Are multifuel stoves cost effective nowadays?

Gloomendoom

redlady_1 wrote: »

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 :-)

See, that's my problem. To get the rest of the even slightly warm in winter, the room with the stove in it has to be ludicrously hot.

It was so bad in my house once that even the cat had to go outside and lie on the patio slabs to cool down

[Deleted User]

Wow. Interesting variation of answers...

I should have said - typical 1930s 3 bedroom semi-detached. £20 a week is supposed to be an average spend when using central heating but that is based on people at work during the day. Our bill is more like £30 a week over the year with a modern combi boiler cos someone at home all day likes it hot! It's off when sleeping. Obviously it needs to be on for hot water.

I was thinking of buying one of those amazingly neat small ones 4or 5 KW ones to stand in the the fireplace in a "through room" = heating 2 rooms. No idea where the wood would come from but there is a coal shop nearby. I want dual fuel to keep my options open.

So for example, how many bags of coal at whatever weight do you need in one day in the cold months? This is the question I can't find an answer to. And a parallel question how much wood per day in the cold weather in a 4or 5 KW stove.

highrisklowreturn

For a 5kw stove for one day in the cold you would probably use around 16-24 blocks over the day. If using coal you might get through around 7/8kg a day tops with a 5kw. Mine is a 6.4kw waterfor stanley oisin and that's what I would use to heat a 3 by 6 by 2 m room. Coal is exceptionally economical and is beautiful to watch, rather than the dull, inanimate hums of a CH system. As I work 5 days a week I normally get through 1 25kg bag of coal every 6 days.

A._Badger

If it's a three bed semi then the chances are you are in a built-up area, which rules out wood or housecoal, if it is a smokeless zone. The only ways round that are to buy a certified smokeless heater and burn wood, or buy a conventional one and use smokeless fuel - both options adding to your costs.

Whatever you do, don't buy your coal from ' a local shop'. You need to find a coal merchant who will deliver, otherwise you will pay through the nose for 25kg sacks that you have to lug home.

How much fuel you will use depends on the size of the stove and how many hours a day you operate it for. We need that information, at least, before anyone can give you a reliable guide.

suki1964

A._Badger wrote: »

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.


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.

Definitely natural gas will be the cheaper option but only having the choice of oil here, in real terms I have seen a drop in heating costs since I have had the stoves installed. My heating costs are no dearer now then they were 3 years ago and theres not many who can say that:T

grahamc2003

[Deleted User] wrote:

Wow. Interesting variation of answers...

I should have said - typical 1930s 3 bedroom semi-detached. £20 a week is supposed to be an average spend when using central heating but that is based on people at work during the day. Our bill is more like £30 a week over the year with a modern combi boiler cos someone at home all day likes it hot! It's off when sleeping. Obviously it needs to be on for hot water.

I was thinking of buying one of those amazingly neat small ones 4or 5 KW ones to stand in the the fireplace in a "through room" = heating 2 rooms. No idea where the wood would come from but there is a coal shop nearby. I want dual fuel to keep my options open.

So for example, how many bags of coal at whatever weight do you need in one day in the cold months? This is the question I can't find an answer to. And a parallel question how much wood per day in the cold weather in a 4or 5 KW stove.

I have a nominal 5kW stove. It heats a largeish room with cwi very well from cold on a typical winter's day (say 3C min at night, 7C max in day). I'd typically light it at 4 or 5pm, and not refuel it after 9 or 10pm, closing the air vent when there's only hot ashes left, say at 11pm. That costs me approx 1 of those tesco collapsable flimsy plastic 'boxes' full of wood - say about 2'6x2'x1'6 (approx). In the cold weather we've had recently (say -5C min at night and 1C max day), I lit the stove about 9am with the last refuel at about 11pm - and that cost about 3 plastic boxes of wood. The room gets to about 20/23C with the door shut - in the cold temps, it won't heat (anywhere near adequately) any other room if I keep the door open.

I've run it for about 4 years mostly with 99% wood which I collected and seasoned myself (with no expensive equipment). But it means a LOT of lugging (from a wood of which I am part owner), chopping, splitting, piling up and unpiling. I do a little at a time - each (suitable) day on the dog walk collecting a log or two (other people 'manage' the wood to keep it natural, by chopping a lot of trees down! and usually leaving piles of handy sized logs). I reckon if I costed my time at the minimum wage, the cost would work out at ten times the oil or lpg cost). But I find it enjoyable and satisfying.

shegar

rustyboy21 wrote: »

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 !

In your post you say "about people living in the country where supply is easy.".......Yes supply is easy but not far means not cheap, you cant just go walking along a country lane and see some chopped wood in a farmers field and just take it,:eek:........Its just as expensive to buy wood in the country as in the towns, and it may even be more so expensive because so many people come from cities to live here, and a lot of places do not have NG in the villages , they commute daily to work think they like to live the country life and more people are now buying woodburners than ever so the price will go up and never come down....................I always say if you get it for free then its a cheaper form of heating , its dam hard work getting a trailor load, and the cost of chainsaw petrol and oil dont come cheap either..............Ive been there done that ............

