DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

with no gas to my new property and winter approaching i do not really fancy an ugly gas or oil tank in the garden so thought about water and heating from either a rayburn or mutli fuel stove can anyone give me some advice on these please.

It all comes down to how much much work/time you are prepaired to give to your heating system. You mention multifuel I presume so you can burn wood, but it is not a case of choping down a tree and throwing it on the stove. The timber must be dried (seasoned) for at least a year, prefer two years until all the sap has dried out, so you would need a wood shed large enough to store at least 3 years worth of timber. If that's not put you off then for a stove to give out enough heat to a back boiler for the boiler to run your hot water & radiators it must have a large fire. This fire give out heat to the area that the stove is installed, which means that any thing up to 6 or 7Kw of heat (approx. 24,000btu's) of heat will be heating that room, so I hope you would have a very large room for your stove to sit in. Then there is the fact that it is not instantanious, you have to clean the stoves grate out, refuel the stove, set the fire and then wait for hot water & radiators to heat up and all before your day starts! Then repeat at night when you come in from work. The Rayburn is a bit more simpler, but you still need to carry out the maintenance and you need a fair size kitchen to accomadate it and cope with the heat it will give out. So the answer is do you have the life style that can accomodate a multifuel stove/solid fuel cooker?