Wood burning stoves - worth it?

suisidevw

Well, obviously differences looking at them both but reminds me of home! This thing is mild steel and pumps out rediculous heat! 20yrs old and going strong!

pinkmami

Its the style of the traditional Welsh cottage in the new BBC Wales documentary Snowdonia 1890. There are many scattered on the hills of Snowdonia (where I live), White washed, long & cosy! Dh's grandad lived there used the cow shed as his cobbler's workshop & his mum was also born there. We've added a rather large extension to it now which unfortunately makes it big but we're a family of 5 & it was way too small for us, but it'll be inkeeping with the character of the cottage & we're using stones from the fields surrounding it to clad it & it'll be whitewashed too. Have a look at this video - cos I have pics of the house somewhere looking as poor as the house in the BBC vid!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00b9sxx

pinkmami

That fireplace is lovely! All cosy for the winter!

jendav

Wow Pink, that really is beautiful!

Sorry I've neglected this post for a few weeks - I put the stove hunt on hold slightly while waiting for a chimney sweep to come out and see what state our chimney is in. Noticed from a recent post that there are questions about general ballpark figures, so thought I'd post what I found out:

For chimney sweep to do as much as they can, i.e. excavate existing brick backing on gas fire to original dimensions to allow room for stove to be inset - approx £300 plus Vat

and line the chimney (2 storeys high) - approx £900 plus VAT

then need to buy stove - anything from £500 for a 6kw stove

and cap gas below floorboards - tbc

and possibly buy new hearth - couple of hundred £.

Slight confusion over whether we need to buy a flue as well as liner, or whether these are one and the same? Still trying to work this out - if anyone can explain, that would be great, as clearly we're very thick!

Compared to a showroom which we visited today which quoted almost £3k including VAT to do the whole lot, based on a lead-in stove (Tiger). Would rather give the chimney sweep the business - support the local guys and all that, and he was terribly helpful today - but tempting to go for the convenience of one mob doing the whole lot and saving us having to coordinate stove, chimney prep and gas removal separately, especially when baby is due about the same time.

Also had a concern that, because we're in a lower villa, there could be a concern for upstairs flat as they have a living game gas fire and the two chimneys sit side by side. Wasn't sure if there was a kaboom risk, but sweep says not - chimney is sound and apparently having it newly lined would make it almost impossible to have any bearing on upstairs' chimney or fire. Hoping that's correct! Suppose we should wonder whether there's a chance of gas leak from them into our space instead, but surely not???

Really like Morso, although slightly suckered in by the fact that they're Danish - hubby is Danish and there's a real prejudice in this household that that means quality...not sure how true that really is!

Thanks everyone for all your help so far - this forum has been a brilliant source of information to get us to this point. Now just down to us to decide whether it makes sense financially to put the stove in or get another whopping big gas bill this winter if we stick to what we have. Hmmm, crystal ball...

crphillips

The only issue you get using several people on the same job is they'll all blame each other if it isn't right.......i know we have a right nightmare when builders have done the fireplace....we quite often have to rip half if not all of it out and do it again.

At this time of year we generally offer to do the job from start to finish or not at all as we can't afford to loose a days work because the plasterer decided to plaster inside the recess or the builder decided to install a wooden beam as a lintel.

I assume the flue they are talking about is simply the length of connecting flue pipe from the top of the stove....you'd normally have around 600mm of matt black flue pipe and this would then convert over to the flexi liner once out of sight above the closure plate.

£3000 seems a bit steep for an installation of a Tiger.....that would mean the your paying £2600 for lining, knockout and hearth? I'd be expecting a Clearview or Charnwood at those prices.

Also £300 seems a bit steep just to knock the hole out....it barely ever takes longer than an hour to knock out a fireplace and reveal the original opening....the tricky bit is putting everything back and leaving it looking finished. We charge £380+vat and that's to knock it out, install lintel, board inner walls of recess with £120 worth of compressed vermiculite (included in the £380), lay hearth, install surround, make good of plasterwork and dispose of rubble.

You don't need to worry about flats upstairs....the flues will be separate and a new liner will definitely make sure of this.

The Morso's are brilliant! The Danish have been burning wood far better for longer than we have!

ystalyfera

having a combi put in after christmas.So we'll have to get rid of our old baxi.But was thinking about a woodburner just to use has a room heater.Would this be a waste of money.Dont fancy having to brick up our fireplace and just to have heat off our rads.Room would look bare.Not afte a big one just a small 4/5 kw one....

reeac

One other point re. wood burning stoves is that in the event of a prolonged electricity cut you still have heat and some cooking capability. We have a small 3 kW Clearview with a flat top so that it will take saucepans and we regard it as a reserve as above. We had a 4 day power cut some years ago and it came in very useful. One point: you need a torch to shine into the saucepan to see how the cooking is going.