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Saturday 6 June 2020

I need some...

 help here... can anyone advise?

We have a room which we call Ellie’s bedroom.  It is a thoroughfare to upstairs and was called the dining room by the previous owners.  Which in anyone’s imagination was a 
s t r e t c h!  It is quite dark, it has a collapsed blocked off fireplace, which when investigated revealed... zilch, just a Heath Robinson bricked up hole. 


 The rickety-rackerty stairs ascend in one corner, underneath which there is a do nothing sort of sized cupboard. 


 As resident designer and bossy-boots I have decided the room would make a lovely snug cum library cum occasional dining room.  The most important feature I have on purpose completely forgotten to mention.  And here is the rub... it is an ugly wall hung central heating boiler, you may be able to spy it lurking shyly behind the palm?
  

Even with my world renown artistical expertise (that bit plainly isn’t true!) I am stumped as to how to replace it with a thing of beauty that will do the job of warming the house and the hot water.
Having in a past life driven the likes of humongous Agas, their poor relation Rayburns and their even poorer distant cousin the Sandyford, I thought that would be the way forward... wrong!  The obvious place would be in the fireplace... easy.  Trouble with that bright idea is not only has the chimney been blocked off it has been dismantled halfway through the house.  Next place... an outside wall... yesss!  Trouble with that idea is for a gas fired stove it will need a space somewhere in the house for a hot water cylinder.  If we incorporated that close to the stove the little room would resemble the size of a dog kennel.
Are we destined for it to always be Ellie’s bedroom I idly wonder, or... maybe you can come up with a bright idea?

18 comments:

  1. Is it possible to box in the existing boiler with a set of bi-fold louvre doors? We have done something similar in our kitchen /diner to cover the ugly boiler and pipework but still allowing for ventilation.

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    1. Hmmm... a sensible, cost saving answer, thank you. It sure would make life easier. Trouble is the boiler is coming to the end of its life so at some time in the not too distant future it will need replacing.

      LX

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  2. I might be being very thick today but I'm not exactly sure what it is you're asking here?! Are you wanting to hide the boiler or move it? To move it is quite a big job and you'll have a big hole in the wall. Are you thinking of having an alternative heat source? Or are you trying to sort out what to make the room into? Please write your answers on a postcard and send to me asap!! :D xx

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    1. Yup... I want to replace the ‘lovely’ wall hung boiler for a Rayburn that will not only do the job, but make the room more cosy and snug. A feature rather than a Wot is that doing there type of conversation piece? The room in my dreams will be a winter snug. As it is, at the mo, it is a horrible dumping ground for old toot!

      LX

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    2. Perhaps you need to go to a Rayburn shop to get some 'proper' advice? You don't want another mix up like the bathroom!! xx

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    3. Oooh... how right you are! We have been phoning folk and it isn’t that easy for them to advise unless they see the room where it is required. With the lock down it is pretty nigh impossible. In the meantime I can dream, making sure as you say MG we don’t get another cock-up! Thanks for the reminder.

      LX


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  3. You do have a few good stove shops near you

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    1. Yes... Hereford, although whether they are open yet...? Just doing my homework, before as MG says I rush in similar to the bathroom fiasco!
      Me ... being measured and circumspect... a novel thought.

      LX

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  4. If you have to replace the boiler anyway, why not put a slimline demand boiler in some other part of the house (kitchen for instance where it might be closer to the point of use) and put whatever solid fuel stove you choose for heating there where the current boiler is. We had a a slim condensing boiler in our kitchen which was fitted into one of the over-bench cupboards. OK it's a sacrifice of one high cupboard's worth of storage space, but not unsightly. It might mean re-routing some gas and water plumbing though. We put a Charnwood stove into our fireplace - a magnificent producer of heat. Good luck with your plans.

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    1. Err... that would present the problem of it needing being on an outside wall, as in the kitchen proper the outside wall is bare... not the cupboard, mind!

      LX

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  5. Steampunk? Excuse the (very-)semi-pun in suggesting a boiler be steampunkised. If you're going to fill the rest of the space with Jules Verne books and wotnot, I doubt that the dreary mafunacturers make decent-looking boilers, but someone might fabricate a cover to fit over this and the new one (while still allowing them to breathe &etc)... chrome and boilerplate and rivets and flourishes...

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  6. Oooh err... Card. (not sure of the proper address to a member of the cloth... sorry!) I absolutely blooming love the idea of an old boiler make-over, not sadly me this time as all the beauty parlours are shut. Phew... I’ve gone all weak at the knees at the very idea. Make it a feature... along the lines of a studded leather tight fitting breathable jacket, a top hat with a dead pigeon atop, flanked with peacock feathers. Is that the sort of thing, you had in mind for the crypt-like space?

    LX

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  7. An attractive triple fold screen ??? Could go for a vintage one, a stylish modern one or even a bamboo one. Whatever style , it would do a better job of " hiding " it than the pot plant. I'd put in a LITTLE table and two chairs, always handy to have a breakfast nook, keep the dog basket for the lovely Ellie, clear out any crud as it looks like it has become a dumping ground and ..............when you finally replace the boiler I would brick up and replaster the " fireplace as you say its been investigated and there isn't actually one there.

    In the first instance though , a good clearout and buy yourself a nice screen !

    Deborah

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    1. Common sense, I like! Not something I am familiar with sadly. It all sounds like a brilliant idea. The triple fold screen... I could oh so easily see myself appearing from, in yet another one of my many guises... a magician’s assistant, ready to be sawn in half type of thing! Dumping ground? Right in one! Not so sure the nook idea is a goer as I am not a nook sort of a person. Ellie’s bed staying is a cert as it is her go to place of safety, cool in summer, warm in winter. Clear the crud, another goody. Lots of imaginative ideas, just what I was looking for.

      LX

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  8. I miss my Rayburn - my 'pert little derriere' misses it most of all!!!

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    1. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is Elaine. I found just the right establishment that revamp Agas, only to find they don’t do Rayburns. I love them for their modesty always a must in my book!?! Mine in the highlands was a real workhorse, fuelled with drift wood, peats, coal dross, any damn thing it would happily accept. Size also is important. So the hunt goes on and it is difficult in these strange times, so I have time to cogitate, not that that will stop me for one nano-second flying in where fools fear to tread, Surprised? Nah!

      LX

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