Battery operated circulation pump for woodburning stove?

[edith summertime]

Hello forum members

I've been trying to find a solution to my problem and came across this forum. Looks like if anyone would have the answer it will be here!

I live in a tiny remote stone croft house. It was all electric, immersion hot water cyclinder and night storage heaters. I have now installed wood burning stove which now heats the water (gravity fed) and keeps half the house toasty. I would like to add a couple of radiators to the system and get rid of the electric system altogether.

I've been advised that I will need a circulation pump. Trouble is we have frequent power cuts, which means I would not be able to use the stove (apparently boiler would blow up!). Is there such a thing as a battery operated circulation pump? Do people with GSHP and ASHP also have the same problem - not blowing up  , but no heat during power cuts.

Thank you for reading this. Look forward to hearing your ideas.

[Alan Clarke]

Edith
if you have an existing wood burning stove with boiler and hot water cylinder which is not overheating, then you could add a couple of radiators and a pump without affecting the ability of the hot water tank to absorb all the heat from the stove when the pump isn't running.
First thing to note is that simply adding the pump may mean it pumps heat out of the cylinder when running - so you need a plumber who knows what they're doing.
However it may be possible to design the whole system to circulate heat through radiators without a pump: at the moment heat rises to the cylinder as it is hotter and less dense in the up pipe than the down pipe - you now need to stretch that down pipe out to include your radiators on the way back to the stove, ie starting with any upstairs ones and then going to downstairs ones and then the stove. The snag is the pipe needs to not go up and down - any air bubbles that come out of the water need to be able to float back to the cylinder and up to the header tank. Also you need surprisingly large pipes for the radiators, and I think with a single loop like this you'd want to have the main return pipe run under the radiators and take the first tee to the top of the radiator and the second from the bottom at the far end, back to the same pipe. The reason for this is that first off the boiler will be heating up the hot water and the return won't gove much heat to the radiators - then when the tank is hot the return will be hot enough to circulate through each radiator. Finally note you can't use thermostatic radiator valves - they restrict the flow too much.
 
On the other question - nearly everybody loses their heating in power cuts - oil and gas central heating don't work without electricity either.

Alan

[heinbloed]

Is there such a thing as a battery operated circulation pump?

Is there a pump that can't be run on battery power, edith summertime?

[Mark Bennett]

Hello forum members

I've been trying to find a solution to my problem and came across this forum. Looks like if anyone would have the answer it will be here!

I live in a tiny remote stone croft house. It was all electric, immersion hot water cyclinder and night storage heaters. I have now installed wood burning stove which now heats the water (gravity fed) and keeps half the house toasty. I would like to add a couple of radiators to the system and get rid of the electric system altogether.

I've been advised that I will need a circulation pump. Trouble is we have frequent power cuts, which means I would not be able to use the stove (apparently boiler would blow up!). Is there such a thing as a battery operated circulation pump? Do people with GSHP and ASHP also have the same problem - not blowing up  , but no heat during power cuts.

Thank you for reading this. Look forward to hearing your ideas.

How about a small UPS of the type intended for computers?

Very simple, off the shelf, easy to bypass, not too expensive if you don't need it to maintain power for too long.

Standing power consumption might be a bit high though. Not sure what they run at these days in "standby".

Just a thought.

[heinbloed]

Since 2 days the OP is waiting for an answer, here we go:
Contact an electrician. The demand has to be looked at, the power consumption of the circulation pump and the consumption of all other involved consumers.

That's all.

Submarines,air planes, hospitals, atomic power plants must be operated by battery power in case of grid failures, entire cities like http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20110930-906822.html.
A single CH circulation pump is a joke for an electricity aprentice.

[edith summertime]

Many thanks to everyone's suggestions.

I guess rather naively, I thought it would be simply a case of finding the name of a manufacturer who made pumps with battery back up (a bit like hard wired smoke alarms!).

oh well. Did seem too easy!

[Nick Grant]

Edith

The pump you are after does exist (Steve Wade of Wind and Sun can supply Im sure) but I'd advise against this approach having lived off the grid for some years with all the hassle of batteries and low voltage electrics.


If croft is tiny then should be possible to weather a power cut as you will still have the stove in one room at least which, as Alan says, is more than most people will have during a power cut.

Nick