wood burner central heating

We have just bought a wood burner here in the UK to take over to our place in Northern Tuscany in the spring. We looked at buying over in Italy but everythng we saw was quite pricey! Our place is only small so we have gone for a unit that has the option of attaching a boiler for central heating if we need it. Going to try it out first to see how much heat it gives us and add radiators next year if we need to. We don't live full time in Italy so do not spend much time in our place during winter months but the option of a warm house in colder months is attractive - Christmas and New Year beckons maybe in future years? We bought a Stovax Stockton 8 which cost us £750. If we need the back boiler it will cost us another £200. Had we just wanted the wood burner without boiler option we could have spent considerably less - £400 - £500 or on ebay there are units for as little as £250 ish! Not sure about quality though. Getting said wood burner to our house on top of a hill with no road access is the next logistical problem - large friends already lined up to make the trip!! Jan

Cheap woodburners are a false economy -you may want to look at a thermal store to keep the heated water in as it will stay hot and can be passed around the rads. http://www.myabruzzohome.blogspot.com

We've been looking at replacing our old oil boiler for a wood pellet one as it is much cheaper to run but was quoted 5.5k euro for the boiler and new wood pellet stove and labour - that was using our existing rads so we put the plans on the back burner (no pun intended) for 12 month. Still think we will go with it though this year as it will work out cheaper in the long run compared with oil - even with the heavy price tag.

Lorraine, I should shop around for a few quotes as a neighbour of ours has had a pellet stove installed and connect to six radiators for around €4k all in. I can recommend pellet stoves as a cheaper option than Wood burners, but look at the quality of pellets you buy as sometimes the cheaper pellets are poorer quality and less calorific.

There is a lot of comment on wood stove selection in the news letters on the heatingitaly web site and far too much to go into here. However - I nearly always fit the Clearview 750 (14kW) with the 7kW back boiler and, as suggested above, use a heatbank for storage and transmission of the resulting energy and for fresh unstored hot shower/cooking water. My all season heating model enables various house sizes to be plugged in and then a range of heating appliances can be inserted .... the annual bill is calculated automatically..... a wood stove is by far the cheapest energy source and I guess we'd all have one for the joy of it anyway but after that there is usually a gap to fill and with heat pump prices now comparable to pellet stoves I'd give serious consideration to the idea of having a small Air Source Heat Pump as well. With one of these you won't need a gas boiler and even solar panels usually give way because the ASHP is so good that the panels struggle to make up their investment. To whet your appetite for an ASHP there's an article in one of the older newsletters on how to get 6kW of heating power completely free of cost.

A woodburner with a water system needs a lot of gadgetry and safety valves apart from the rads. A cheaper system, if your house is suitable, is ducting warm air from an insert or 'foyer' via 10cm ducting pipes to various parts of the house. I recently paid 170 euros for a fire http://www.bricodepot.fr/montauban/search/node/poele%20foyer I have a system in my farm here in Wales which I bought in France 15 years ago and it's brilliant but you have to get a good source of wood.

It's easy to get carried away & gold-plate the job by spending a fortune on an all-singing-&-dancing system. I'd suggest you set you sights lower, unless you're loaded, & consider something like a Jotul secondhand off Ebay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?rt=nc&LH_ItemCondition=12&_nkw=jotul%20stove&_dmpt=UK_HG_FireplacesMantelpieces_RL&_fln=1&_ssov=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m1539 Do some research & you'll learn they are one of the premier Norwegian woodburning stove manufacturers. I know of models that have been running like a dream for 30 years. May not be for you but worth a look & a ponder. There's always someone with a van going back & forth to & from the UK that needs some loads to help with fuel &, if & when you decide to up-grade to the latest technological marvel, you can flog the stove on in Italy to another Brit & get your money back.

Lorraine,there is a Jotul woodburner for sale(see above reference un AngloINFO Umbria site.Shouldn't be too far from Northern Lazio,don't know if this helps or not.

If just a holiday home, why not just get air/air inverters. Can heat or cool the house. Prices for some about E1000 each. Just need a system then for DHW.