Wood burning stoves - worth it?

jendav

Sooo, been reading all these posts and confused! We have a lower flat (just one flat above), built 1900, single glazing, gas fire verges on antique and lounge room very chilly! Have one infant and another on the way, due mid-winter, so want lounge to be as toasty as possible, especially if get another winter like last year. For warmth, recommended to switch off gas fire, have chimney plugged up, get double glazing and increase radiator size - not keen! Would rather make use of a decent chimney and get a wood burning stove, but wonder if this is the best thing to do? Hearth is very shallow and angles backwards. We are ground floor but have suspended floor due having a Victorian house - will it take the weight of a wood burner? Also in a smoke control area. May only stay in this house another year or so, but who knows. Gas bill last winter was exorbitant at £600, largely due to gas fire thundering away day and night - makes sense to me to put that money towards a wood burner instead. Keeping single glazing but getting windows draught proofed and restored, got heavy curtains, etc. That chimney is the big chill factor, though. Appreciate any advice.

crphillips

If it's a Victorian house it will have a concrete constructional hearth in the fireplace even if the rest of the floor is suspended. You will also be able to knock the fireplace out to a decent size....approx 1 metre wide. Victorian houses have the most flexibility when it comes to fires.

If you use one or two rooms 90% of the time and only want to heat those rooms then a wood burner will save you loads on your heating bill.....although, so would turning all the radiators off in the house and only having the ones on in the rooms you use:-) Although you can't sit by a radiator on a cold snowy evening with a bottle of wine and feel like your in a different place.

The cost of installing a wood burner properly can be around £2000 - £3000 by the time you've lined the flue, knocked out the fireplace, installed a hearth, bought a decent stove and had it installed...........that would buy you gas for quite a few years but you just won't have the same ambiance and sense of satisfaction you get with a stove. When you've got a stove you don't need a telly, or a pub....etc....the savings could be huge:-)

welda

Adding to CRP's sound advice, you will also have to factor in price and storage of wood.

Personally, and considering you may not be at your current local within a year or two, I'd look into a more efficient gas fire.

Regards...........

A._Badger

I agree with Welda. Save your money till you move to a place you'll be staying in for a few years. People often think they will save a lot of money by buying a wood burning stove. I'm far from sure many actually save much at all, especially if they have to buy wood at full price.

crphillips

True...probably worth putting up with the central heating and look at a stove when you've moved home as it's quite pricey just for a year or so.

nigel_the_joiner

hi i run a small joinery company and we make timber briquettes from compressed sawdust and shavings. they burn very well especially in enclosed burners. they burn with the same caloric value as coal except they sell from between £2.00 and £5.00 per 10kg. we supply our local village and would love to supply more. we have about 4000 bags in stock at the moment. they do burn on open fires all be it a bit faster than in a burner but they are cheap. i know i am not the only joiner producing these. i live in kent. so if you look on the internet for briquettes you will find lots of joiners advertising this product.there is no need to be cold this winter as there is a very good cheap heat source out there

Poosmate

I don't know much about wood burners apart from the fact that they seem expensive, don't seem to be relied upon to be the only heat source in a home and wood can be expensive unless you can source a free supply for most (if not all) of it. And even if you could get it all for free it still needs quite a bit of time and effort to get it "right" for burning (chopping, sawing, storing).

I'd love one! I think it would save me a fortune on my electric bill by just having a kettle of boiling water sitting atop it so no more boiling the electric kettle for coffee! Yay!

I would worry about my little cat jumping on it - it would have to be caged like Fort Knox lol!

I'm only contemplating it because this is my home for life, I don't plan on moving anywhere, I can get some free wood and I have a large attached garage where I could store it.

My only worry is that if I just buy a stove, would it be enough to heat my smallish 2 bed semi or would I have to get a back boiler and have radiators installed too? My gas bill is £300 per year so is it even sensible to go to all that expense? They are pretty though!

Poo

crphillips

They are intended for looks and ambiance although if you use one room most of the time then you could save money on your gas bill although at £300 per annum i can't see you saving much.

