mandatory.  What the regulations do say is that the room containing the stove must have a certain amount of fixed ventilation, according to the output of the stove.  This may involve extra ventilation in modern houses, but not in boats although AFAIU the ventilation recommendations  for BSS are advisory only.   Perhaps the OP was taking modern stove installation in houses as a guide.   But a boat is not a house,

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26 minutes ago, Mac of Cygnet said:

 

Indeed.  Taking the air intake for stoves from outside a house is increasingly common practice, but not (yet) mandatory.  What the regulations do say is that the room containing the stove must have a certain amount of fixed ventilation, according to the output of the stove.  This may involve extra ventilation in modern houses, but not in boats although AFAIU the ventilation recommendations  for BSS are advisory only.   Perhaps the OP was taking modern stove installation in houses as a guide.   But a boat is not a house,

Maybe something similar to this in the instalation instructions 

 image.png.4801feb88391464d173ac8af612ec6c4.png

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!0 m3 of air to burn I litre of oil? Hmmm, that's quite a lot but our little paraffin heater (loosely based on the incredibly expensive Taylors heater, £1500 ish !!!!!) will run for ages on a cupful. Works very nicely and is flued to the outside. draws air from the cabin though. I reckon it uses about two Tesco carrier bags of air an hour.

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1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I remember the Ellis boiler instructions that insisted on a vent cut through the floor in front of the boiler, tricky on a boat I thought.

Bloody good boilers though in their day, had no problems with ours.

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30 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Bloody good boilers though in their day, had no problems with ours.

Indeed, they were built like the proverbial battleship; we still have ours. The original installation had an air hole in the cupboard door in front of it, with a standard louvred grill in front of it, but it used to melt the plastic sight-glass regularly until I removed the grill and replaced it with a more open cover (actually the grill from an old bbq). The one drawback, it is rather inefficient and gets through the gas rather fast!

 

ETA We have had to change the control gear once, and now I'm terrified in case it fails again because apparently spares are almost impossible to obtain.

Edited by Keeping Up
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On 16/09/2020 at 16:48, Tracy D'arth said:

A heat source with a sealed balanced flue which draws air for combustion from outside is so called because under all conditions of wind the air pressure outside is the same on the product discharge flue and the air inlet. So it is safe, no flue gasses can enter the inside.

What you are talking about creating is not a balanced flue but a product flue and a remote air inlet which is not safe. It would not be allowed under building regulations if they applied to boats. The external air pressures can cause products of combustion to enter your living space. Carbo Monoxide is the silent odourless killer.

The best wheels are round, don't try to invent another shape.

I fear you have no clue of what my system is about - or, what I'm trying to achieve - never-the-less, your wheels may be round, as are mine, I'm adding pneumatic tyres...and treads and vulcanized rubber while you're happy with cart wheels...

 

Point I'm trying to make is that the wheel, like any other invention, is continually being improved.

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9 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I fear that you have no experience of fitting out or living on a narrowboat, However do as you wish, the experience will add to your education.

Certainly, The experience so far has been very educational. There are three ways of learning, Observation, Meditation, and Experimentation. I like to use all three ways.

Edited by alistair1537
double worded
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45 minutes ago, alistair1537 said:

Certainly, The experience so far has been very educational. There are three ways of learning, Observation, Meditation, and Experimentation. I like to use all three ways.

So have you experimented? For the 3rd time, have you lived on a boat in the winter? You obviously haven't.  I have experimented with air flows round a boat and this clearly showed how important the draft was from the stove to aid the circulation and therefore ventilate the boat properly. Without that draft, you airflow will be restricted and therefore condensation will be a big issue and spreading the heat down the boat will be more of a challenge.  Once you get a stove going, you won't need to save heat. A boat is very different from a house.

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17 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

So have you experimented? For the 3rd time, have you lived on a boat in the winter? You obviously haven't.  I have experimented with air flows round a boat and this clearly showed how important the draft was from the stove to aid the circulation and therefore ventilate the boat properly. Without that draft, you airflow will be restricted and therefore condensation will be a big issue and spreading the heat down the boat will be more of a challenge.  Once you get a stove going, you won't need to save heat. A boat is very different from a house.

