Woodburning Stove Advice (And yes, I have been to a shop!)

anotherbaldrick

As some time back we had one in France we opted for a Franco-Belge " Belmont " stove. ( not permitted to post links so go to Whatstove link in previous post)
I can confirm the reviews on the above review page, this small stove is a "Real Little Belter" as quoted. For a pair of old grotties who were really feeling the cold bite into their bones this has brought comfort and bliss.
However, and I think this applies to all wood stoves it takes a bit of practice and experience to control it to perform as we want.
Each to his own but for me :-
Lighting. Some fine kindling with some bits chopped off a solid fuel log and some larger sticks on top. Leave door ajar for 10 mins for extra air.
Burning. Keep a good bed of combustion in the grate, I use well seasoned logs mixed in with newspaper logs made through the Summer
Control. When it is going well start throttling back the air supply to reduce flame and the flue damper to the point where it is only just still drawing up the flue. And this point the fuel ceases giving large flame and becomes incandescent combustion . No smoke , just a red hot mass like a nuclear pile which lasts for hours and throws out amazing amount of heat

crphillips

Charnwood and Morso are both very fine stoves. You'd not be disappointed with either.

The Scandanavian stoves are generally very nice indeed. I actually think they wipe the floor with a lot of the best British stoves. They have a lot more experience than us.

fairy-mother

Wow. A big weekend of looking at Cast Iron (and some not!) Stoves. What I will say is it is quite hard to visualize a stove actually being lit and 'alive' when you are stood in a room full of stoves. Also, they all look kind of the same after a while. I'm still keen on Morso now mind.

I am going to have to make a call soon, we are getting cold with a big gap where a fire should be.

Here are a a few pics of what I am starting with.

ACTUALLY NO PICS!! NOT ALLOWED TO POST. weird - says i'm spamming?? just photos of a chimney and fireplace??

whats going on?

suisidevw

I think you need a certain amount of posts, read the rules

fairy-mother

I'm not so good at reading the rules. I will take your word for it!

fairy-mother

How about a Squirrel Morso for an idea? Thats the look I realy like. And nobody seems to have a bad word to say about them. I just need to sell my car to pay for one I think!

nomoneytoburn

i would definatley get quotes before getting to carried away with the buying side of woodburners.i thought i would just go buy one and crash bang wallop it would be heating my house.there are a lot of regulations involved in setting a burner up.these are required by law.if you want the best from your burner you should think about linning your chimney as well.mine is now fitted to building regulation standard and cost £1100 just to fit.this was with 8 meters of flue linner but not including price of stove.but if you do decide to go ahead they are very rewarding.i went with the Franco Belge Montfort mk2 with the defra smoke control kit.solid construction and a great view of the flames.also has a wide fire box and can run on a 12mm half.the only problem with it is you cant turn it right down to smolder.thats the trade off with having a defra approved burner.i was going to have the morso squirrel but wanted something a little wider for bigger logs.it is still a very good burner though with an excellente reputation.stay way from stoves are us though.if you mess up the order you can kiss good by to your money for 30 days at least.sorry bout rambling and about spelling:D

fairy-mother

Hi Everybody

I'm back. And I have found a Stove from a company here in Devon! I think the stove must be new to the market because I can't find out much about it. I really like the look of the stove also, not a million miles away from the Squirrel I like so much.


does anybody know anything about Salamander Stoves? I'm going to call them up today and see if I can visit, but I'd like to be armed with a little info from you people in the know first if possible??

fingers crossed this is the one for me - the price is right (£425) and I'm cold now. getting fed up of looking.

(I have posted this on another forum, as I really want to buy soon but I want as many opinions as possible before I part with my hard earned $$$)

grahamc2003

I, like others, think you're expecting a little too much from a small stove. I have an Aga Little Wenlock which someone else mentioned. It's rated at 4 or 5kw, and is fine for my 5mx5m room (with the door shut). I decided to go for an AGA because I had confidence it would be a solid design and work well for a long time, and it has. It was around £550, (delivered off the net) so probably £100 more than other makes - money well spent imv, especially as the stove cost itself isn't a big component of the overall cost (cheaper than the chimney lining!).

I don't think, even at full blast, when you will be feeding in logs every 15/20/25 minutes it'll warm sufficiently your sized room plus your upstairs, but who knows? If you have low ceilings, and very good insulation everywhere, maybe it just might do the job (personally, I'd remove some of the risk and go for an 8kw or more stove).

Edit - having re-read the thread again, I'm not sure you've got a handle yet on the total costs involved with installing a stove. The quote for mine was £3,900 installed (in the end I did it myself, with the help of a local blacksmith who made the register plate) but you need to know what you are doing).

crphillips

It looks reasonable. It's cheap enough. £160 more would get you a Dunsley though. Like you say it looks like a copy of the Morso Squirrel. I'm never keen on stove manufacturers that are too lazy to hide catches and screw heads....etc. All those exposed screw heads on the door catch and ashpan catch just look rough.