would you switch to wood burning fire?

Widelats

CHRISSYG wrote: »

you could alwasys make brickettes [sp]. god knows theres enough junk mail to keep a castle warm

Good idea, thanks, i would burn anything like that.

spiro

undaunted wrote: »

You may be able to collect wood off cuts from joiners / builders, perhaps old furniture from charity stores, find it on ebay etc

You would need to be very careful about this suggestion. Loads of timber is now treated and nit suitable for burning in a home fire. Likewise furniture may be painted or varnished which you cant burn. Also things like MDF give off toxins which is why it has been banned in lots of countries.

A recent report sampled the air in houses that had wood burners and in lots the pollution in the room was worse that a smoggy city centre.

As to collecting wood, the land on which a tree grows is owned by someone so taking any fallen trees/branches without the land owners premission is theft. If the police can threaten to arrest a young child for picking a few daffs think what they would do if they saw you loading up a car with timber.

My local council leaves a certain amount of fallen timber in the woods so it rots and provides part of the food chain.

Widelats

spiro wrote: »

You would need to be very careful about this suggestion. Loads of timber is now treated and nit suitable for burning in a home fire. Likewise furniture may be painted or varnished which you cant burn. Also things like MDF give off toxins which is why it has been banned in lots of countries.

A recent report sampled the air in houses that had wood burners and in lots the pollution in the room was worse that a smoggy city centre.

As to collecting wood, the land on which a tree grows is owned by someone so taking any fallen trees/branches without the land owners premission is theft. If the police can threaten to arrest a young child for picking a few daffs think what they would do if they saw you loading up a car with timber.

My local council leaves a certain amount of fallen timber in the woods so it rots and provides part of the food chain.

I would not burn treated wood, no. I think i will need some hardwood pieces, thanks for that info.

savemoney

Technically you need permission of the land owner to gather wood.

Installing a wood burning stove is not a cheap option also you need a hell of a lot of wood for a season ie I have a whole one side of a very large garage to store mine in and its seasoned wood

I also gather wood pallets for kindling and for getting fire up and running and giving it a boost but I do ask permission of the owner

It can costs you over 3k for stove with installation if you also need chimney liner. if your flat is owned by the council surely you need permission also.

I dont want to put you off but believe me it isnt a cheap way to go and wood has gone up in recent years and will continue to go up as more people opt for it.

Widelats wrote: »

I would store the wood in the coal shed, its pretty big! The previous tenant used anthracite coals and when i moved in it was disgustingly dirty like you would not believe, but before i moved in the council have taken out his coal fire and installed a electric convector fire it racks up electric usage massively, i could heat my main room and my water and all my radiators from just 1 log per day.

I didn't know it was illegal to chop down a tree, maybe i could just pull off some nice branches then and collect deadwood from the ground, there is tons of it here.

undaunted

There is some info on what you can & can't burn, smoke controlled areas etc here

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/smoke-control-areas-clean-air-act.html#

macman

One bedroomed flat..do you already have a working chimney? If not, forget the idea.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Hardwood fuel is not cheap at about £50 a meter cubed.

PennyForThem_2

I have 2 multifuel stoves (only heating rooms). I know I have saved on gas over last winter.

One I use as a wood burner only in evenings and for part of day and nignt in winter when we are all here i.e. Christmas.

One in a very large double room I use with Newflame smokeless fuel. My OH has been quite ill recently and house bound and this stove means the 2 rooms stay warm throughout day and nightwithout need of gas CH on.

I use about 4-5 25kg bags of coal in a month = £35 ish delivered for this stove.

I bought 3 cu.m of semi-seasoned hardwood in April 2010 to season off myself = £230 delivered but I still got about 1 cu.m left. Maybe they were over generous?!

There is added value in that the ambience of multifuel stove is really attractive and heart warming. Sweeping is an added cost and Hetas installation ain't cheap but i am really glad I installed and I would not hesitate to do it again if I moved.

(Pallets are free)