Wood Burning Stove - Is it really worth it?

Russ123_2

A._Badger wrote: »

Many years ago I had a friend with one of these. I seem to remember it worked very well. Haven't seen one in decades!

I think the deciding factor would be how well your chimney draws, though. A poorly performing chimney can wreck just about any set-up.

If the chimney was good, I reckon one of these would work well and the price seems quite good. I've seen those (hopelessly inefficient!) Spanish baskets selling for over £150 for a big one.

Thanks Badger, My chimney draws extremely well and i have enough drafts for at least another 5 open fires - So anway of slowing down the rate of burn overnight sounds very appealing! :j

Looks like its going to be quite an expensive Xmas for the family :rotfl:

howardtog

And another thing to consider...weve just spentr two days chain sawing our seasoned cord wood into logs and putting them in the garage. The stack is 8 feet high and 3 cu yards plus!! We have a winters supply.On the one hand we feel incredibly fit on the other completely cream crackered.
Need a winter sitting around the stove to recover.

pinkmami

I don't know if they're worth them or not. We installed one at a cottage we're renovating. It craved one as its a traditional welsh stone cottage & the nook was boarded up (shocking & criminal!) & when we exposed it it was massive - out of proportion to the house, yet adequated I suppose for their purpose back then. I'd only have regretted not installing a stove & it was the dirtiest/filthiest job for the house so we did it 1st.

But ATM we don't live there (work in progress) but we have made a few fires & it does heat the room up but takes a good hour and a half to get the room warm as the nook is large - measures approx 7ft high, 6ft wide & depth of about 5ft. But once it gets going we got heat & that was with no internal doors & concrete on the floor.

But when we do move in I'm sure we'll get some roaring fires going & it WILL be worth it!

A._Badger

[QUOTE=pinkmami;45841779
But ATM we don't live there (work in progress) but we have made a few fires & it does heat the room up but takes a good hour and a half to get the room warm as the nook is large - measures approx 7ft high, 6ft wide & depth of about 5ft. But once it gets going we got heat & that was with no internal doors & concrete on the floor.

But when we do move in I'm sure we'll get some roaring fires going & it WILL be worth it![/QUOTE]


I remember arguing with some self-styled HETAS 'expert' about the time it takes an inglenook to warm-up a few years ago. It takes about the same length of time here.

pinkmami

I often think we should have bricked it up & brought the stove into the room to heat the place up quicker...but no way. Looking at what we have its beautiful.

Bonus is we also have LPG central heating too and lot of blankets!

Russ123_2

Just installed an 18inch all night burner, its all sealed up nice and tight and the cast-iron is nice and heavy, excellent quality :j

Can't wait to give her a trial run, will have to wait for it to cool down tho

might have to play around with what works best for over night burning, e.g slack,ash, smokeless coal etc etc

grahamc2003

I hate to pee on your all night fire, but I'm a bit confused as to what these all night burner grates actually achieve. Obviously, if they work as claimed, they'll keep your coal burning slowly all night, but what real good does that do? (Not criticising, just asking?).

Restricting the air supply to the fuel will simply cause unburnt hydrocarbons to go up the chimney - and that's expensive fuel. Not sure how much smoke smokeless fuels give out under those conditions, but normal house coal would produce lots, much of which will cause tar and soot in your chimney. Also, since the amount of room air sucked up the chimney isn't restricted (that's partly how stoves improve efficiency massively over open grates), all the warm air in the room will quickly dissappear up the chimney (replaced somehow by outside ambient temperature air), so surely the room temp (and possibly the rest of the house, depending where the air gets in) will quickly drop anyhow, and won't be warmed much to compensate by the low radiation from a slowly buring coals.

I suppose the difference is the room will be a little warmer in the morning than if there were no simmering fire, and the hassle of lighting another fire is avoided - but are those the only advantages to balance against the pretty high cost (of both the coal and extra chimney sweeping)?

Russ123_2

Your correct on many points, the depth at which you can bank up the coal at night is astonishing, i even have a 'deepening bar' which can be fitted and would quite frankly cost a fortune in coal if it were banked all the way to the top.

I doubt very much i will be attempting to keep it burning over night that often, apart from the coldest of nights. I will however be using it if i have to go out for a few hours and plan on returning relatively quickly, at least then i dont have to struggle to relight it.

Having some control over the air flow/burn rate will be beneficial to me. Especially if the fire has been lit all day and i go out for a few hours in the evening, the amount of times i have returned and it has gone out is frustrating. Especially my last grate, it was cheap and nasty and allowed my fuel to burn up far too quickly

I will hopefully have a test run in a few weeks and report back :cool:

farthing71

This seems a lot of money for the installation - the best stoves are clearview and hold their value - If you see them on ebay they sell for pretty close to new price (especially if you had bought a couple of years ago. For clearview will need to find a local dealer or buy direct and find a hetas installer to do this for you. Most stove companies don't recommend clearview as there is little margin in it for them plus most people think they are not worth it but they are as they are so easy to light and the glass stays clear. I bought the clearview pioneer 400 a few years ago - it knocks out alot of heat and should be ample for your room - though check with clearview - you don't want to have to sit too far from the stove. You could try the vision 500 if you think this may look too small. Do you need to get your chimney lined??often this is not needed - if it's in good nick and doesn't leak, it could be OK - this could save you £500/£1000. If you do make sure it's a good flexible liner not the cheapest and that the liner is backfilled with vermiculite (some installers don't bother) I would also recommend positioning the stove as much into the room as you can, otherwise you are just heating up the fireplace. I wouldn't bother with kiln dried for a stove as they are too expensive - just regular seasoned wood plus a bit of coal/smokeless pebbles will keep it going and is better value. If you just burn wood you'll be forever loading it. Also I don't think you'll neccesarily save a great deal on central heating as if the stove is hot enough to warm up the house you won't want to be in the same room, so you will end up with a warmish stove and central heating on - maybe a back boiler to radiators could be a good idea with a clearview vision 500. Is it worth it - economically - probably not but it is if you value the look, comfort, atmosphere and character that the stove will bring to the room. They are fun as well and it may save you money over an open fire

Unk_2

I have a 12KW stove.. it cost me £1,100. then another £1,400 for some chiney work, new liner, and complete fitting. I pay £50 a cubic metre for wood, and £10.50 per 25kg bag of large ovals.
The wood is ready seasoned, and I get through about 8 metres per year, plus about 30 bags of ovals..total about £700.

I have oil fired central heating. before the burner went in, annual consumption was 4,000 litres (yes, it's a big house) now down to 2,000 litres.
However the main benefit is that with the chimney sealed off, the sitting room STAYS warm.. even with the fire off.

This year, wood costs will be near nil, as I have taught myself to track down those tree surgeons that live localy but don't have anywhere to store logs and tree trunks they remove.. I suggest you buy a small trailer for your car, and phone around for better pricing.