Selfsufficientish.com

Hi, I've been looking into changing my old oil fired combi boiler for a pellet boiler. I've now started thinking about a wood burning stove with back boiler (to replace the one I already have and use a lot in winter to save on oil) and was wondering if I could use it in conjunction with the combi boiler? I would have to fit a hot water tank/buffer/store whatever and I think there would be problems around vented/unvented systems but has anyone done anything like this? I would like the option of solar water heat at later date.

Any ideas/comments would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Rob.

replied on your other thread about pellet burners..

I didn't answer your thread about pellet stoves because I don't know much about them. I don't think I'd have one either, not least because getting wood is hard enough round here, pellets would have to be shipped in from somewhere.

However, in answer to this I know a little more as it is similar to the set up in the house we're about to sell. It already had an oil fired combi CH system. We were going to remove it, but as we're now selling up we'll let someone else go to that expense, if they want to.

What we opted for instead was to super insulate the building so that the CH would only ever need to run minimally. With a wood burner for colder days. If you have a combi system I see no point in burning fuel to heat a tank of water that may or not get used - you only heat what you're using with the CH so why add another system.

Had we been removing the oil-fired CH, however, we would have replaced it with a solid fuel Rayburn - runs radiators, hot water, direct heat and can be cooked on of course.