At last, the heating is finished - Update # 26

25 February 2015

Put up the bunting: we've had a positively upbeat and chatty email from Chas:

"At last it is finished and we've had it running.

Unfortunately a couple of issues meant we had to turn it off before it reached full temperature. These have been sorted out but time pressure meant that we have left it drained down. We can't actually get back to it until next Monday (2nd March) but we should be able to do a full test up to temperature then."

The photos show the buffer tank in situ outside and the complex manifold area. (We love it - it looks 'the business', G says; I love the copper pipes - and it has that industrial look that we anticipated and hoped for. Weird, I know.) It looks seriously over-designed for the job, but hopefully that means we'll be warm as toast in the winter months. (Eek. Not looking forward to learning how to get the thing to operate.)

I have asked Chas to photograph the stove with its red ceramic jacket in place, but I'm not holding my breath...
STOP PRESS!! A photo of the finished stove below.

Red ceramic jacket in place. Now all we have to do is work out how the thing works.

Manifold, anyone?

The buffer tank in situ outside in the little lean-to, which will, of course, have fixed sides and an access door.

 Chas has fixed the bath feet in place, with an ingenious (if oddly clunky) solution:

Oak doughnuts. A world first. 

Here's a very sophisticated outdoor shot, showing the stove flue and septic tank vent, complete with caps etc. (Promise they're vertical; I think the photographer may have been listing to the left.)

To give him his due, Chas managed to engineer a complicated system to hold the vent and flue to the uneven stonework of the wall, and negotiate the eaves. Of course, had he been available to discuss the project with Tom at the outset, he could have routed the flue through the roof...

Stainless steel and galvanised zinc, anyone?

But we won't quibble at this late stage.

Huge sighs of relief all round. It looks as if we are getting there, people!

Buffer store enclosure, ta da! - Update # 23

24 November 2014

Attached to a typically cryptic email received yesterday, Chas sent this photo of the buffer tank enclosure. The photo was taken on 10 November. Clearly, it's a secret and G and I don't know the password.

As Chas says, it looks a little 'red', but hopefully it will weather with time. It looks OK, otherwise, as far as we can make out. Could he have got any further away, one wonders? The door mechanism, etc might as well be drawn on in permanent marker, for all we know.

The plumbing side of things is still not finished. Good thing we aren't going for Christmas this year. Do we dare hope that it will be ready for next year?

Heating matters - Update # 20

23 September 2014

The heating of the barn has been a crucial part of the design from the outset, and warrants its own blog post. We wanted it to be cosy! The idea was to have underfloor heating (UFH) downstairs, under the concrete floor and radiators upstairs; the whole thing driven by the wood pellet stove in the corner of the living room. Apparently, burning wood pellets is very efficient (90-something %), and to retain the heat, we arranged for Tom to put in extra wall and ceiling insulation.

Fast forward to the day before Chas was due to install and commission the stove. Text from him to say that the stove (discussed with him a year ago and ordered by him months ago) would not be suitable for the UFH (installed by him months back), as it could not run below 65 degrees C - way too hot under-foot - and that the solution was both bulky and expensive. But not, we guessed, as expensive as jack-hammering up the concrete floor and resizing the doors and staircase.

The outcome of a very heated exchange (sorry) was an agreement to install outside a 200L buffer tank (charged with anti-freeze and suitably clad to withstand below-freezing winter temperatures), which will allow the hot water to mix with the cooled water returning from the radiators upstairs sufficiently for the UFH system. At the same time, the radiators upstairs will receive water at the higher temperatures. It could even be a more effective heating system than the earlier version. But yes, both bulky and expensive.

While waiting for calculations etc and the appropriate tank to arrive, we insisted that Chas install the stove and commission it during our last days in France. On the last day, literally as we were packing our suitcases and cleaning out the fridge, Chas got the stove to fire up. In the pics it doesn't have its red ceramic 'jacket' on, but you get the idea.

Note feet of barn co-owner and photographer extraordinaire

It's a primitive sort of pleasure, the warmth radiating from a fire. Something about a feeling of security; of hearth and home.

Once the pointing of the gable end wall was complete, Chas got going on the concrete plinth, and he had the tank delivered too. The plan is to build a larch-panelled lean-to shed with tiled roof to house the tank and extra bags of pellets (like the green/yellow bag in the photo). The whole shebang should be finished by mid-October.

But don't hold your breath, now, will you?