Solid fuel / Mains gas heating

Have I imagined this, or can you get solid fuel heating stoves, complete with back boiler, that also run off mains gas?

I seem to remember that you can buy such units, and that they plumb into the gas main, so that apart from the added hassle of having to clean them occasionally, there is no hassle with lighting them or regulating the temperature, because you just start them like a gas fire, and the clever gadgetry runs off mains gas until the solid fuel takes hold, and then the gas is gradually turned off, coming on again automatically if the solid fuel threatens to stop burning.

I've looked about the trusty interweb and can find lots of dual fuel log burners, but by dual fuel it mostly seems to mean they can be used with either logs or coal, and not mains gas.

 

Clueless, aren't the farmhouse type Aga ranges multi fuel? I don't know where I've picked this up from, but it rings a bell.

 

Keep taking the tablets :-)

Back in the day, you had your solid fuel heating, and a GAS POKER
ie:- a poker(hollow pipe, connected with a rubber hose to the gas) with the end sealed then several holes along the first foot of the pipe
lit it stuck it in the coal, until well alight,
It saved kindling paper and the rigmarole of building the fire

I suppose it could now be time controlled, to Do it itself
Err nope you would need to extract the gas element or it would burn out if left in the solid fuel
I know of an auto feed AGA, fill the coal bunker up outside, and the AGA is fed automatically,

Jack McH

 

There are ways of using separate solid fuel and gas boilers on the same system Heating Innovations H2 control system homepage


And wouldn't a gas/solid fuel appliance (if they exist) require 2 separate flues?

 

Thanks all. I guess you're right.

I don't understand what the engineering obstacles are though (don't worry, I'm not going to try to build it myself ). My existing gas fire generates a lot of heat and has a gas pipe going into it. If it didn't, it wouldn't work. I don't see what the difference is with having solid fuel in there too.

 

Because Solid fuel burns sitting on a CAST IRON GRATE, and even this can distort, plus the ash falls below to be collected and removed
The gas is from a light stainless steel pipe heating the matrix above so no real heat to the pipe
Now if the gas was below it would choke with the ash
If above it would be burnt out by the heat off the solid fuel

If you just want easy instant lighting of your solid fuel then get/manufacture a Gas POKER only now a days it would be ELF AND SAFETY MATE

In the early fifties we had a rubber hose that you pushed onto the gas tap for the light, on the end we had two foot of copper pipe sealed at the end but with several holes along the last foot, this was lit and stuffed in amongst the coal
Then you remembered when it was all going to remove it
In the Sixties the rubber pipe had to be replaced by one of those metal flexi hoses
In the Seventies, you had to have a special bayonet connection to an official gas pipe as used with a free standing oven/cooker

Then they vanished either banned or out of fashion I do not know I was away at sea at the time

Jack McH

 

An industrial scale incinerator is effectively a giant solid fuel stove with mains gas pilot. Ok, much larger scale than you'd heat your house with, but surely same principle, and same engineering obstacles. To comply with modern emissions regs, an incinerator burns a lot hotter than anything that would heat your home. They have to burn hot enough to destroy all the tiniest particles and not leave huge amounts of nitrous oxide and other by-products of a high temp burn off.

I bet they don't have a bloke standing at the bottom with fire lighters and rolled up newspaper and kindling getting them going

 

You may be thinking of the accumalation tank system, where water is heated from multiple sources