It’s with a heavy heart that we have decided to sell our Esse Ironheart. One of the hearths at Three Hearth House is now empty. But not for long!
We loved our Ironheart. A great big slab of cast iron that we could cook on and in, that fed our hot water and provided much-needed flames in the cold of winter. I’ll miss cooking flatbreads directly on its hotplates, and slow roasting in its oven.
But we just weren’t able to circulate all that heat that the Ironheart generated around the house. Parts of the it were uninhabitably cold during the winter months. The room where the Ironheart was has never really been a room we’ve used – it would make an excellent dining room, but it was too hot. The thermal store wasn’t installed properly and the heat leak radiator kept getting blocked with black slime, presumably because corrosion inhibitor hadn’t been used when it was commissioned. The solar coil in the thermal store had decayed and the store was leaking green slime (sacrificial anode?), and so it had to be capped off, preventing our once-grand ideas about solar thermal.
Having firewood delivered was eventually fine, thanks to the fine folk at Iglu in Looe, after many ups and downs with different suppliers. But we burn rather a lot of it, and it was becoming expensive for us. Plus, as both of us are freelancers, our working hours can vary, and coming home to a cold house gradually began to become a bit annoying. So we started to use an electric radiator attached to an internet-enabled plug so that we could take the chill off the house before we got home.
Combine all of this and we decided to give in to the temptations of the modern era. Yes, we’re having central heating installed.
The installation is three-quarters of the way done. Currently, all the radiators are attached to the walls bar one (to allow the Ironheart to be removed by some very strong people), the gas flue has been cut through, and all other piping nearly in place.
We’re having a Nest thermostat installed connected to a Veissmann condensing combi-boiler so that we can have easy control of the system via hardware and our phones. This is all being planned and installed by Ed Bolton of Innovations Heating and Electrical Solutions, who we found via Checkatrade. Ed’s a plumber and electrician who also specialises in home automation. If you’re in Cornwall and want to dip your toe into the world of automated heating, lighting and other applications then look him up.
On the hearth where the Ironheart used to be we will be installing a small stove. We’re looking at the Salamander Stoves Hobbit as a distinct possibility (leave a comment if you have one!). So we will still have three fires and three hearths, but just won’t be relying upon them for our sole source of warmth and hot water.
We’ll definitely blog about our experiences with the Nest during the coming weeks.