The Warm Heart of the House

Gas and Oil and Electricity are going to go up in price. fact of life. 
My gamble is that they are going to go up in price faster than wood. 
The fact that we own a wood (albeit a smallish one) is a bonus and that we live in fairly heavily wooded area was also a key fact in determining the design of our heating and hot water system. 

We have opted for a hybrid system that incorporates a wood burning cooker/range with back boiler in the kitchen and wood burner with back boiler in the lounge for use as domestic hot water and heating in the winter, solar and a bit of wood for the spring hot water and occasional heating and solar for the water in summer with a electrical back up for hot water if required.

The main hub of the system will be a 2,000 liter thermal store and a 200 liter chuaff eau (immersion tank) as a quick start if hot water needed in rush after we have been away for few weeks. 

I have enclosed a diagram that (for the purist or professional) does not include all the pumps, and cut off valves, and pressure ballons, and correct height of entry and exit of all the assorted bits of pipework but should gives you a simplified plan and idea of how it all links together.

I offer immense thanks to the fellow who made quite a complex system seem so simple when he explained the various parts and showed me how the entire system would fit together piece by piece, with all the assorted safety features, and how it will provide me with mains pressure hot water without it having to be a pressurised system due to the heat exchangers inside the thermal store, (i think) so I can use our cooker range of preference (Warmsler) without the fear of having potential bombs in the house.
 

We haven't found the right wood-burner with back boiler for the lounge yet as it is to be sighted in front of a 4 meter wide 2.5 meter high window (probably Pilkington X triple glazed) and we cant find the right stove that has the water jacket more around the rear of the stove to prevent as much radiated heat passing towards the window. (any ideas gratefully received) 

The main thermal store unit itself is a Finnish make http://www.akvaterm.fi/eng/Accumulators ... ti.40.html

So this is the rough sketch of what will be fitted with the domestic water supplies self explanatory, the UHF downstairs in each of the three rooms (studio lounge and kitchen) the rads will be upstairs in each of the main two bedrooms bathroom and coridoors etc. We will also be using a VMC with heat exchanger and sending the warm air back into the upstairs corridors as well. 
MMM toasty. 

Basically wherever we burn a log or the sun shines it will be being used for more than one purpose, although the sun will only be directed mainly to domestic hot water.