Old open fire with back boiler.

[Tagged]

Hi

I live in NI. I have a timber frame house which I bought 4 years ago. The old owner had a marble fireplace with an electric fire insert which I could lift out by hand. The house is oil fired central heating.

I've sold the fireplace and wanted to open up the old open fire again. It has a back boiler in it and a pump in the hot press which also does not work. There's an old gas pipe which runs out to the back of my house, the pipe isn't connected to anything.

My goal is to have an open fire to heat the living room or ideally the back boiler to heat the raradiators. Looking online it seems the back boilers are dangerous and especially old ones that haven't been used?

Can I remove this easily and put in a simple stove to heat the room or am I looking at major work here ?

Thought it would of been straight forward as getting a chimney sweep and a new pump but seems.not.

Any advice appreciated thank you.

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[ChrisJP]

I not clear why you're hearing that back boilers are "dangerous". Was it explained in what way they are dangerous?
As long as there is an unobstructed pipe run from back boiler to the hot water tank/cylinder and back then there is no danger.
The hot water cylinder can be direct, with the hot water you get from the taps being the same as that circulating through the back boiler, or it can be indirect, with the hot water from the back boiler circulating through a coil in the hot water tank, so that the hot water from the taps is separate.
You'll need to establish which type of system you have.
If you have oil fired central heating then it's likely that, if that includes providing your domestic hot water supply, then that will be achieved with an indirect cylinder. It's therefore possible that electrically operated zone valves have been installed that shut off the coil in the cylinder when there is no call for hot water from the oil boiler. If those zone valves also shut off the pipes from the back boiler then THAT will be dangerous - because the back boiler will heat the water and it will have nowhere to go - this can give the possibility of an explosion.
So you really need to trace all pipes from both the oil boiler and the back boiler to see how they connect with your hot water cylinder, and verify that there are no valves on the pipes to and from the back boiler.
I had to do this is my own house which had both a (disused) back boiler and an oil fired boiler. I found I needed to rejig the pipework to provide the unobstructed run from the back boiler before I could use it once more. This does mean that when I'm running central heating from the oil fired boiler I get some hot water going through the back boiler but I've accepted that, as a necessary issue to ensure safety when using the back boiler.

 

[gas112]

yep old back boiler left in place can and do explode if they have had water left in them and the pipes away from them sealed then a fire lit in front of them .
i take it there is another boiler fitted somewhere in the house

 

[Tagged]

Reading online it's saying they can be dangerous?

I have an oil fired boiler in the garage which heats water had radiators at the same time, there are no valves to stop it heating the water its on my long list of things to install over time when money allows.

So what are my options in terms of getting this back boiler up and running safely or getting It taken out altogether for a stove?

Thanks again

 

[gas112]

Reading online it's saying they can be dangerous?

I have an oil fired boiler in the garage which heats water had radiators at the same time, there are no valves to stop it heating the water its on my long list of things to install over time when money allows.

So what are my options in terms of getting this back boiler up and running safely or getting It taken out altogether for a stove?

Thanks again

its ancient so i would take it out all together

 

[ChrisJP]

As I said in my previous post, just make sure there are no valves between back boiler and HW cylinder. If your oil boiler also heats the water in the HW cylinder, then the pipes from the back boiler must join those from the oil boiler somewhere. If there are no valves at all in this system of pipes, then running the oil boiler will probably give you some HW circulating through the back boiler, and vice-versa.
Ultimately it would be a good idea to install a motorised valve in the oil boiler to HW cylinder circuit, as long as this doesn't obstruct the back boiler to cylinder pipe run. The normal way to do this is to have the cylinder thermostat triggering the valve to open when there's a call for heat, and then the microswitch on the valve triggering the oil boiler startup.

 

[Tagged]

So I'm not exactly sure as I'm not a plumber but all I know at the moment is I fire on the heating and it heats my hot water as well as my radiators, just an on and off switch.

Something I've wanted to change my plumber suggested motorised valves but I haven't been able to gather the spare money to do it. I can't get in touch with him at the minute so just looking for some advice on the best route to go with this.

Is this something that would be really expensive to remove? Or anyway to seal it off and be able to use a stove or just a normal fire in there?

Thanks again for the advice

 

[Tagged]

This is the hotpress, this is the pump I think needs replaced if it's any help?

I've got the heating on now and it's all warm to the touch. (Oil fired boiler)

The pump is hooked up but think the plumber said he doesn't think it's doing anything it's probably over 30 years old. Not entirely sure on that though

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[ChrisJP]

If your radiators are getting hot as well as your water, then it's likely that the pump is actually working. Otherwise its unlikely that they'd be enough natural convective flow to reach all the radiators. When the pump is energised you should be able to feel a little vibration if you touch it - careful though, it may be quite hot.
You have a very basic system which won't be very economical on oil but clearly works. First thing I'd fit is a room thermostat somewhere central in the house which will turn the boiler off when it's reached the set temperature. The only problem with this is that it'll turn your hot water off as well. To fix that you'd need a separate cylinder thermostat and would also need to separate the pipes going to the cylinder coil from the ones going to the radiator circuit. Looking at your pictures they may already be separated in this way, in which case you'd just need a 3-way motorised zone valve or a couple of 2-way motorised valve. You'll probably need a plumber to advise on this.

 

[Tagged]

If your radiators are getting hot as well as your water, then it's likely that the pump is actually working. Otherwise its unlikely that they'd be enough natural convective flow to reach all the radiators. When the pump is energised you should be able to feel a little vibration if you touch it - careful though, it may be quite hot.
You have a very basic system which won't be very economical on oil but clearly works. First thing I'd fit is a room thermostat somewhere central in the house which will turn the boiler off when it's reached the set temperature. The only problem with this is that it'll turn your hot water off as well. To fix that you'd need a separate cylinder thermostat and would also need to separate the pipes going to the cylinder coil from the ones going to the radiator circuit. Looking at your pictures they may already be separated in this way, in which case you'd just need a 3-way motorised zone valve or a couple of 2-way motorised valve. You'll probably need a plumber to advise on this.

Thanks for the help.

My plumber has advised getting a new pump installed as he reckons this 1 isn't working or is very old I can't remember but we haven't looked into it too much due to many things on my list that need updated with my house.

So he said i had 3 zones, when I updated my kitchen we ran a cable into the hotpress for the motorised valves but as mentioned haven't been installed yet.

So does any of this work in my favour for getting either the back boiler and open fire going again or getting the back boiler out to put in a simple stove or open fire?

Just want to relax in front of the tv with some nice heat lol