I concur, the problem is getting rid of excess heat.

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Funny thing airflow. Used to live in a small terraced house, the roofspace had been boarded out and was a tiny bedroom, there was a Velux window in the roof and if you opened it the rest of the house immediately smelt of soot. The normal airflow was reversed, the airflow out of the velux overcame the usual flow up the chimney and the chimney pulled sooty air into the house. If you had tried to light the fire it would have smoked like hell and if the fire was glowing nicely it would have filled the house with nasty gas. I recommend using the draw up the chimney to pull low lying cold damp air out of the boat to provide combustion air.

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19 minutes ago, Bee said:

Funny thing airflow. Used to live in a small terraced house, the roofspace had been boarded out and was a tiny bedroom, there was a Velux window in the roof and if you opened it the rest of the house immediately smelt of soot. The normal airflow was reversed, the airflow out of the velux overcame the usual flow up the chimney and the chimney pulled sooty air into the house. If you had tried to light the fire it would have smoked like hell and if the fire was glowing nicely it would have filled the house with nasty gas. I recommend using the draw up the chimney to pull low lying cold damp air out of the boat to provide combustion air.

Flue reversal.  As I said this is the risk. 

I had a panic call one day from the H&SE about a boiler change we had done recently. The house owner had experienced product of combustion smells inside the house. 

The new gas boiler was in a conservatory with an existing uninsulated cement asbestos flue terminating 700mm over the gutter line. We had tested the flue and the air supply into the conservatory and found it to be satisfactory after the boiler change.

What had occurred was that they had decorators painting upstairs who had opened all the upstairs windows on a cold day. This had caused the flue reversal.

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49 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

So have you experimented? For the 3rd time, have you lived on a boat in the winter? You obviously haven't.  I have experimented with air flows round a boat and this clearly showed how important the draft was from the stove to aid the circulation and therefore ventilate the boat properly. Without that draft, you airflow will be restricted and therefore condensation will be a big issue and spreading the heat down the boat will be more of a challenge.  Once you get a stove going, you won't need to save heat. A boat is very different from a house.

Dear Dr. Bob - I haven't bothered to answer before because the nature of your demands indicate your obvious superiority in all matters pertaining to living aboard - I don't wish to debate your experience. I am interested in your experiments - Did you try an external air source for your multifuel? Did you run any experiments with heats and moisture levels? I'm especially interested to hear how your fuel demands increased or decreased w.r.t. any experiments you performed. I feel we all have a part to play in our awareness of carbon levels on our planet, so any conscious effort to reduce emissions should be lauded. 

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Only stove I have had that needed an external air input was a Sig Marine diesel stove. The air input had to be piped from near to the flue output so that the differential in air pressure was at a minimum. Before I fitted the air inlet the stove flame was susceptible to outside doors being opened etc.

Small solid fuel stoves do not need a separate external air intake to function properly.

I will also add that in a house you do not need additional air inlet if the stove is below 5kw.

Edited by Loddon
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6 minutes ago, alistair1537 said:

. I feel we all have a part to play in our awareness of carbon levels on our planet, so any conscious effort to reduce emissions should be lauded. 

In which case a multifuel stove is not the way forward. 

Solar or wind powered electric heating would seem to be the route to take.

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3 minutes ago, Loddon said:

In which case a multifuel stove is not the way forward. 

Solar or wind powered electric heating would seem to be the route to take.

Doubtless, but until such time as practical, affordable solutions are available, we have to still burn carbon based fuels on boats.

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8 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Nuclear, zero carbon, no consumption of oxygen.

A radioisotope generator would be ideal for a boat. Provides both heat and electricity year round. In summer, the heat could be dumped in to the canal via a skin tank. In winter, used to heat radiators. A steady supply to charge the batteries all year, day and night and your roof clear of solar panels. Used to be used in the Soviet Union for powering lighthouses and the like. Would give you a warm glow inside all year round! As they haven't been made for some years you would have to buy second-hand. You would need to refuel it with some fresh Strontium 90, but I'm sure you could find some on Ebay. CaRT doesn't specifically say that you can't dispose of spent radioactive waste in their refuse bins.

 

Jen

 

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