# Forum Home Renovation Heating & Cooling  Rayburn wood stove running Hydronic heating in old stone home, my observations

## Trains

Hi all.
Having searched the net for many years, and this forum over the last few years, and not finding alot regarding this type of heating, I thought I would post up my findings of our system. 
Bit of background, its an old 5 main room stone home with 9ft ceilings, wooden floors, some covered, some not, now with R3 ceiling insulation, roof vents etc.
Having used open fires before, and going through a heaped wheel barrow load of wood a day to just heat one room a little bit, and every other part of the house cold, this system is nothing short of fantastic. 
Appropriately sized radiators in each room located under the main windows give off both a lovely radiant heat, and convective heat to the room.
We have found that its a more gentle and pleasant warmth than using a reverse cycle ducted unit, and silent. 
Wood use, on max settings to warm the entire house, we use a wheel barrow (cheap plastic miter 10, 30 buck one for mulch) worth of wood per day. this is not heaped, but a level with the top of the barrow, so near a half of what we used in just one open fire before.
This is the use for a 24hr period including bringing it up to temp in the morning from a slumber overnight, brekky, lunch and tea duties, and too many cups of tea, or coffee on the hotplate during the day. 
This lot of chopped wood not only heats the entire house, but gives us all the hot water we need for domestic use, and also gives us an oven to use that sits on about 200c ish when central heating is on max setting. 
If fire is idling along, a shoebox full of bits from 1/2" to 1" thick thrown in will bring the oven up from 150 to whatever you need in about 30 min, then a larger piece will keep it there for all the evenings cooking required.
Ie, soups, starters, main course, dessert, more dessert, loaf of bread or 2. Just limited to your time and cooking needs really. 
Whilst the initial thought that the ovens were smaller than most gas and electric ones, the ones on the Rayburn are much deeper, and you can use all the available space in them, when you look at the runners and such in most ovens, these make the availble shelf space alot less than the overall oven size.
With this unit you can use the bottom of the oven as another hotplate, or use a solid shelf to give 2 seperate heat zones in the oven. 
Ie cooking bread in the top part of the main oven, say 220 ish and below that under the plain solid shelf, cakes that need 160-180 ish.
Browning onions on a frying pan started on the top part of the stove can be put on the bottom of the main oven and brown to perfection. 
Bacon and eggs the same, and anything else you need, say reducing stock, or making a sauce etc, the vents from the ovens go into the flue, so you dont get a kitchen full of fumes, or need the rangehood going to suck away all the steam. 
The hotplate has a very hot side on the left, or directly above the fire, and moving to its right graduates to a simmer side.
So far have been able to have kettle on the boil, toasting bread, and 2 pots simmering with room to spare, just didnt need to cook anything else at the time.
And perfectly browned crumpets........................oh yeah. 
Lower warming oven is excellent for keeping food for a late meal without it drying out or browning to a crisp, or for resting meat whilst you prepare the other dishes for serving etc etc etc ie plate warmer, herb drier, food dehydrator, limited to your imagination really. 
Im sure we could use less wood if required, but I think its more beneficial to have the entire house warmed as one, and to use the thermal mass of the stone walls to our advantage.
Yet to turn down the radiators, so all of this so far is on max settings, so there is some room for improvement. 
The hot water tank 400lt which the stove heats does have some token insulation, but it just radiates heat, so eventually it will be wrapped up and alot of heat that is currently being radiated away in the roof space will be saved for the radiators instead. 
Heating during the evening is no trouble, and once the system is set to slow burn overnight, we find the radiators turn on a few times during the night enabling a cooler nights sleep, but a pleasant start to the day, especially putting on clothes warm that have been placed near or draped over the radiators. 
When on a high setting the Rayburn puts out good warmth to the kitchen, which may be too much on a 32 deg day, but anything up to mid high 20s and cool nights would not be unpleasant at all, and during those late night runs to the fridge or bathroom its worth a detour to sit or stand next to it and enjoy the warmth it offers.  
Cleaning is pretty easy, and Ive found with the wood were using, the ashpan only needs an empty once a week or less, and the tray can easily be taken outside to empty into an appropriate container to minimise ash dust, did it once inside, then decided to do it outside from then on  :Biggrin: . 
As we have a country style kitchen, we also have a gas stove next to the wood stove, so we can use that during summer, altho we have found we enjoy using this Rayburn, so it may be used alot more than initally thought when summer rolls round. 
We also had solar collectors fitted for summer use when the stove is not running, but a fire for an afternoon will easily heat up the tank which will last for 4 days or more of hot showers.  
so there you go, a basic overview of a wood stove which also heats the house for one lot of chopped/ gathered wood. 
Not sure on any cons of such a system for us, as we are a busy family, so we're often home, or not away for long. 
Tending the fire is easy, and find it needs refuelling about every 3.5 -4 hrs when running heating on high setting. 
The actual running of the stove is quite easy, you have control of the air to the fire for a slow or hot fire. 
A flue damper, so you can get good draught up the flue when adding more wood, then close it to keep the heat in the unit. 
On central heating units like ours there is a selector so you can choose where the flue gasses go, either over the oven, or through the "boiler", or a combination of both, again easy to choose and adjust to suit the required oven temps or heating requirements at the time.  
Hope that those who are thinking of using one of these find this helpfull. 
Wont go into all the plumbing side of things as its not that difficult as some might seem to think. Just lots of small details that make a larger picture, like any house reno/ building really. 
cheers 
Trains

