open fire - doing it wrong...

brunettegirl

we have a lovely open fire in our living room which is lit from abround 4pm each evening, however i assume that somewhere i am going wrong..

to explain, we bought a near enough ton bag of wood 12 days ago and we have run out!!!!!!!!

i do just use wood no coal - is this normal?

When we first moved in i worked out that in a month on coal, wood and kindling we had spent £100 i decided that was excessive and we decided to go to a logman and buy in bulk. the bag was £55 but hasn't even done a fortnight never mind a month.

I am failry new to the whole have a fire anyone with sensible suggestions please?????

thank you for reading

partan

i use mine similar to you, over xmas month we used 3 bags of coal, 6 bags of peat and a wee drop wood. open fires are not efficient at all, it would be worth you drivin round buildin sites lookin for boxes of free wood scraps

brunettegirl

ahh so should i accept the cost and keep collecting twigs when we go out walking? our garden has quite a lot of dropped branches ect to be cut up

violetfudge

Hello!

We have a coal yard locally and they have different types of coal, you can buy something called long heat and ovoids these are what you need for a coal fire as they burn for a better length of time, also make sure you have a proper front on the fire where you can close the vent down. find a local timber yard, as our local one sells of cuts for £15 for a tonne bag.

Wood burners are better than open fire at storing the heat, I had a wood burner at our old house and now have an open fire like you.

Hope you get it sorted out

LEJC

i'm by no means an expert but we do have an open fire in our dining room which we light probably once a week in winter months...

Wood tends to burn with a good flame but doesnt really last in terms of heat,so what we tend to do is a mixture of wood and anything we can pick up by way of fallen branches when walking and smokeless ovals...these are really good and seem to burn for ages...theres no real real flame to them its more of a glow but the heat they produce is much more intense than burning wood alone...

If you dont have a local coal merchant near you who can deliver you can order from the website coals2 u...I have always found them to be quite competative in terms of price...

On a slightly seperate note if you burn wood pallets etc or wood that is very brittle watch out for the spitting....over the years ive lost a few rugs in front of the fire that way!...a real fire may not be the most efficient form of heating...but it is lovely...

ash28

We have an open fire in the living room which we light every day around 5pm (sometimes all day as we are at home) and it's on until bedtime.

We're quite new to it too - we moved in October. We're on our 3rd bag of wood - so a bag seems to last us about a 5 weeks.

We were going through it a rate before our logman told us to start the fire off with coal and put the logs onto burning coal embers and if we did that the wood would burn for longer - and that we shouldn't start the fire with logs.

We took his advice and seem to be using about half of what we were.

What wood are you burning? Is it softwood or hardwood? We buy hardwood (oak) from our logman - hardwood is supposed to burn hotter for longer.

Do you have a damper on your fire? We only really use ours to start the fire off.

And I have to admit our living room can become too warm for me and I have a tendency to nod off!! And it's a fairly big room.

brunettegirl

we get hard wood from the log man, we don't use coal as nowhere to put it really and the small bags are so expensive from supermarkets/garages.

don't mean to sound stupid but what is a damper? and how do I know if the vent is turned down, more to the point where is the vent!?

sorry for all the questions its a weird fire, i think at some point it must of been a back boiler in it or something as the part you clean out is a hole underneath the fire that goes under the floor, a big metal bucket comes out. so there isn't the usual little tray underneath ect....

spinningsheep

Hi you have what is known as a BAXI underfloor draught fire. There will be an air tube somewhere under the floor that brings fresh air in under the fire, there will most likely be a small knob on the front of the fire to open and close the damper in the pipe to regulate the amount of air getting to the fire and therefore the rate at which the fuel is burnt. You may well find this is set to fully open and so you are burning a huge amount of fuel. The best way to test this, is when you have a fire in (preferably a coal one) turn the knob to see if the fire dies down, if it does, there is the culprit. You will need to experiment with different positions on the air control to suit your needs, but keep it at full draught when lighting the fire to give it as much air as possible.

good_advice

I love my coal/wood fire. It is not very big but we got a lot of owwww's and arrrrr's from visitors.

I start the fire with scrunched up newspaper and kindle. Small piece of firelighter. A little coal. Then WATCH IT for a wile. The fire is so sneaky. No watching and it goes out!

I build up a bed of coals and then put wood on. The fire guard often is about 6 inches from the front of the fire as it can spit out embers.
When the fire is glowing without much wood and I am watching, I do take the guard away to give out more heat.

The wood we use is bought logs, delivered from a small yard.
We are also grateful to any neighbours who bring us off cuts from jobs they are doing. Fresh wood, unpainted or untreated.

The boys of the house do spend time chopping and sawing up the bigger pieces.

I sometimes spend a few minutes burning any documents/statements unwanted.
sometimes rubbish from the bin.

Rarely but have toasted bread sat by the fire. Chestnuts roasting by the fire at Christmas.

The damper is the thing you pull out to let smoke /air go up the chimney also the heat if you leave it always open. Mine is above the fire like a metal board you put in / out. Some have it under the fire like a drawer to be set ajar.

Every year the chimney sweep has to be sent for to clean the chimney. This year it cost us £35.
Better than having a chimney fire!!!

I wish mine had a back boiler to heat water.

Ben84

Open fires may be very attractive, but they are the least efficient and cost effective way to heat a house that I can think of. If you had a 3 kW electric fire and ran it on the highest setting every day between 4:00-11:00 (very few people use their electric fire that heavily, I used to be fine with the 1.5 kW setting on mine in a big sitting room), assuming your electric costs ~10p a kWh, it would cost around £60 a month for this very high usage.

People still use open fires because they enjoy them, but in practical terms it's a very costly option for everyday heating. Even a cheap electric heater offers significant savings on fuel costs and if you can get a reasonably efficient natural gas fire installed that would be exceptionally cheap to run. I used to spend about £7 a month on mine and I was using it for hours every day.

craftysarah

Hi brunettegirl, I was in your position 3 years ago but have now learnt the way that suits us!

1st of all DEFINITELY get your chimney swept yearly if you're using it regularly.

The best tip I can give is keep your eyes open for 'free' wood all year. Over this last year I've built up such a big haul, glad I've got a garage to keep it in! Anything from twigs to pallets but like LEJC said, this type of wood tends to spit so a fireguard is a must. Once people know you have a real fire it's amazing what you get given!!

I'm lucky that my new partner loves chopping the big pieces but I used to do it before he was around so don't be afraid of an axe and a saw, it's hard work but possible.

I get our coal from our local timber merchants/diy place. Avoid supermarkets and petrol stations if possible, it will be the same price but a much smaller bag!

I use newspaper and small twigs to start the fire. Once it's got hold I pop on larger pieces of wood or twigs and when this gets going I put a couple of scoops of coal on. When the wood has burnt you get a nice 'base' of coal. Usually during an evening I might top up the coal 2 - 3 times to keep the 'base' going and top up with wood in between for an instant burst of flame.

It's trial and error but I'm sure you'll get there.

Good luck!