It’s been a great 2010 at the Trafford Eco-House, we’ve not posted updates recently not due to lack of activity, but the opposite! The garden’s been going well and we’ve got trout and beds of winter veg surviving the snow. The pace isn’t going to stop in 2011 though, this is the year when the [...]
Archive for the ‘Heating & Hot Water’ Category
24 Mar
Woodburning Stoves for Heating & Hot Water in Smokeless zones (update)
A quick update to my post yesterday on Woodburning Stoves for Heating & Hot Water in Smokeless zones. I’ve just had it confirmed by Rayburn/Aga that they do no wood-fired boiler models which are suitable for smokeless zones. So that means that I should update my Bin your Aga – buy a Rayburn post to “Bin your Aga and Rayburn [...]
23 Mar
Woodburning Stoves for Heating & Hot Water in Smokeless zones
We’re slowly narrowing the field in our wood-fired heating search. Following up on my previous posts on Woodburning Stoves for Heating & Hot Water and Using a Wood-Burning Stove in a Smoke-Control Area, I’ve found an interesting thing: The Dunsley Yorkshire is the only stove with a back boiler that can be legally used in a smokeless zone They cost £1922.30 [...]
10 Feb
Using a Wood-Burning Stove in a Smoke-Control Area
This is something we need to work out – our new house will be in a smoke control area. To check whether you’re in a smoke control area look up your local authority here. If you are then the only wood or multi-fuel burning stoves you can fit are listed on the exempt appliances list. [...]
8 Feb
Wood-Fired Ranges in a PassivHaus
In my PassivHaus Renovation post I said that: Any non-solar water heating to be Gas Condensing boiler or CHP – wood fired stoves are not permitted (this conflicts with my peak-oil resilience planning) In return I got a comment posted by Andy Simmonds at the AECB stating: The AECB standards do not proscribe wood stoves, nor [...]
17 Jan
How much firewood should you store?
Huge numbers of people are putting in Wood Burning Stoves, Boilers and Ranges at the moment. They’re doing this for a number of reasons: to beat rising gas and electricity prices, to reduce their carbon footprint, or to improve the resilience of their heating system in the face of peak-oil based supply issues. The first [...]
13 Jan
Bin your Aga – buy a Rayburn
George Monbiot in the Guardian is launching a campaign against the Aga. He reasons that they use a ridiculous amount of oil, and generate an obscene level of CO2. I have to say that I’m with him on this. You won’t find much about Agas on GentleDescent because once I’d done the basic research [...]
3 Jan
A Passivhaus (Passive House) renovation?
The picture on the left is a thermograph – showing the difference in lost heat between a conventional house (on the left) and a house built to PassivHaus standards (on the right). Which house would you rather be living in when Russia cuts gas supplies? The PassivHaus standard, as interpreted for the UK by the [...]
23 Dec
Underfloor heating or radiators?
Assuming we’re not going to be at the point of only heating one room anytime soon, how do we heat the whole house? Traditionally I’d have said easy – just radiators. The hot water can come from our wood-fired range, topped up with Solar hot water and our emergency Gas boiler. But I’ve always had [...]