They're really intended as a toy for adults to enjoy and create a lovely ambiance in their home.....i think to look at them as a purely cost saving exercise is the wrong way to look at it. Although i had a customer recently that we installed a stove for in their conservatory.....they use this room as their living room and now spend £15 per quarter on gas....they're delighted with the cost savings and the mood/effect it has on the room.

Our local guy sells nice dry wood, cut, split and ready to burn. It's a tipper truck around 10' x 5' x 2'......it's £110 delivered.....pretty cheap to be honest......that would last you most if not all of the winter in a 5kW stove.

By the way........i wouldn't worry about the cat.....it'll only jump on it once:-) They learn pretty fast!

welda

I have a completely different take than crphilips, I purchased and install was purely money motivated, I was fed up being held to ransom by British Gas and Vodka swilling, gun totting Russian gas cartels.

I really wasn't sure how me and my stove would get on, I got middle of range Brit made villager duo 5kw m/f stove, dimensions were important, and the duo ticked my boxes, including price. Wood I get for free, the odd time I get offered seasoned wood for a small fee, normally a bottle of single malt, all in all, I reckon my install costs are now covered from gas savings?

At times prepping the wood can be a chore, I've moved from using splitting maul, to me knocking up a hydrualic 6 ton-ish log splitter, of course one has to factor in fuel/oil/chainsaw/blades ect into the overall cost. then there your time, but once that time arrives to fire up the burner, all the above is time well spent enjoying the ambience that a stove produces. I forgot to mention, Mrs W does at times do a stew or similar with pot placed on top of stove...........Oh, and washing can be dried while hanging from clothes horse..........Oh, I nearly forgot about the marshmallows and glass of wine, then a toast with two fingers in the air at BG and the Russians :rotfl:

crphillips

Good for you......there really is a good feeling about being self sufficient and not having to rely on anyone else for being warm.....if the gas is cut off you've got heating and cooking capabilities....same if the electricity goes off!

Although I still reckon that the time spent doing it it would probably be cheaper to just buy the stuff. I'm not sure how many man hours it would take to process enough wood for a year of heating but i'm sure it would be at least 4-5 days? What do you reckon...how many days to source, collect and process your firewood for the year?

A._Badger

I agree about the cat - they are far to smart to get burnt! More likely your cat will simply take ownership of a particular place on the mat, as has ours.

Re-reading my earlier comment, I think I may have been a little too cautious about the potential savings. My central heating is via oil and my house is largely uninsulated (and has to remain so because it's a listed building) - in other words using it is an expensive proposition. Were the alternative electric heating (thank God it isn't!) then I expect carefully sourced wood or smokeless coal could save money. With oil, I doubt there's much in it, but I might be wrong (I'll need another winter with the latest stove to find out).

My caution is because you have to amortise the installation and purchase costs of a stove and that will take a good few years.

As for how much reliance you can place on the heat one provides, I think it's far too variable to speculate. In my house, for most of the year the stove provides the majority of the heat for the main living room and the upstairs section in the evening but we let it go out at night and use the central heating as background during the day. In that sense then you could say it's our main source of heat - certainly when we are around most.

I could certainly see a stove heating an entire small house, providing you could keep it in and were available to feed it when needed (no small task when using wood!).

What you can't put a price on, as has been said, is the ambience it creates and, I believe, a better 'type' of heat. I was brought-up with point source heating (coal fires) and I feel physically uncomfortable in the stifling, all embracing heat of many so modern centrally heated, over-insulated homes. Others may disagree but, for me, the light, the fun of driving it and the enhanced physical comfort of having a real fire is beyond price.

That said, there can be cost benefits - just not the huge ones that some newcomers imagine they will get.

In a two bedroom house, I wouldn't hesitate and, in fact, did more or less that a few years ago with a holiday apartment I had in an old, draughty, house. I switched off the storage radiators and simply relied on a Little Wenlock stove. It did the job very well, despite its limitations.

Hope that's some help.