I've got wood!
Andy_WSM
Posts: 2,217 Forumite
Installers finished fitting my Burley Debdale wood burner last night, having started 3 days ago on a very messy / awkward job. Hats off to Bristol Stoves for the fitting and Country Collection for the supply - really impressed with both.
I did my 2 small fires to cure the paint and settle the stove yesterday, woke this morning (4am, I'm an early bird) to find there was still heat being radiated from the brickwork and the living room was still at 19C despite a frost outside and no other form of heat.
Lit the stove with a quarter of a fire lighter, half a dozen small pieces of kindling and a couple of strips of pallet wood. Once it was going I put on some cut down packing crates that are made of either a very dense softwood or a hardwood and that's been burning happily now for over an hour - and it came at the best price. Free! I've got several weeks worth of supply of that stuff stored in the garage, all cut and ready to use. Lovely.
Wish I had done this years ago - a pricy investment and hard to retrofit, but worth it in the end.
We are not in a smoke control area here, but the stove is DEFRA approved should that situation change.
I also had a cubic metre of seasoned, split hardwood logs delivered yesterday for £60 so have them stored in the garage out of the way of the British weather. The supplier was good enough to pick out logs that are small enough for my stove so I don't have any chopping to do of those.
Who else has wood and what are your experiences?
I did my 2 small fires to cure the paint and settle the stove yesterday, woke this morning (4am, I'm an early bird) to find there was still heat being radiated from the brickwork and the living room was still at 19C despite a frost outside and no other form of heat.
Lit the stove with a quarter of a fire lighter, half a dozen small pieces of kindling and a couple of strips of pallet wood. Once it was going I put on some cut down packing crates that are made of either a very dense softwood or a hardwood and that's been burning happily now for over an hour - and it came at the best price. Free! I've got several weeks worth of supply of that stuff stored in the garage, all cut and ready to use. Lovely.
Wish I had done this years ago - a pricy investment and hard to retrofit, but worth it in the end.
We are not in a smoke control area here, but the stove is DEFRA approved should that situation change.
I also had a cubic metre of seasoned, split hardwood logs delivered yesterday for £60 so have them stored in the garage out of the way of the British weather. The supplier was good enough to pick out logs that are small enough for my stove so I don't have any chopping to do of those.
Who else has wood and what are your experiences?
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Comments
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First winter with a multifuel stove (Aarrow i500) and a huge pile of dry wood that I collected over the summer months - A good mix of hard & soft woods all split down into manageable lumps.
Whilst the install is pretty much what I had in mind when I started, and the stove is much safer than the original open fire, I'm a little disappointed with the heat kicked out. Rated at 6.4Kw, it doesn't seem to be much better than a 2Kw electric heater most of the time.... If I keep it stoked up and running all day, the room does eventually get reasonably warm & toasty.
I might get a few bags of smokeless coal in for next winter and see if that is any better than burning just wood.Her courage will change the world.
Treasure the moments that you have. Savour them for as long as you can for they will never come back again.0 -
Rated at 6.4Kw, it doesn't seem to be much better than a 2Kw electric heater most of the time.... If I keep it stoked up and running all day, the room does eventually get reasonably warm & toasty.
I might get a few bags of smokeless coal in for next winter and see if that is any better than burning just wood.
I was warned against using a multi-fuel stove for burning just wood as the efficiency drops through the floor. I am sure you will find using smokeless fuel a much better result. Brazier smokeless seems to get lots of positive comments. It's about £4 for a 10Kg bag from the likes of ASDA or cheaper if you buy it in bulk online.
The stove I chose is nearly 90% efficient, some are as low as 50%. I'm using very little fuel really and the whole house is toasty warm.0 -
Had mine over 20 years. Pain in the !!!! when it's your only form of heating, lots of work. Coal and wood keeps going up every year. I'd swap it for gas central heating at the drop of a hat if I could.0
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Had mine over 20 years. Pain in the !!!! when it's your only form of heating, lots of work. Coal and wood keeps going up every year. I'd swap it for gas central heating at the drop of a hat if I could.
