Wood burner or more practical spending?

hethmar

Installing multifuel appliances has been our business for 25 years so I would add that we would advise you run a smaller appliance hard rather than one thats too big being left on slumber which truly can ******** the appliance and lining. Get the advice of your supplier.

The best wood you can get is ash - always ask for it, you will probably get some rubbish included but if they think you know what you are talking about you should get some good stuff.

If you stock up in your garden, dont leave the logs in an enclosed shed/greenhouse or whatever, they need air to circulate to season them. A good indication that they are ready to burn is that you will see cracks in them.

It is recommended you use a NACS sweep at least twice a season - he will issue you a certificate of the chimneys condition. If you dont sweep regularly and if you use bad wood - you will end up with thick resin in the flueway and a potential chimney fire.

You need someone with HETAS registration (not just membership!) to install the appliance and if they are registered they can also line but we have NACE qualifications too for the lining of flueways. You should get an individually numbered data plate with the installers full details and membership number plus full details of the installation materials and suitable usage - we fix these plates by the electric/gas utility box. NACE then receive details of the lining intstallation which they register with the local authority. A HETAS compliance cert is required - this is done in triplicate - one copy is kept by the householder and top copy sent to HETAS who in turn register the installation with your local authority.

I would say that whilst the liners/appliances that can be bought on line may seem a great reduction in the costs - a registered engineer is very unlikely to use your own liners as part of his profit is in the bulk puchase of liners and their storage etc. which is expensive. Nor will they be able to use liners which they do not feel are of the necessary quality. We only use 904 innner and outer skin linings guaranteed for 25 years. (We have been booked for installations up to Xmas since August this year).

Watch out for installers who dont insulate the liner - insulation should be used to encourage the swift passage of the flue gases.

We have also had some real probs with people ordering stoves on line - parts missing, wrong models, appliance dumped in the gardens and so on. So do check whether you are really getting much of a reduction over the local stockist who would be on hand should you have any problems and who has a local reputation to protect.

Dovre and Morso are both decent stoves but our pick of the lot would be one of the Clearview range.

Igol

Cost of wood??!!
I'm a pallet fan they're free.
I have to agree through if your still on gas CH your not going to save much but you'll heat one room in a very nice way

hethmar

Oh I dont know, if the rads have thermostatic controls then they will switch down when the wood burner is on which will save money.

beetlebum_2

john175bramley wrote: »

I'm having a log burner installed in a couple of weeks which looks quite similar to yours. I ordered the burner online for £250, the lining system for about £350 online. The installer is charging me £375 + VAT.

Hi,

Interesting figures. The burner I want is £400 (Acorn 4), the liner comes in at £18.80/M. The first quote I got fully fitted was £2600. I was gobsmacked. So needless to say, unless I get some better quotes, I will be looking at getting everything myself and paying someone to install it. How did you go about finding and installer. Is the installed HETAS?

Thanks.

hethmar

Check that the liner is 904 inner and outer with 25 year warranty. Check how much the extras like clamp, insert, register plate, insulation, top plate and insert plus adaptors will cost. You may also need a new pot - as you need to remove it and replace it to do a proper job (some sites even some installers will use something called a pot hanger to save them having to do this - remember the whole weight of the liner will then be hanging from your pot in that case. (The figure you quote for liner - we couldnt even buy it at that and we pay for bulk reels).

You can find a local HETAS installer on the HETAS website. Having said that we have been booked up since August for Christmas and Id have thought any installer worth his salt will be similarly busy. You may strike lucky and find someone with a cancellation or postponement though. If you do the job yourself you can get your local Buildings Control to inspect before and after and issue the compliance cert. They used to charge about £117 for this, I dont know if that is the current price.

£2600 + VAT sounds expensive - is it a particularly high or difficult to access chimney? They may have to use scaffolding which is very expensive. Are they using rock wool wraps for insulation because the flue is wide or just vermiculite? Is the property thatched? Are they having to do remedial works first, bricks missing, badly eroded stack, new hearth to meet building regs?

beetlebum_2

hethmar wrote: »

Check that the liner is 904 inner and outer with 25 year warranty. Check how much the extras like clamp, insert, register plate, insulation, top plate and insert plus adaptors will cost. You may also need a new pot - as you need to remove it and replace it to do a proper job (some sites even some installers will use something called a pot hanger to save them having to do this - remember the whole weight of the liner will then be hanging from your pot in that case. (The figure you quote for liner - we couldnt even buy it at that and we pay for bulk reels).