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## plum

:Clap:   Well done Trains, sounds like a great system.

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## Moondog55

Thanx for the post. Although hard work I do like wood stoves and ovens. Any chance on a detailed breakdown of costs?/ Cecile and I are fiercely debating heating for the new extension and I like the idea of combining a wood heater with hot water heating myself.

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## Uncle Bob

I love this sorta thing (except the firewood gathering/splitting etc lol).
Now if it was natural gas fired......  :Smilie:

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## Trains

> I love this sorta thing (except the firewood gathering/splitting etc lol).
> Now if it was natural gas fired......

  
Good news. 
Rayburn do offer a gas fired stove.  Rayburn Stoves - Gas, Solid Fuel & Wood Stoves and Heaters 
I have to say tho, less than 5 min to split all the wood required for the next day is not that big a problem.
Doing 2 weeks worth in one hit is another story altogether. 
T
thanks Plumb for your words.  
Moondog55, a breakdown of costs is a bit difficult. 
A: paperwork is packed away somewhere.
B: there are so many different options you can choose. 
Ie what stove are you after, just as basic wood fire with option of heating water, or a rayburn in the kitchen to just heat hot water and  a few rads, or one that can do 10 ish rads and hot water etc. 
Is there existing space, or do you have to prepare it all, and to what building spec, ie combustable walls or non combustible etc. 
Radiators vary in price due to size and type, ie single wall, double wall compact 21  and double wall 22, and within those are a myriad of size options for what ever kw you require for your room.
What access do you have under floor for piping and roof space for large low pressure tank, and option for piping to get from roof space to floor space easily etc. 
Still, with all these things to consider, and really, its not that difficult to look at these things compared to some of the things ive seen tackled on this forum, its well worth it. 
Considering we got a stove, central heating system, solar hot water system, and a way they all work well together, it was quite a worthwhile investment. 
copy and paste from a previous letter.  Our old 60lt heater at the unit was on mains power, as it was too small to be put on off peak tarrif, and we didnt have that option in the front power box. so expensive heating.  Here we have off peak hot water, I think its 19c/ kw/hr.  so running 3.6kw element for say 4hrs/ day to heat the water = 3.6x4x.19= 2.73 per day  Or running a 45w pump for 8hrs/ day = 0.045kw x 8 x .25 = 0.09 per day.    Quite a dramatic difference, particularly if power doubles again in price.  So 2.73x 7 x 52 = 993.72 per year.  10c/ day x7 x 52 = 36.40 per year.  (Also, only used in summer when stove not running, so less than half the year, say 1/3 of the year)  Start to see the savings if a few grand is invested into panels pretty quickly. 
Quite a few places offer radiators, inc ebay, and there are a number of sites that offer a sizing chart to calculate what sized rad you may require, then you can choose what size/ shape best fits your application and taste. 
And I would not reccomend using pex pipe, you can of course use it, but I feel copper gives better value for investment over many years.
Also have a few friends families who have built, only to have rodents damage the plastic pipe and ruin walls etc. 
Hope that helps 
T

