Are multifuel stoves cost effective nowadays?

[Deleted User]

I was going to buy a 4KW multifuel stove hoping to keep the use of my central heating to a minimum but it seems that the cost of the actual coal or wood is adding up to about £35 a week. Is that about right? That's more expensive than the central heating.

rustyboy21

I am looking forward to seeing the replies to your question.

Take out of the answers, anyone who says they burn unseasoned wood( ie go out and chop down a tree and burn it straight away). Also anyone who burns pallets and old kitchen units and others who find nutty slack washed up on the beach. Also anyone who lives in a rural part of the country, where supply is easier.

I am interested to find out, if you use the stove as intended, burning the fuels you are recommended by the manufacturer and not getting any free wood from anywhere, how much it costs to run one.

Sorry OP for possibly hogging your thread, just have this argument every day in work and no one can give me a correct figure. More than likely you wont get your answer either !

suki1964

Depends on what your ch is

I'm on oil which is is expensive and have a huge house to heat. The oil now is used for just short periods of the day to keep the non living rooms a bearable tempeture for my elderly parents and have two stoves to heat the living rooms to a more respectable temp

2 stoves working at least 12 hours a day cost me £50 a month in coal

A 900 litres of oil now lasts four months in the winter rather then the 6 weeks it used to pre stove days
Back then 900 litres was around £400 so around £65 week in the winter (November to May)

Now 900 is around £550 but lasts us longer so is around £35 a week in the winter
Add coal costs £12 a week plus kindlers and firefighters we are spending £50 a week in heating

For us yes we are saving money but if you have mains gas ch then prolly not

Williwoodburner

[Deleted User] wrote:

I was going to buy a 4KW multifuel stove hoping to keep the use of my central heating to a minimum but it seems that the cost of the actual coal or wood is adding up to about £35 a week. Is that about right? That's more expensive than the central heating.

The answer to this question is I suppose - it depends on your circumstances.
If you have access to a lot of free wood then yes, we have run a rayburn and a stove for over 40 years and have never bought any fuel as we have access to woodland on the family farm.

However producing logs to burn takes time and quite a bit of effort and equippment.
I recon to be able to produce enough wood to be able to do this you need to spend about £1000 on equippment.
A decent chainsaw (which costs to run and maintain), a saw horse, various handsaws, safety equippment, a decent maul or log splitter, wedges and hammers, not to mention somewhere to store the logs to season and a tractor or other form of transportation.
People who think they can buy a stove and collect a few sticks in the woods are in for a shock as to how much wood a stove goes through.
My brother and I spend probably 1 day a week in the winter months coppicing/pollarding trees to produce enough fuel to keep us going.
Even "free" wood has a cost, but it is very satisfying producing your own fuel and you cant beat having a real fire to poke.

regards

Willie.

IvanDrago

ive spent £125 on wood and about £25 on coal and its lasted from mid september til now.

If you dont know any tree surgeons i reckon woodburners arent cost effective. But they are better than radiators.

smcqis

It will save money, we spent about 15 pound a week on stove fuel and thats on all weekend and each night, only have oil on in morning and maybe odd time at night for other rooms. But you cant put a price on the comfort and cosy"ness" of sitting in front of fire as opposed to radiator heat

w50nky

Like suki1964 we use oil and live in the sticks. We used to have an open fire which we used to supplement the oil heating and to provide a feature and back up when the power fails. We used to have to fill our oil tank twice a year and buy six bags of coal a month too.
Since fitting the stove we very rarely use the heating these days although we use oil to heat our water. We fill the tank up by around 900 litres a year now.
The stove is and has been on 24/7 since October. It heats the living room really well. So much so that you have to leave the doors open to allow heat to escape. This heat spreads into the hallway and rises up to the upstairs bedrooms and warms them to around 16/18 deg C depending on outside temperatures. Some heat spreads to the other downstairs rooms too. It is great to get up to a still warm house without using the heating. I have insulated as well as I can in most areas although there is still some more to do but will be difficult due to access. I use 6 bags of super therm smokeless fuel a month at the moment which costs £16 a bag although there is a discount if you buy a tonne or more.

I think that installing a stove would have saved money even if I had never lit it, as the chimney draw from the open fire constantly removed air from the room taking air heated by the radiators with it! I suppose a simple chimney ballon would have prevented this loss

I would also recommend spending money on insulation first as this will give you a constant payback over future years.

If gas came to our village I would jump at the chance of using it. With oil you have to pay upfront if wish to buy at the best prices. But I would still keep the stove and use it when I could as I think it is a really useful addition and we can boil a kettle and cook on it too when the power fails and we can not use the boiler or cooker.

These are just my own experience and I realise others may differ.

Gloomendoom

I'm dubious.

They are great for heating the room that they are in but unless they are linked to the central heating system I can't see how they can heat the whole house to a comfortable level.

If you just used the central heating system to heat one or two rooms it would save you money.

BTW I have one as well as open fires but IMHO mains gas is a far cheaper form of heating.

A._Badger

Like some of the other commenters, I'm not convinced it's a money saving prospect under all circumstances - but I still wouldn't be without mine.

Cheaper than gas? No. But probably cheaper than LPG and maybe cheaper than oil (not so sure about the latter). Certainly solid fuel and wood are cheaper than electricity.

That said, personally, I don't much like central heating (I find it stuffy) and I also dislike a room without a fire as a focal point during the colder months - it looks pretty inhospitable to me.

So, am I saving money over using oil (there is no gas here)? Maybe. But even if I wasn't I would still prefer to have a living heart to my home, more or less regardless of how much it cost, or how much attention it took to run it.

redlady_1

I have a 2 bed cottage. My multi fuel burner is my main source of heat with an oil fired rad in the bedroom when it gets seriously cold.

My costings for the last year for wood was £440 and £108 for coal (of which I have currently used two bags). I dont have access to any free wood at all.

Does it heat upstairs? Not so it is hot but enough so I am not cold. It has to drop below freezing before the rad goes on a timer. I dont like hot bedrooms so in that respect its fine.

I do have a Vulcan fan on top of the burner which blows directly into the kitchen. Again, it takes the edge off it but doesn't make it really hot. I also agree with having good insulation. It makes a huge difference. To be honest you dont actually want the whole house to be hot as when the fire gets going you need a place to escape for a while :-)

I chose not to have central heating put in when I bought the place and really wouldnt be without the burner.

Leif

I've paid the deposit for a stove to be installed, under the assumption that it is not a cheap form of heating. The appeal for me is aesthetic, and as a backup for gas CH. Not sure I'd want one as main heating, as unlike GCH you can't leave it unattended for a few days, or a week, over winter.