I've just spent the whole of my Sunday installing our new woodburning stove. It's blazing away in the corner and has brought a whole new dimension to the house. I have pretty much always had a real fire in the houses I've lived in, the are the heart of the house as far as I am concerned. I was wondering how many of you have, or are able to have a real wood fire? Great to practice a bit of feather sticks all winter, and it feels so natural as a source of heat.
Home fires burning
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I have a solid fuel rayburn for cooking on, hot water and running our one radiator its great although we do also burn some briquet coal as this will keep it in all day if no one is at home and it means we can still eat and have a toasty hot bath in the evening. Then we have a log burner in the two other downstairs rooms, last winter when it was -10 for a whole week I managed to keep the house really warm, to a point where occassionaly we had to open windows to let some heat out. I find stopping drafts is the big trick to making the log burner heat a room efficently as they will pull cold air into a room so you can suddenly find you notice drafts more. I recon we use about 1.5tons of coal and 4tons of logs per year to run ours as i have them running very efficently. Although we do use an electric oven in summer so we dont bake having the rayburn alight
Its even better as i cut all my own firewood so i can tell where most of my logs come from, which is quite sad really
Its even better as i cut all my own firewood so i can tell where most of my logs come from, which is quite sad really
Oh yes 
One of these
Esse & Pheasants Sepia by British Red, on Flickr
Plus one of these
Study Woodburner by British Red, on Flickr
one of these
Full Log Shed by British Red, on Flickr
and lots of these
Log Box by British Red, on Flickr
It does mean lots of this
16) Maul from good side by British Red, on Flickr
and a big pile of this
3) My log stack by British Red, on Flickr
One of these
Esse & Pheasants Sepia by British Red, on Flickr
Plus one of these
Study Woodburner by British Red, on Flickr
one of these
Full Log Shed by British Red, on Flickr
and lots of these
Log Box by British Red, on Flickr
It does mean lots of this
16) Maul from good side by British Red, on Flickr
and a big pile of this
3) My log stack by British Red, on Flickr
How do you get on with the Esse, I would like one of those as they take a lot longer log that the rayburn does and look absolutly superb, does yours have a boiler in it?
Not this one Charlie no - just the cooker. Its two years in now and we absolutely love it. Its uber efficient and does take some huge logs and kicks out about 10KW on full rip. When it hit minus 12 here we opened it up. We had to shut it down and open the wndows
I installed a woodburner 3 years ago - love it. Finding free wood is the tricky part but it is out there if you're prepared to ask for it
We've had a wood burner in the house all my life! I love it!
Yeah that is definitely a skill in its own. I've been lucky with some tree clearance on the local heath.
Theres been a whole load cut down fairly locally but I can't move it without a chainsaw.
Yeah that is definitely a skill in its own. I've been lucky with some tree clearance on the local heath.
Theres been a whole load cut down fairly locally but I can't move it without a chainsaw.
Flues can be expensive, so you might be in luck if the flue was built to a good standard. These things have to be installed professionally nowadays, have a chat with your local Building Regulations department or any reputable dealer.
A word of caution on draught exclusion. You MUST have adequate ventilation with any stove. A carbon monoxide detector (in addition to the smoke detector that you already have, right?) is a very good idea too.
It's generally thought best for efficiency (which more or less equates to clean burning) to have the stove running at a high setting most of the time. So you don't want to get one that's too big for the room. In a modern, reasonably well-insulated house a 5kW stove will heat a fair sized room, you might have to open the doors to let some heat out into the rest of the house if you get it going well.
Red's 10kW stove would be too big for most of us I think.
Oh, and I like a couple of kettles sitting on the stove.
had a wood burning fire in my last house ,i think it was that, that sold it on the first viewing !! Bought a fire in holland about twelve years ago still in storage -just have to find a house to fit it in !! No good in this one as its a smokeless area !!!!
Don't give up hope, some stoves are very clean burning and can be used in some smoke control areas. Check with the local authority what's allowed and what isn't.
http://smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk/guidance.php?a=p&q=1#2
Thats funny , i live in a new house (barrat house) and at the weekend went and made enquiries on seeing if i can have a log burning fire , the shop said i could but it just seemed a bit steep in price.
I got quoted £750 for the burner
£1000 for the flue
£800 for fitting
and £500 for a false chimney breast and the harth was on top aswell.
I realy want a real fire and it has taken me a long time to persuade my wife (ive promest her new lounge furnature if she lets me get one ) but simply cant afford this sort of money for a wood burning fire.
Anyone any ideas ? and dont say move house lol
I got quoted £750 for the burner
£1000 for the flue
£800 for fitting
and £500 for a false chimney breast and the harth was on top aswell.
I realy want a real fire and it has taken me a long time to persuade my wife (ive promest her new lounge furnature if she lets me get one ) but simply cant afford this sort of money for a wood burning fire.
Anyone any ideas ? and dont say move house lol
We got our stove installed last week. Something my and my GF really really wanted, and it's been burning every night !
It's a small Belgian cast iron burner, a Laxevaags Trianon.
IMAG0067 by Thijzzz, on Flickr
@Red: I'm kinda jealous at you for having a wood shed that size. That's about half the size of my garden ;-)
With that amount of wood to chop, would this be someting for you:
http://www.vipukirves.fi/english/description.htm
http://youtu.be/9jDR_2Zsr40
PS: no, the tube is not on fire: we installed Christmas lights behind the chimney. Made the pic on my mobile so it looks like 1 big light.
It's a small Belgian cast iron burner, a Laxevaags Trianon.
IMAG0067 by Thijzzz, on Flickr
@Red: I'm kinda jealous at you for having a wood shed that size. That's about half the size of my garden ;-)
With that amount of wood to chop, would this be someting for you:
http://www.vipukirves.fi/english/description.htm
http://youtu.be/9jDR_2Zsr40
PS: no, the tube is not on fire: we installed Christmas lights behind the chimney. Made the pic on my mobile so it looks like 1 big light.
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The quote doesn't seem completely out of order, they can be a bit pricey but it does pay to look at different makes and shop around. I've bought two stoves, one for half what you were quoted and one for nearly twice as much. The flues were a bit more than your quote in both cases. The price you were quoted for fitting does sound a bit steep but of course it's difficult to judge without doing a survey.
As it happens the more expensive stove that I have has a smaller rated output, but to me it seems a lot better at what it does. I don't really know if you should take any notice of that but I thought I'd mention it. I haven't really been impressed with the construction of either of them and I definitely wouldn't buy the more expensive one again (a Morso Owl) although I would consider another from the same manufacturer.
You do see them for sale second hand, they can be real bargains if you can move them without breaking something.
We've got an open coal fire in our living room. I buy my coal from the steam railway down the road & logs from the fella over the hill.
Still, the open fire is not that efficient & I would love to change it to a wood-burner some day - if i can convince the missus!
Still, the open fire is not that efficient & I would love to change it to a wood-burner some day - if i can convince the missus!
thats a decent wood shed Red. I reckon we will be getting through about 8 cubic meters of wood in a year. Around here wood is about 50 euros a cubic meter, but theres loads for free if you have the time. EDF cut a huge line through the forest to give their powerlines some space, it looks awful but it has given everyone free wood for the future as they just leave it there to rot, and will have to recut it in about 15 years, it makes mapreading alot easier to. Justto wind me up the weather has warmed up here so we dont need the fire yet, we lit it the other night for a trial and were all too hot opening the doors etc.
Tell her that your fuel expenditure will be reduced by more than 50 percent and there'll be less than half the ash. She might be persuaded.
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