You can find a local HETAS installer on the HETAS website. Having said that we have been booked up since August for Christmas and Id have thought any installer worth his salt will be similarly busy. You may strike lucky and find someone with a cancellation or postponement though. If you do the job yourself you can get your local Buildings Control to inspect before and after and issue the compliance cert. They used to charge about £117 for this, I dont know if that is the current price.

£2600 + VAT sounds expensive - is it a particularly high or difficult to access chimney? They may have to use scaffolding which is very expensive. Are they using rock wool wraps for insulation because the flue is wide or just vermiculite? Is the property thatched? Are they having to do remedial works first, bricks missing, badly eroded stack, new hearth to meet building regs?

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Admittedly, the price for the liner was a 316 grade as opposed to a 904, which is £28.80/M. But, is it really needed? I'm trying to do this on a budget as you can appreciate, so that will add another £100, assuming I need 10M. I haven't priced up the other bits and bobs you mentioned, although I'm aware these will be needed.

The stove I want doesn't appear to be available until Feb/March, and I'm not really bothered about time scales (will give me more time to save some pennies).

Maybe I should get "Charlie the chimney sweep" to install everything and get building control to sign it off (who charged £96.82).

With regards for the quote, it was a rough quote, but my house is just a bog standard 30s semi. I can't see any major issues that would cause this expense. They did say they would require scaffolding though.

I was hoping to do it all for about £1200-£1400, taking into account £400 for the fire, £200ish for the liner and £200 for other bits. Or am I living in cloud cuckoo land?

Cheers,

Matt.

hethmar

904 inner and outer is the grade recommended for woodburners.

Get some more quotes using the list of installers on HETAS. This time of the year is so busy it may be that some installers quote over the top due to demand. If you want it done after christmas (traditionally a quiet period for a few weeks) let them know that when you ring them.

http://www.nace.org.uk/

http://www.hetas.co.uk/nearest_member

john175bramley

beetlebum wrote: »

Hi,

Interesting figures. The burner I want is £400 (Acorn 4), the liner comes in at £18.80/M. The first quote I got fully fitted was £2600. I was gobsmacked. So needless to say, unless I get some better quotes, I will be looking at getting everything myself and paying someone to install it. How did you go about finding and installer. Is the installed HETAS?

Thanks.

I actually went to a showroom to get a price for my log burner. The shop used an independant HETAS installer to do a survey of our chimney. He told us the shop sold the burners at a fair price but hiked up the charge of the flue, so he gave us a website where we could buy our flue much cheaper. We bought both the burner and flue online and as I said his price was a fixed fee of £375 + VAT.

My installation requires the removal of an old gas flue and the installation of the new 904 flue and log burner burner. It only takes 2 men 1/2 a day to do it so I wouldn't pay more than £400 (I am in the midlands though, so it may be a bit cheaper here).

hethmar

Blimey, they had to move to do it in half a day - it normally takes that long just to set it up, create the correct reg plate and ensure the chimney is clear! We normally allow 1.5 to 2 days, sometimes longer if the flue has remedial problems/ sharp bends which have to be removed, hearths to be updated to building regs and if over 5 kw, the installation of air vents. What insulation materials did they use? They didnt just use a pot hanger did they? Did you get your data plate, certs and guarantee documents? As long as you have all those.

beetlebum_2

john175bramley wrote: »

I actually went to a showroom to get a price for my log burner. The shop used an independant HETAS installer to do a survey of our chimney. He told us the shop sold the burners at a fair price but hiked up the charge of the flue, so he gave us a website where we could buy our flue much cheaper. We bought both the burner and flue online and as I said his price was a fixed fee of £375 + VAT.

My installation requires the removal of an old gas flue and the installation of the new 904 flue and log burner burner. It only takes 2 men 1/2 a day to do it so I wouldn't pay more than £400 (I am in the midlands though, so it may be a bit cheaper here).

Thanks for that. I think I will do exactly what you have done. It has given me an idea of what price I should be paying for installation.