My latest engineering project

To find an affordable solid fuel Rayburn with a back boiler is a tough job in the UK. Over here in France it's like searching for rocking horse shit. Never to be defeated though, as scouring the free adds with glass of wine in hand I came across just the beasty. Only an hours drive south from here was a Rayburn Royale with a 45,000 BTU back boiler in it. From the pictures you will see what a delightful specimen she is.

The only reason I could afford this bit of engineering genius, were the slight problems that came free of charge to accompany it. Firstly, in a previous attempted repair, the retaining nuts, specific to this type of machine, had been drilled out. The riddler was distorted and the mounting spider for the riddler had melted. The back boiler itself came with a slight leak but this was not a problem as it came with a new boiler, just not the right one. All the rope gaskets were disintegrating and the insulation looked like it may have recently been home to a family of mice.

Mission one was to strip the old girl down so I could tinker with her leaky boiler. Initially I had no great concerns because I can fix anything. All stripped out and cleaned up I attached the hose pipe and filled her up to see what we were dealing with and yes, as promised, there was a slight leak. Depressingly it was on the inside wall of the boiler where welding a plate over the hole was not an option. Angle grinder in hand it was like an episode of scrap heap challenge, first cutting the top off the boiler and then cutting out the corroded section which had two small perforations in it.

The good news is that I no longer have 2 small holes in the boiler, just one enormous letter box instead. My mission now is to cut a lump of metal from the brand new replacement boiler and weld it into the hole in the old boiler. It's been a while since I last had to do some water tight welding so this may take a few attempts.

Before anyone starts getting excited about the fact that we may have radiators in the house this christmas, park that thought as my plan is to get the whole thing ready for installation and then fit it in the spring when I've located some radiators, tanks and pipework.