Stove boiler plumbing help or contact much needed!!

[keep-on-keepin-on]

Hello all,

 

 

I need a bit of advice with regards to our current heating set up. At present we are just hot water from the engine which is feeding the thermal store. There is also a non functioning gas boiler which is connected the the thermal store and the radiators. It has at some point had a stove with a boiler so the pipe work is there.

We have just bought a stove with a boiler that we need fitted pretty urgently. The only person i have managed to get hold of is quoting £99 + vat + parts and estimating 6 hours! everone else is say they cant do boats.

I’m still looking for someone near east London to do this but from what i can tell i just need a pump fitting before the cold in, and some link pipes to fit to the the boiler and a pressure vent on the hot out and or expansion tank.. although i’d rather not i’m wondering if i can do this myself Once the work is completed its having a bss re-test so work will be checked. What is confusing me is the thermal store side of things.

If the the rads are connected to the store and our engine heating is working and all valves are open then does anyone know why the rads would not work?

It looks like adding a pump would pump water around the rads into the store and back out. I was once told to to get hot water from a back boiler with my existing system, i would have to upgrade to a twin coil tank. Surly if the water is being pumped through the boiler and into the tank that would give me hot water aswell? I have seen diagrams with out a expansion tank can you use a boiler stove without in any case? if anyone has a old scholl plumber mate who is up for a job let me know

.

 

Cheers Rich

Edited January 29, 2015 by keep-on-keepin-on

[springy]

Hi Rich

 

I presume you are using the term "thermal store" to refer to the domestic hot water storage

tank aka calorifier (or even cauliflower). If as you suggest this has a heat input from the

engine and from a gas boiler (model/type ?) then you should already have a twin coil.

Is It vertical or horizontal - if vertical and the exchanger coil on the gas boiler/radiator

circuit is below the exchanger on the engine cooling circuit then there will be relativley

little heat transfer from the engine cooling via the stored hot water into the gas boiler/

radiator circuit, probably as designed - means the water in the tank is more likely to be

still hot for you to have a shower in the morning when summer cruising and no central

heating required.

Is the existing SF Stove boiler plumbing connected to the same circuit as the radiators

& gas boiler. ? As I understand it a boiler in a solid fuel system should be connected

to an open vented system i.e. have a header tank - if it is in tandem with the gas boiler

then there may be issues there - particularly if the gas boiler runs a relief valve protected

pressurised system - even if it does have a header tank it may be relatively small.

 

Fitting the SF stove is another story in itself and may be why people are saying

"they can't do boats", recent installation "recommendations" are very difficult

to comply with - hearth, fire retardent surroundings, double skin flue, etc.

Though it may also refer to gas installations - a gas safe registered person

must have extra certification to work on boats - not rare but many gas installers

may not hold the qualification.

 

hope this helps

 

springy

[spadefoot]

I would have thought that £99+vat+parts is not a bad price at all. Connecting engine/calorifier/rads & stove with back-boiler all together so they all work is a bit of a black art though. Make sure that whoever does it really knows their stuff. If the non-working gas boiler can't be fixed properly, get rid of it.

I did all mine myself but kept things separate, engine does hot water & stove does rads.

[system 4-50]

I assumed he meant £99 per hour...

[MtB]

I assumed he meant £99 per hour...

 

Still sounds a bargain to me if the bloke can install the stove, connect it up and get it all working in six hours flat. Sounds to me more like two or three days' work once all systems are tested (including lighting the stove and running it up to temp) and getting the inevitable teething problems ironed out.

 

 

MtB

[keep-on-keepin-on]

Hello, thanks a lot for your the help - my head was spining at bit after morning of google and talking to every fitter on the heta site. its a Stanley waterford multi fuel going in. Its looking like we may have to keep it simple for now and seperate the cauliflower out the way and just get the rads going. Spadefoot for do you still use a expansion tank in your set up? and has anyone heard of using one of the rads that is not needed in the system as an expansion tank?

 

And yes 99 per hour i was bit suprised at but you do get what you pay for.....most of the time.

 

If anyone knows a stove fitter that is really in love with there car or boat. I am in the final stages of setting up new a paint restoration/detailing business i 10 years experiance in the trade and would be weil up for a skill swap - its long shot but you never know

[spadefoot]

Yes, back-boiler feeds two rads on gravity fed thermo-syphon system with expansion tank. Hot pipe vents into expansion tank & tank feeds into cold return pipe by gravity. There is no pump & the system is non-sealed. I used a large 4 gallon tank at first but I'm going to replace it with a much smaller one for next winter now that I am happy that it all works ok.

[smileypete]

How much time have you got? Try a forum search on backboiler or "back boiler" will turn up plenty of topics on them.

 

At least it'll give an idea of what's involved, much depends on the layout of the boat as to whether a gravity thermosyphon, or a pumped system, or a combination of both is used.

 

Just to give an idea, here's a basic layout with two gravity and two pumped rads:

 

 

cheers, Pete.

~smpt~

[Nige123]

don't Google this it's is not a DIY project...

If you forget the boiler & it over heats it will make steam you will have a Boat Bomb on your hands....

This will burst plastic pipe work & melt skin off instantly just ask any plumber very dangerous if you get it just a wee bit wrong....