Aga Little Wenlock multi fuel stove

ventureuk

Thanks for the reply but since my post things moved pretty fast. I got the stove, knocked out the old fire, fireboarded and replastered the fireplace. Had a beautiful stone slab made at a local quarry, fitted it with a friend (150kg!) and found a fitter I was happy with and who put it in a few days ago.

He was HETAS, well established and I'll be getting a metal plate and all the paperwork after Christmas.

No liner, UFO cowel, stove pipe through a register plate which blanks off the chimney and keeps heat in the room. Easy job really but it was worth it for insurance/building reg purposes and his price included the cowel.

We are experimenting with fuels at the moment, Taybrite and Supertherm burn for hours and hours during the day providing a constant background temp which heats the entire house. Kiln dried logs (this year only) look fantastic when they burn and the flames lick the glass door. £1 man-made logs from Wilkinson are handy to get the stove running quickly and last a couple of hours before adding cobs or wood.

The central heating has been turned off for the last three days as I'm now pretty confident how to get the best from the fuels, a log grenade and maul are gradually turning my Beech trunk into next years fuel.

The HETAS fitter will be installing an external sweeping door in the outside wall next spring when the fire will be off for the summer and giving the stack a sweep.

Thanks again.

Ventureuk...on a warm Pennine hillside

margaretclare

A cold Pennine hillside? We had one (a Little Wenlock) when we lived in a weaver's cottage at Scapegoat Hill just outside Huddersfield....

Filey

Anthracite is notoriously difficult to ignite. You need a good heat to get it going. I use phurnacite (furnacite) which is easier.

Lostallmypoints

Hello to Everyone,
I have had the Little Classic Wenlock installed now for 6 days. It was recommended by the company that swept my chimneys. I have a standard small three bedroomed end of terrace house, and was sold on the idea of this particular wood burning stove because I have access to wood off cuts from the carpentry workshop I work in. My chimney did not need to be lined and the stove was installed by a HETAS engineer.
I was promised that this little stove would heat my house and I could give the finger to my gas supplier with whom I managed to build up a huge last quarterly bill. I was also promised that I would only have to empty my ash tray once a week, and that I could leave it alight all night on slow burn, oh and that one small log would burn for about an hour......

So far I have found........I can light the stove no problem, I can get a roaring fire no problem, this heats after a short while one room to a comfortable heat and I can open the door (house door not stove door) and let heat into the next room, but as for the whole house, I am beginning to wonder ? I also have had little success in keeping this stove alight overnight, I have given up on trying to keep wood alight all night as it burns away within an hour or so. So last thing at night put in a few briquettes of smokeless homefire coal which, are still alight in the morning, but the stove is barely warm, so not keeping the room warm. Also, the overnight burning blackens the glass completely. (This eventually clears with the hot wood burning during the day however). I have so far had to empty the ash tray every day.
I just wonder if I am being too optimistic of this stoves capabilities, it is great when I am in the room constantly re-fuelling it, but it is not heating the whole house and I cannot keep it burning all night. I am also buning more wood than I had expected (about the same amount as when I burnt open wood fires - two to three small logs every 15 minutes or so). I generally keep the top air vent open when burning wood and the bottom air vent open slighly when burning coal. (Another question, is it ok to combine fuels ?).
Any advice will be gratefully received.
Thanks

stoveman

if your burning 3 logs through in 15 mins then there is too much air coming in from somewhere.

when burning the wood open the bottom vent only a very small amount and the top fully open see how it goes.

ventureuk

For overnight/long time burning in my new experience of experimenting with fuel in a 6kw stove I need a couple of small coal shovels worth of smokeless. The larger the cob the better, they need to be stacked on a bed of red hot coal or ash, allowed to light with a good flow of air and then the all vents closed fully.

If I do this it will burn for up to 10hrs and allow me to put a log on or some more smokeless the next day.

I've never had wood burn all night, I empty the ash tray once a day.

The energy (calorific value) of wood is roughly half that of anthracite smokeless fuel and it burns much faster, so wood produces much less bang for you buck although it looks great whilst burning.

Heavy hardwood burns the longest but still nowhere near as long as smokeless fuel

A._Badger

I think ventureuk is right. In my experience with a Little Wenlock, wood alone wouldn't keep in through the night. If you use smokeless fuel, however, you stand a chance.

I am very sceptical about his business of only needing to empty the ashes once a week. If you burned only wood, then you wouldn't use a riddling grate - you'd burn the wood on a bed of ashes and then that might be the case. With any kind of solid fuel, however, a Little Wenlock going at full pop needs emptying possibly twice a day.

As for whether a Little Wenlock will heat your whole house, I couldn't say, but I used one in a two floor appartment and it struggled on cold nights. In fairness, that was a suprnaturally cold building but, even so, 5-6KW isn't a lot to heat an entire house.

rhiwfield

You can calculate your houses's heat loss by using this site

HEAT LOSS CALCULATOR

You can play around with insulation adjustments to the site's model to work out if better insulation could solve part of your problem.

As for heat from the stove we have a 5kw multifuel (not your model) that we run on wood. When we first installed it I complained to the installers about lack of heat and it turned out to be half my fault and half theirs. They had installed rear of stove hard up against rear of fireplace and air could not circulate well around it. The stove was moved six inches forward and it performed much better. (it would prob be better still if it could stand clear of the fireplace but that's not possible)

Where I was going wrong was in controlling the burn. I was letting too much air in and burning the wood too fast, with too much heat going up the chimney. There are threads on here about the right way to burn wood but what seems to work best for me is to get a quick blaze going using kindling and then keep blaze going well as larger pieces of wood are added. You should be able to partially close lower vents as blaze becomes established. However once blaze is very well established and/or wood is burning thru try closing/almost closing lower vents to give a very lazy flame (if your chimney is smoking a lot you will need more air tho). This seems to prolong the burn yet maintain the temperature of the stove surface.

The ideal operating range will probably be 350/450F (dont run it much above 500F and try to keep it well over 230F to avoid tarring) and a stove thermometer is an excellent way to judge how the stove is performing.

As for wood use I dont know the size of logs you are using but to get 5kwh from seasoned wood you need about 1.5kg according to this site

ENERGY COMPARISONS

I cant keep my stove in overnight using wood but as it lights so quickly and has been warming the room most of night I'm not that bothered.

jblack_2

Hi,

We are taking delivery of a Little Wenlock on Tuesday. I have been busy collecting wood from private woodland (with permission). I have re-sharpened the chainsaw and am about to cut the cords into stove size logs.

Can someone who has a Little Wenlock tell me the ideal log size they use please?

Many thanks, J

Church_mouse_4

We have had a Little Wenlock stove for years and it's brilliant. I found it lying rusty and broken in a neighbour's field- he'd bought a new much bigger one- and so we swapped it for a crate of beer and some bottles of cider.
After cleaning it, replacing the broken glass and fitting it it's kept us warm for years, mostly burning only left over timber from carpenter's workshop, with some wood and occasionally coal. It does mean tending two fires though, the other's a Rayburn but we are always warm. The Rayburn also heats radiators, the water, dries the clothes hanging above it, cooks the dinner and occasionally revives lambs.
I think that all fuel needs to be really dry - and of course it depends on what the timber is - ash is best of all.