Welcome to my blog

We moved to Ireland with the notion of building our "dream" home in May 2007 after purchasing the site earlier on that year. Mr C is Irish and originally from Limerick but he remains in the UK during the week, his job is running www.cruise.co.uk and earning the bucks that will hopefully allow us to "live the dream."

It's taken us almost two years but ground will be broken on the site by the end of May 09!! A lot of blood, sweat & loads of tears (all mine!) have gone into this project already, we left a fabulous house behind in Newcastle...and now for my Kevin McLeod bit, "can the new build can live up to my expectations and the old house we left behind"? I'm not sure...keep watching my blog and you'll find out!!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Family Room Progress

View from behind!
click on the picture to enlarge


87 days into the project and this is where we are at.....

with the Family Room
Click on picture to enlarge

Am going to put a boiler stove into the fireplace in the family room. We do like to light a fire in the evening, so it will be great to know that every time we "light up" in the new house it will be powering up the hot water for showers and underfloor heating!! The family room is semi open plan through to the kitchen and dining area, so lighting up the stove should keep all of those areas toasty in the winter....oooh am almost looking forward to the depths of winter (next year that is!)

I was going to put in one of these




However, I'm now considering this one!

" The Aquatherm Eco F34 stove has the sort of heat output usually associated with a utilitarian boiler designed to be hidden away in a utility room, but in a stunning contemporary wood stove. The F34 has a huge airwashed window that is 900mm wide and 540mm high. The Aquatherm Eco F34 is also well suited for use with an accumulator tank. With such a large heat output to water (24kW / 82,000 BTU) you might decide to burn the stove relatively hard and store the heat in a large accumulator tank for use when needed later on. An accumulator tank can also easily form the connection point for other heat sources in your system, solar panels for example"....

This is a bit of a beast and I love it, it is just crying out to go here.....


next up the kitchen............

10 comments:

  1. I'm sold, as long as it comes with the family room. The design is just fabulous.

    Nicolette
    http://www.furnitureanddesignideas.com/

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  2. Like the aquatherm eco F34 boiler, we are a bit behind you in our build, have you sourced a supplier yet?

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  3. Thanks for your comments, it's great to get some feedback!!

    Think we are going to go for the slightly smaller f26 now....am waiting for a final decision from my mech guy!!

    We have been speaking to Chris Bains at www.eurostove.co.uk and he's been very helpful.

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  4. Have you got the name of an irish supplier?? Thinking of retro-fitting this to my house - in the emiddle of a complete refurb?

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  5. I shall be interested to hear how your Aquatherm back boiler stove works out. I am considering purchasing an Aquatherm Eco F15 boiler stove, but haven't been able to find an independent review on this product (www.stovesonline.co.uk appear to own the Aquatherm Eco brand and also run www.stove.co.uk so any reviews from these sites are probably best taken with a pinch of salt). I note that you have infloor heating, any plans to incorporate an "H2 Panel"? www.boilerstoves.co.uk/h2-panel.html# www.h2panel.co.uk

    Love your blog. Graham from Nova Scotia.

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  6. Going to have 15m2 of solar panels on my south facing roof - not totally convinced how great their contribution will be, but going to give it a go.

    Like you I've found very little on-line review wise about this brand of stove - as far as I can tell it is a german stove that is "over branded" Aquatherm for the UK market. Again, I'm willing to take the chance here (mainly because I really like the look of it, and it being a woodburner only contributes to me meeting my building regs here in Ireland!)

    I'm going to be ordering pretty soon so will get more details and post soon.

    Thanks for your comments, keep them coming!!

    Best wishes

    Mrs C

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  7. Did a bit of surfing and found out Aquatherme stove are made in Italy by a company called Edilkamin (who have been making stoves since 1963, which is a bit more reassuring).

    www.edilkamin.com/en/termocamini-modelli.aspx

    If you are interested in hi-tech back burner stoves, you might want to check out www.jolly-mec.it

    Graham from Nova Scotia.

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  8. Thanks Graham you're a star!
    Going to go check-it out now.

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  9. hi there im doing new build and want to put in aquatherm f26 but cant find instalation instructions have you got your one fitted yet

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  10. Hi Peter,

    Our build got delayed due to problems with windows, so no stove in yet. However we did change our plans as we no longer needed a dedicated wood burner for building regs.

    I've bought a Stratford TF90b as this has the same output as the Aquatherm but is multifuel (was worried about getting a good supply of quality timber) and of course cost far less!

    Stratford should be going in within the next 2 weeks. I was also concerned about the lack of info regarding the aquatherm, where as the Stratford is quite common around these parts which gives me some piece of mind regarding servicing and spare parts - Aquatherm does look amazing though!!

    Sorry can't be more help

    Jo

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