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## stork955

Gday, I have a Carmichael 430 in my shack which we use for hot water, cooking roasts (Awesome!) and heating. Its brilliant. I should point out that my shack is in the Tassie central highlands with no power and can get to -10C in winter. It was in poor shape when we first got it but it is surprising how easily I got parts for it and restored it. The carmichael is a briquette stove and I use heating briquettes from the big green shed in it - about $8 for 10 kilo's (about $14 for 20 kilo's when we can get them), which does an entire weekend, not super cheap but for the job it does I would need 3 seperate units. Second hand stoves are on Ebay all the time for variable pricing, some give-away. My 2 cents - check them out, well worthwhile!
Out of interest what model Rayburn is yours Trains? 
Cheers, 
Stork

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## Trains

> Gday, I have a Carmichael 430 in my shack which we use for hot water, cooking roasts (Awesome!) and heating. Its brilliant. I should point out that my shack is in the Tassie central highlands with no power and can get to -10C in winter. It was in poor shape when we first got it but it is surprising how easily I got parts for it and restored it. The carmichael is a briquette stove and I use heating briquettes from the big green shed in it - about $8 for 10 kilo's (about $14 for 20 kilo's when we can get them), which does an entire weekend, not super cheap but for the job it does I would need 3 seperate units. Second hand stoves are on Ebay all the time for variable pricing, some give-away. My 2 cents - check them out, well worthwhile!
> Out of interest what model Rayburn is yours Trains? 
> Cheers, 
> Stork

  There a nice stove.
we had been looking around and on ebay for a number of years, and considered those as well, along with the stanley and thermalux units.
Knew a farmer who relplaced his range with a newer one and the wife was not happy with it at all, hot spots in the oven, didnt burn as long, used more wood etc.
Rekon the older ones rebuilt are a better option at times.
we have the 355 supreme. 
Not trying to sell rayburns, just offer what we have found with them, have used wood stoves and chip heaters over the years.
I laugh when I think of people boasting of their new ovens and what they can do and how horrible wood stoves are etc, I just turn off their mains switch to the oven, and say.
Ok, cook now. LOL 
T

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## Trains

Hi all,
Just an update for those that may be interested.
Getting through our first winter with the Rayburn Wood stove heating the house via radiators, providing our hot water and cooking. 
Have to say, having an entire home warm is a first for us, and its quite worth while. 
Stove On max thermostat setting  keeps the house at around 19- 21 deg.  :Biggrin: 
Hot water is...........well...........Hot ! :Tongue:  
and the cooking.............simply superb. :2thumbsup:  
Dry wood is important, as it leaves alot less build up in the boiler flu ways. Can always use the warming oven to dry out the next lot of wood if its empty  :Smilie: . 
Great to be able to top up the firebox, and head out for the morning, or most of the day knowing you will come home to a warm house. 
Typically we put wood in it at night, and close everything off, and it slow burns all night and that is enough to put the radiators on a few times and keeps the chill away, but not have a house too hot to sleep in, but can always turn down the radiators if you need to. 
Come morning, opening up the air to the fire, and putting on some smaller wood will see the hot plate ready for brekky in 20-30 min and the radiators on and warming the house again, great to put clothes on them to warm before putting them on. 
The boiler and its flue ways do take heat out the fire, and thus you do get a build up of deposits you need to scrape off every 3-4 weeks depending on what your burning, and how your burning it, ie fire on low all the time, or good hot fires for brekky, lunch and tea and on low over night.
Cleaning said flu ways is easily done in an hr or 2 depending on if you have a relaxed approach or just get the job done approach   :Smilie: . 
Let fire burn out overnight, remove flu way grate, and top cover for flue ways. 
A brush will knock out the dry stuff from the top, but if you have more there, I find a long auto pry bar with handle at one end is ideal for the job, and it easily scrapes off the black stuff. 
I use a small auto scraper for cleaning above the flu ways and the bottom entry point for the flu ways where the ash and tar build up.
Clean above the oven and from the chimney proper to top of oven and boiler flu way with brush and vac out the rest and  your good to go. 
I also take the opportunity to give the rest of the stove a clean, as often if you spill stuff on it, it dosent wipe away all that well till its cold. 
The oven and hotplate is easily cleaned, as they pretty much clean themselves and only need a light brush off once the spill turns to pure carbon.
That sould keep the carbon nazis and julia happy  :Rolleyes: . 
Cleaning out the ash every 3 or 4 days is easy with the ash tray below the fire, simply open bottom ash pan door, remove tray, take outside and empty into chosen container, no mess, no spill, no ash inside, and then slide back in and close door, no need to let the fire out for that unlike other slow combustion heaters ive used. 
So.
for the amount of wood were going through, heating the whole house and cooking amazing meals for us, its a surprisingly small amount for what it does.
I have found that smaller pieces of split wood ie 5" round split in half are better for cooking heat and heating as they burn bright and evenly, thus you get a nice warm oven, hotplate and boiler, where as larger pieces will burn nicely for long times, but you might get more heat to the oven than the boiler or hotplate depending on where the flame is at the time, ie one side burns well, the other side dosent thus it effectively insulates that side of the firebox. 
We can cook everything we did before, but results are far superiour to our old electric wall oven.
Infact, we now cook alot more as the oven is always there ready, and so versatile. 
And we have added to what we cook as having an oven always on opens up many great cooking opportunities that we didnt do before due to costs of running an electric oven on for so long.
The warming oven is a very usefull thing to use too. 
We dont use the microwave, elec kettle or toaster anymore........cant quite get the wife to use those old irons with the removable handle you see in second hand shops tho  :Annoyed: .   haha. 
Yes its a bit of work, like any wood fire, but when you consider what it does, its not much, and if your wood is cheap, its even more worth while.
I would not like to think what it would cost to keep the place the same with a reverse cycle air con on all the time.
And you would still have to pay for hot water and cooking too. 
The heating from the radiators is a lovely combination of radiant heat and also convective heat, its silent, and you dont get hot stuffy air blowing over you, and the whole house is pleasantly warm, not hot or cold, even with our windows open 1/4" to let air thru, you dont feel a draught due to the convective air catching the cold air as it enters the room. 
The Stove itself warms the kitchen nicely, it dosent cook the kitchen like our old metters no2 elsewhere. 
So there ya go.
Yep, like any wood heating appliance / stove you have to feed it and clean it to keep it going, but when you consider what else this thing is doing with what your feeding it, its pretty good, and not difficult to do. 
Food is so worth while.
Hydronic heating with radiators is in my opinion the best way to heat an old stone farm house, or any other place for that matter, I spose with time more Australians will realise how effective and pleasant that form of heating is. 
I guess there not for every one, as we all have different lifestyles expectations and ideas, but it does work, and work well for us.  
Cheers 
T

