How to keep an old Rayburn

[TonyR1]

A challenging and unusual question. We have a 40 year old Rayburn in the kitchen providing heating and hot water. I want to update to a modern efficient boiler but we don’t want to lose the Rayburn which is a feature and I don’t really want it as a lump of cold metal sitting there. Aga have poured cold water on all my thoughts of just running the cooker side or using it as effectively a radiator (because of the system pressure). So my only thought is to run it as a radiator by pumping low pressure hot water through it via a heat exchanger coupled to the central heating and switching off the gas burners

Has anyone ever done anything like this or have any other ideas? Budget doesn’t stretch to a new Rayburn

Thanks for any help.

 

[SJB060685]

Circulating water at around 70°c through the Rayburn is not going to enable it to act like a radiator. Aga’s are big solid units that radiate the heat they do because the burner/burners are running constantly at temperatures of hundreds degree c, that is what heats the mass of these units to radiate the heat they do.

 

[TonyR1]

Circulating water at around 70°c through the Rayburn is not going to enable it to act like a radiator. Aga’s are big solid units that radiate the heat they do because the burner/burners are running constantly at temperatures of hundreds degree c, that is what heats the mass of these units to radiate the heat they do.

Thanks. Any other suggestions for keeping it running then without the central heating attached? Or could I run it in series with a low pressure system?

 

[SJB060685]

I’m not a gas engineer so am not familiar with gas Aga’s. I am/was however an oil engineer and we had many Aga’s and Rayburn’s etc on our books. We had several customers who just used the cooker burner. It might even be possible for a gas engineer to remove the heating burner and water jacket and just use for cooking that way but don’t quote me on that.
Integration of systems like your proposal is a complex thing and needs to be designed and installed properly, it’s not a case of just connect them together and away you go. There’s systems like the H2 panels and Heat Geanie on the market that allow these combination systems.

 

[exedon2]

Which model Rayburn? I would a bit concerned about the hex in a 40 year old rayburn.

 

[TonyR1]

Which model Rayburn? I would a bit concerned about the hex in a 40 year old rayburn.

There doesn’t seem to be a model anywhere on it. The only things are a front panel saying Rayburn Rangemaster and the serial number -36376

 

[TonyR1]

I’m not a gas engineer so am not familiar with gas Aga’s. I am/was however an oil engineer and we had many Aga’s and Rayburn’s etc on our books. We had several customers who just used the cooker burner. It might even be possible for a gas engineer to remove the heating burner and water jacket and just use for cooking that way but don’t quote me on that.
Integration of systems like your proposal is a complex thing and needs to be designed and installed properly, it’s not a case of just connect them together and away you go. There’s systems like the H2 panels and Heat Geanie on the market that allow these combination systems.

Thanks for all the helpful replies. Just to reassure I was not hoping to cobble something together but to see if there was a solution and hopefully with that sonmeone that might be able to help design and implement it.. The cooker burner on its own would be fine but Rayburn told me no can do -rather curtly so I didn’t get to ask why not.

 

[SJB060685]

Thanks for all the helpful replies. Just to reassure I was not hoping to cobble something together but to see if there was a solution and hopefully with that sonmeone that might be able to help design and implement it.. The cooker burner on its own would be fine but Rayburn told me no can do -rather curtly so I didn’t get to ask why not.

Like I said I’m not a gas engineer so am not qualified to comment much more with regards to the burners. If Aga say know then they must be aware of any potential problems. Perhaps try them again and ask for a written explanation.
As I mentioned above ie the H2 panels etc are suitable for systems such as you’re proposing. Unfortunately though I have never had the luxury of deploying such a system. A Heatas engineer should be qualified and more than familiar with these types of systems.

 

[Adrian Rowlng]

Although not 40 years old we replaced the burner system on our 25 year old 499k with a twin burner Ecoflam unit (£1500). It’s a lot noisier than original but does us a job