Multifuel or Wood burning stove

dekh · 4 March 2008 at 9:22PM

stoveman wrote: »

you will get your cash back far quicker on a stove.

an open fire is only approx 25% efficient therefore most of the heat will shoot up the chimney and your wasting money on fuel.

stoves are around 70-80% efficient therefore more heat to the room and less up the chimney. therefore saving you £££ on fuel

You know, I'm ever so dubious about those figures.

Our fire is on for about 8-9 months of the year, rounding up it's about £240 in coke.

If we take 75% efficiency for stove and 25% efficiency for open then your fuel bill will be only £80 - (this really just doesn't add up in my head and doesn't compare to moo2moo's stove figures of £26 per stove per month).

If the saving really is £160 per year then http://www.stovesareus.co.uk/catalog/tiger-multifuel-woodburning-stove-p-83.html will pay for itself in 2 years so long as there are no additional costs like a flue, installation costs, maintenance costs - and IF it is 75% efficient which it doesn't claim to be. Not bad.

If as has been quoted on these forums "It ended up at £2000 all in with a possible small dicount for cash." then payback is in the 12th year. Not so good.

My maths here could be way off. But I believe that the 75% efficiency will not translate using 1/3 the amount for fuel.

BTW if you are in a smokeless zone your stove has to be on this list if you wish to burn wood:
http://www.uksmokecontrolareas.co.uk/appliances.php?country=e
Even then it can't be any old wood for the most part.
A few even allow the burning of certain types of coal!

To answer the thread title "multifuel or wood burning" - if you are in a smokeless zone, gotta be multifuel, if not in a smokeless zone coal/coke is a lot easier to handle than wood, but if you have a free wood supply then wood burning unless you want to keep your fuel options open.

belting321 · 5 March 2008 at 12:37PM

Hello Shifter123

One of the best stove ranges out on the market are the Dunsley Highlander range, they have a multifuel grate that can adjust from woodburning to wood and coal burning, basically it is more efficient when no air gets underneath the wood.

The grate you get with a Dunsley closes so you can burn just wood on its own, or you can open it to burn both coal and wood, also they are made in the UK so the quality is superb.

shifter123 · 6 March 2008 at 9:58AM

Well it seems that our options are huge. I searched Google for Dunsley Wood burning stoves and it gave me a small price list, the Dunsley Stoves are more expensive by a few hundred quid is this down to the materials used, will it extend the life of the stove that dramatically?

How do I know if I live in a smoke controlled zone also, I see lists of what stoves can be installed but cant see anything that tells me where controlled zones are?

The Mrs has now cottoned on to the idea that we may be able to run some radiators from a boiler stove as well.... sometimes I wish I'd kept quiet about it all!

belting321 · 6 March 2008 at 11:42AM

Hey Shifter123

I'm am a great believer in what you pay for is what you get the Dunsley's are excellent quality, they are steel bodied with cast iron doors so the steel heats up quickly and the cast iron keeps the heat in,

With regards to being in a smoke controlled you would need to contact your local council about whether you are or not, but the better stoves that are smoke approved are the Vermont Castings wood burning range.

If you are looking to fit a boiler as well I would probably recommend you get a qualified fitter around he would be in a better position to advise you on a boiler stove with a suitable BTU boiler.

A website that I used to by my Dunsley stove is: http://www.stovesareus.co.uk/catalog/index.php

They also sell boilers as well

someoldbloke_2 · 10 March 2008 at 5:11PM

buy multifuel stove as you will probably find you need a bed of coal to make the best use of you wood of course you can still just burn logs if you want. don`t get one thats too big for your room or you will cook ! the little ones on e-bay are great , but i would sugest if you can put one in with back boiler i didn`t and now sit every night thinking about all that heat going up chimney also if your country get one with flat top and you can boil kettle on it. hope this is of interest cheers ma dears

zarazara · 18 March 2008 at 8:26PM

clearview stoves are good

shifter123 · 4 September 2008 at 3:31PM

I finally got around to buying and installing my stove. we finally settled on an Aga Wenlock off the internet. http://www.stovesareus.co.uk/catalog/aga-much-wenlock-multifuel-woodburning-boiler-stove-p-4698.html

We're thrilled with it, we got the stove and twin wall from the internet shop, they gave us some free pipe and decent advice about what we needed, I have to say they where very good. The stove took about 7 days to come , I found a local fitter guy and it's now been up and running for a couple of months - we're waiting for it to get colder now so we canfire it up properly.

Thought this could be useful to anybody who's thinking about getting one.

cheers

Andel · 7 October 2008 at 3:12PM

Shifter, i'm just starting down the path of replacing my open fire with a stove, and like you once were i'm a bit lost. we want to put a boiler stove in to run the radiators. is that what you ended up doing? also did you fit a liner in the chimney? if it's ok to ask how much did the whole operation cost, from the equipment itself to installation/plumbing. I think we'll go ahead with it anyway as we have access to an endless supply of free wood but i'm just wondering about the cost of setting up.

Igol · 8 October 2008 at 11:02AM

Sounds like your planning the same set up I installed last year, if you look back over my other posts in this bit of the forum there should be answers to one or two questions for you.
Hope it helps anything else feel free to ask.

Fishingtime · 9 October 2008 at 12:51PM

When we moved into this house in june.
A wood burning stove was already in, my question is (and i have tried to find the answear here

)
I know that I can't burn just coal because we have no grate,but can I add a few bits to the burning wood.

Multifuel or Wood burning stove

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free