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## Moondog55

Thanx for the update, it is appreciated.

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## Bloss

"Typically we put wood in it at night, and close everything off, and it slow burns all night . . . "  Hope you don't have any near neighbours - even worth good dry wood that will be putting out huge amounts of smoke.  I am a great fan of wood stoves for all sorts of uses, but if they should be of double (or triple) combustion design and have smoke scrubber chimney design too or they are smoke and particulate generators. For hydronic heating the solution is much larger and much better insulated hot water storage - so that the massive excess amounts of heat that will currently be wasted can be captured and released when you need it.  The wood heating assocation has some good info and is planning a new code which would improve performance all areas if adopted: Home Heat

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## Trains

> "Typically we put wood in it at night, and close everything off, and it slow burns all night . . . "  Hope you don't have any near neighbours - even worth good dry wood that will be putting out huge amounts of smoke.  I am a great fan of wood stoves for all sorts of uses, but if they should be of double (or triple) combustion design and have smoke scrubber chimney design too or they are smoke and particulate generators. For hydronic heating the solution is much larger and much better insulated hot water storage - so that the massive excess amounts of heat that will currently be wasted can be captured and released when you need it.  The wood heating assocation has some good info and is planning a new code which would improve performance all areas if adopted: Home Heat

  Well, I expect it would be far better than just having an open fire smouldering all night, The stove stays hot in the firebox, and completely burns whats in there, just at a reduced rate.
And no, no near neighbours. 
I could see if every house in the suburb had one it would be a different story, sounds like you have a poorly burning wood heater near you ?

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## deropi

Hi trains,
Read with great interest your piece on the woodstove system, sounds great.
Wonder if you can help me. we have an old Rayburn no3 which is connected to a 500 ltr hotwater unit, which hasn't been used for over 10 years and im interested in firing it up again and if possible connecting at least 4 radiators from it to heat the rest of our old muddie.
What type of Rayburn do you have and could you direct me to info source on assessing the unit for the radiator additions? 
Thanks and await your reply. 
Regards,
Ross

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## Trains

Hi Ross,
Sent you a pm, but not sure if it went thru, let me know. 
Did I mention it cooks well.
Vegys in foreground are purple carrots and beetroots.

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## Bloss

Maaate - I want dinner at your place - gotta love that crackling!  :Biggrin:

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