Woodburner a little disappointing

TBeckett100

I have had a Hunter 8 installed which has a clip in backboiler linked to 3 rads.

It is a woodburner so my options seem limited to burning wood at present but i must admit I am a little dispoointed with heat output. When the flames die down the water becomes less hot and i can at times put my hand on the door handle and open it. I had imagined burning my hand off the thing.

I seem to go through a good basket of seasoned logs a day in it and the windows are getting tarred up. The boiler has lost its shiny steel exterior and has black lump deposits on it and we are only at day 3.

Burning, i tend to shut the flue damper down and close the bottom air vents, leaving the airwash on. I have experimented with the chimney open and air vents open and although it does flame well, logs dont last long.

So I am wondering really what I am doing wrong. We did on Saturday night get the thing really going. I filled it right up with logs, flames everywhere, the stove got very hot but then I panicked because i thought the boiler may explode as I could hear it bubbling away. I assume that was wrong.

So all in all, a cry for help.

John_3:16

Can not comment about the rads etc? But the door going black is not what you want. If it tars there it will also in your chimney. It is a big stove so at full pelt will use alot of logs. Try not to let it smoulder but keep it burning. The rads will take alot of heat away about 50% of the stves output. You will use alot of logs there is o way around this we have a 4kw output burn it hard so no tarring and get rid of a bag a night. (I would rather burn hard than risk tarring in the chimney) You should check the door if it goes black it is not burning right. It needs to be hotter.

Only advice is turn some rads off when not needed. Or burn a smaller bed hard eg don't fill the whole fire just the middle but keep the air ways open. Sorry but you will use alot of wood. Is there no way you can put a grate in to use multy fuel?

punamulta

I use wood stoves in Finland, I have noticed that different trees' wood have different burning rates and heat outputs, some light easily others burn slowly but won't light easily, you could try experimenting with various woods.

I find Birch burns very hot, I use in the sauna stove but have to mix it with other wood in the house stoves to bring the burn temperature down.

TBeckett100

just had a look at the website for the wooburner manufaturer, in fact my Hunter 8 throws out only 1.5-2.5KW of heat when the boiler is in, hence the lack of toastyness. one way to throw away £3,000

TBeckett100

by the way, would an eco fan help?

John_3:16

Why use a fan when you have no heat? So no. i don't wish to sound rude but did you not check this before soending so much?

dooby

Wood is meant to be burned at a roar not a simper. You do go through chuff loads though, I was surprised as how hungry my stove is for logs. I'd say I would have to feed mine logs every 30 minutes or so.

Mine's a multi fuel but as for heating the home i've found that it's better as in more comfortable and probably more economic too to get the fire roaring till the home heats up and then go for a slower gentle burn as the warmth is adding to the warmth rather than the warmth being evaporated by the coldness.

I'd deffo burn it on a roar when possible though as this should keep the tar at bay. You can see for yourself that if the door is tarred up when you start burning hard and fast the tar will clear, the same thing, hopefully will happen to your chimney flue.

As John said, you don't want to tar your chimney, this can cause mega problems.

numptyuk

hi have had hunter herald 8 for 12mths now but with no back boiler,multi fuel,cant fault it great burner,uses a lot of logs ,so have started to use old pallets i get hold off cut em up burn a treat fill up and nice and warm,also free heat ,if you have any industrial units near by plenty of old pallets to burn.
also now christmas coming up go to old christmas tree throw away site and knock timber blocks of tree bottoms great for burning and plenty of em.