I wouldn't want one as an only form of heating. Waking to a cold house, threating over whether you had enough wood cut etc. Nope - for me it's a "nice to have" and a nice novelty at the moment.0 -
Yep - got a fair bit! Our works site is bordered by woodland that was planted 20 something years ago as a screen and hasn't been touched since - and as such was in fairly desperate need of some attention. We have a quiet period on production at the start of the year, so I offered to do the work in exchange for the wood that came out the job. Work jumped at the chance as it would have cost a lot more to get contractors in - so the deal was done.
I keep about 12 cubic metres drying in IBC cages in a warehouse at work, then bring it home as required after a year and split it into the woodstores ready for the following season.
Planning on setting up a small nursery area next winter to get some seed started so I can increase the range of species which will be better for wildlife etc, and with some careful rotation should keep me in firewood until I retire!0 -
Whilst the install is pretty much what I had in mind when I started, and the stove is much safer than the original open fire, I'm a little disappointed with the heat kicked out. Rated at 6.4Kw, it doesn't seem to be much better than a 2Kw electric heater most of the time.... If I keep it stoked up and running all day, the room does eventually get reasonably warm & toasty.
You should be getting a lot more heat than this. My 7kw inset stove used to get the room nice and warm in about 1 hour when burning wood. Did the installer insulate the stove correcvtly when fitting?0 -
John_the_Boy wrote: »You should be getting a lot more heat than this. My 7kw inset stove used to get the room nice and warm in about 1 hour when burning wood. Did the installer insulate the stove correcvtly when fitting?
Two bags of vermiculite around the sides, back, and top. So plenty of insulation in there. The problem with that room is the ceilings are quite high, and the main window is in need of replacement (1970's double glazed unit).
Got a bag of coal this evening, and managed to get the temp to about 22C this evening - Probably a case of trying various fuel combinations & stove setting to finding one that works. Replacing the window will have to wait for another day.Her courage will change the world.
Treasure the moments that you have. Savour them for as long as you can for they will never come back again.0 -
I was warned against using a multi-fuel stove for burning just wood as the efficiency drops through the floor.
I won't say 'nonsense' but that doesn't apply to my 5kW Woodwarm, which has a couple of extra steel inserts if used as a multi.
I only burn wood, and it's been doing the bulk of the heating in my large bungalow this mild winter.
The previous multi we had, an old Aarrow, was sized about 8kW or more and fairly guzzled the wood. This one does the same amount of work at half the cost and it usually stays in overnight.
I'm happy.0 -
Iv had a log burner for almost two years now! This is our 2nd season using It and and it saves us a fortune on heating bills! We having paid for wood yet, I burn what I can take from work and chopping the odd tree down!
This week end for example I have chopped 6 Hawthorne trees down for a mate, this resulted in about 2-3 ton of logs for next year's burning!0 -
I did exactly the same, namely, buying a supply of ready cut hard wood, but fairly quickly found the price prohibitively expensive. For £60, it is possible to buy 200-300kg of coal, which will last a lot longer, and be more efficient in a multifuel burner. Furthermore, £60 goes even further using gas or even oil.
After years of trying different combinations of fuel, I've come to the conclusion that burning wood is probably an expensive luxury, unless the wood is free.
I've got the "luxury" of a few acres of land, and as well as burning available wood, which still needs cutting and storing, I'm looking at sustainable planting of trees. Buying trees goes against the grain ��, so I've been looking at various options, as to what to grow. The best I've come up with is is holly. All that is required to start a new tree is to stick a small branch in the ground. It grows fairly rapidly, and is very robust. The ideal logs for the wood burner can be achieved by trimming of the side shoots and letting the main stem thicken up, and then cutting with chainsaw. Obviously it needs storing for a few years.
Once the main stem is cut, away it grows again. Unless the side shoots are cut, it will rapidly transform into an unruly bush. The trees can be planted close together, so even a relatively small patch of land will become productive. It's not the prettiest of arrangements but works. A diverse assortment of trees is much better, but requires a lot more time, i.e. a lifetime0
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