Should we instal a wood burner/multi fuel burner?

Kit1

Hi

My parents live up in the Highlands of Scotland and do not have a mains gas supply in the village they live in. At the moment they have electric storage heaters which is costing the earth to run. Would they be better off putting in a wood/ multi fuel burner and could this be used to run radiators to heat the rest of their home?

Any advice would be great as I am not sure if this would work out cheaper or more expensive than what they already have.

Many thanks

grahamc2003

Kit1 wrote: »

Hi

My parents live up in the Highlands of Scotland and do not have a mains gas supply in the village they live in. At the moment they have electric storage heaters which is costing the earth to run. Would they be better off putting in a wood/ multi fuel burner and could this be used to run radiators to heat the rest of their home?

Any advice would be great as I am not sure if this would work out cheaper or more expensive than what they already have.

Many thanks

The running costs of a stove could be from £0 all the way up to a similar cost of storage heaters if seasoned wood is bought, ime, depending upon local conditions etc, roughly speaking.

If you have a source of free wood, and a chainsaw, plenty of time, plenty of storage space and plenty of motivation, the cost could be zilch (in terms of cash, but high in terms of effort).

I would guess - willing to be corrected - it isn't worth doing for financial reasons if wood/coal is bought in, but often the financial consideration isn't the prime factor. I think most people would agree that a crackling wood burning stove is more attractive than a storage heater!

Even is wood was bought in, theres still a fair amount of work involved, especially if you're driving a houseful of radiators off it - it would require frequent refilling with wood to generate heat at the required rate.

John_3:16

How long is a piece of string?

1 Have they got a chimney
2 Is it lined for a wood burner?
3. Can they get free wood?
4. Are they able to cope with the manual work of dealing with all the logs etc?

If you search for wood burning stoves on the site you will find this question has been asked before.