Beginner stove tips - First burns

highrisklowreturn

Yes that's my inglenook. the arguments you are using Graham are the same ones my installer gave to me for not putting in a register plate.

My stove sits on the tiling. The pipe exits the stove upwards for about 3 feet where it adjoins the chimney pipe, which is fixed and sealed off with concrete around it. However, in that 3 feet gap where the stove pipe goes, is a decent sized cavity behind the chimney. My heat goes up into this, then doesn't circulate back out. The temperature in this zone is great, really hot, what I expected out of the stove. In the room it is good, but only if the weather is keeping up outside. The performance hasn't been terrific on cold nights.

My idea therefore with the register plate is to seal not the chimney off - this is sealed with the concrete around where the chimney pipe joins the stove pipe 3 feet above stove - but to seal off maybe 1 foot above the stove, at the top end of the fire opening (see photo). This will minimise heat escaping into that cavity, and sitting there, and hopefully bung a lot more into the room. I hope this will speed up heating the room massively as well as chucking a much larger amount of hot air into the room circulation.

suki1964

I think that here register plates are not used so much, my mums stove is sealed with fire cement as well

highrisklowreturn

This is the chimney opening into which the stove pipe runs. As you can see, it's all degraded cement and brickwork around the opening. Roughly where the two front bricks are would be where I would put the plate to try to deflect the rising heat into the room, stopping it from getting lodged in that cavity where so much of it ends up sitting.

werdnareklaw

Why not fill the cavity with glass fibre insulation and use your plate to hold it in position? Just plain, roll insulation, non of this paper backed stuff!!! :shocked:

highrisklowreturn

Would it not catch fire? Can't the stove pipe and register plate not get up to hundreds of degrees?

grahamc2003

If there aren't any holes in the concrete, or any other ways of the heat in the well escaping, then you won't improve things much. Effectively, you already have the functions of a register plate. The amount of heat 'wasted', 'sitting' in the well is minimal (if none escapes). Didn't you follow the bit about as more heat rises into the well, it simply spills out into the room? Just like an upside down glass? It's like pouring gallons of water per minute into a thimble, and saying the water in the thimble is wasted.

One good thing about your installation is the amount of stove pipe exposed to the room. Loads of heat radiates from the stove pipe. Isolating more from the room will make less heat radiated into the room. I'm currently thinking of doing the exact opposite - and that is to expose more of my stove pipe by rising my register plate a foot or so, after deomlishing a bit more of my chimney breast.

In your position, I would skim the crap concrete surface with fire cement to make sure it's sealed completely. That is effectively your register plate.

I don't know about others here, but I was under the impression (for months) your installer simply stuffed your stove pipe into the chimney cavity and left it at that.

highrisklowreturn

No no he put it as you can see up the chimney pipe, which is sealed off. I wasn't sure what you lot were on about previously when people were saying the job was botched for having no register plate. So essentially the cement if my register plate? My problem then is the heat isn't circulating quickly enough when first lighting, and that I want the general room temperature to be like that of the air immediately above the stove, really hot. I grew up in a freezing house, and am asthmatic, so cannot tolerate even moderate cold. My other idea is if I put the plate in around 20cm above stove that this will trap most of the heat around the stove, which I think should speed up how quickly the stove heats and hopefully push more and hotter air into the room quicker. I do know that cement comes away easily. Before I had the stove in it would dust accumulate as dust below the chimney, and if I touch it it will peel off. So I do think it's very old, and it is absorbing heat as I touched it earlier when stove was lit.

werdnareklaw

highrisklowreturn wrote: »

Would it not catch fire? Can't the stove pipe and register plate not get up to hundreds of degrees?

The glass fibre could melt but if you reach that sort of temperature, you will have a very warm room

Showboat

Hi, can you say where you are getting bags of anthracite from for £6?

highrisklowreturn wrote: »

1. Leave stove for two days after installation to allow cement to dry.
2. Use paper and a lot of kindling to make a fire, with a few bits of firelighter chucked in.
3. Add coal in small amounts at first where kindling fire is greatest.
4. Once coal lights add more coal around it and build up fire from there, until it's spread across stove, at which point you can 'choke' it with coal.
5. Wait 60-90 mins for the fire to hit full pelt, then turn the air vent down a quarter.

For a 6kw stove you would only be using 3/4 of a bucket of coal for one night's fuel, meaning you could draw out a 25kg bag over 3 days.

When it comes to what fuel to buy, I would recommend standard anthracite, sold in Northern Ireland as burnglow. I can buy this for £6 a bag from the local coal merchant. Personally I don't find Phurnacite necessary - the "-cites" suki alluded to are all types of Phurnacite which is essentially the dust from Anthracite, a naturally smokeless coal, compacted into ovals. Whilst I'm sure it burns and ignites much quicker than standard Anthracite which I would buy, I would doubt it gives a higher heat output.

When buying anthracite you can buy the standard stuff I get for reasonably cheap or buy Esse A which is a better type of anthracite. I believe Esse probably does burn a bit hotter; but the trade off comes in that it comes in smaller sizes, is harder to ignite than standard anthracite, is more expensive, and is arguably easier to get through than standard anthracite. As I see it, it would be pointless to be spending money on Esse despite its quality when its 33% more expensive than Burnglow which I buy, which comes in larger lumps, is easier to ignite owing to its being 'dustier', and which 'fills' the stove easily because it comes in bigger sizes.

Don't buy anything with coke in it as this will in all likelihood invalidate your warranty. Housecoal is a false economy.

Get a hearth - personally I just use a bit of kitchen work top (made of wood), covered in reflective foil. It does the job, and has saved me another £150.

highrisklowreturn

Shankill Road.

Am going to give up burning it as the heat isn't as good as Esse, which is £2 dearer - although I know the coal merchant has put his price up to £6.50 for Burnglow recently, but he does a deal every 5 bags.