Im in the country but lucky to have a NG line go through so weve got GCH, I do have a open fire which I light of a evening and turn the CH off, simply because I love to see a real fire , I havent got a woodburner and have no desire for one either,been there done that , so my open fire is a bit of luxury that I love to have ,it heats the one room perfect , GCH is cheaper than fires, but as most say on here those flames licking around the grate are so great.......:D

welda

I too, have full NG CH system in the home. Although NG is about the cheaper option at this time, it is still expensive, and will increase, year in, year out. Not a lot we can do about this, apart from shop around, or use less, which is where MF stove comes in.

I have a 5kw box. To date, wood has always been free and legitimate, I did spend £100 on smokeless fuel late last year (300kgs) I have a small amount left, which will see me through till spring, this is along with remainder of oak & ash I have been using for the last two seasons, including this one.

As already mentioned, factoring in gadget purchases, although no where near a grand, it does mount up!

That said though, stove heats our three main rooms, helped via ecofan, if really cold, I'll tweak froststat up a little when required. I find stove a money saver, but it goes beyond saving money, once you have one, I can't see us giving it up, this is despite my moans and groans prepping wood ect...

Regards..................

rustyboy21

shegar wrote: »

In your post you say "about people living in the country where supply is easy.".......Yes supply is easy but not far means not cheap, you cant just go walking along a country lane and see some chopped wood in a farmers field and just take it,:eek:........Its just as expensive to buy wood in the country as in the towns, and it may even be more so expensive because so many people come from cities to live here, and a lot of places do not have NG in the villages , they commute daily to work think they like to live the country life and more people are now buying woodburners than ever so the price will go up and never come down....................I always say if you get it for free then its a cheaper form of heating , its dam hard work getting a trailor load, and the cost of chainsaw petrol and oil dont come cheap either..............Ive been there done that ............

Im in the country but lucky to have a NG line go through so weve got GCH, I do have a open fire which I light of a evening and turn the CH off, simply because I love to see a real fire , I havent got a woodburner and have no desire for one either,been there done that , so my open fire is a bit of luxury that I love to have ,it heats the one room perfect , GCH is cheaper than fires, but as most say on here those flames licking around the grate are so great.......:D

I completel;y get and understand where you are coming from and agree with you the benefits and pitfalls of having a stove for heating.

My ( it's not even an argument as such ) is that I own a fireplace shop. On a daily basis, I have couples who come into the shop and ask about stoves. They have the rose tinted specs on and think that wood will magically appear free for them by some kind soul and that they will no longer need to have their heating on, and everything will be fairies and little birds everywhere !

Most of my customers and most likely most of the people who look at buying stoves and enquire on here, hear how cheap it is to run, how they have saved £100's on gas and electric bills and that all their woes will be sorted.

They forget that most of them live in the towns or outer suburbs, that there is nowhere to forage for wood nearby, they live in a smokeless zone and that if they do come accross any free wood, it won't magically chop itself up, transport itself into their boots and will keep itself dry and immediatly season itself for use.

This is where, I think ( maybe wrongly ) that the OP may be asking about. His only choice is to buy fuel and wants to know, on average how much it will cost to run, using legitimate means of supply, compared to gas.

This is all down to the stove manufacurers and the media saying solid fuel stoves are cheap to run. They are if you have a free source and discounting the initial set up costs, which is a main bone of contention on this site ( to line or not to line, that is the question !). I am finding more and more couples ( mostly young ones ) who poo poohed a gas fire 3 years ago, when the craze started, now coming in and wanting a gas stove, or gas fire put in instead, as they have found it isn't as cheap as they thought it would be, is not as simple as pushing a button, and someone needs to clean it out.

I think it is coming, wont be long that the stove craze bubble will burst with a huge explosion. Future legislation will make it impossible to fit one in a new home in a few years. If H.I.P.'s make a come back as I have heard they could possibly do, God help the unforunate ones who joined in the craze and fitted everything on the cheap !

ericonabike

We had a 6kw woodburner installed last October in our 4 bed detached. Since then we have only had the CH on for an hour in the morning, lighting the fire when we start feeling the chill later in the day [both retired]. I am a convert. at first I thought it would be more decorative than useful, but it heats the [open plan] living room, dining room and kitchen to 70 degrees F and more with ease. And so far the running cost has been £1.00 for a couple of boxes of matches!

We've been using discarded pallets [stands back and awaits howls of protest] that I've had for free from local factories etc. A pallet lasts a couple of days on average and I'm content to spend a couple of hours a fortnight in the woodyard sawing them up. Stove door stays clean, no smoke, no mess. Recommended.