Woodburners...

suzannebell56

Hi

This is my first post on the MSE forums Im Suzanne and I am just about to rent a lovley terraced house and it has a woodburner.

I know nothing about woodburners, it is a beautiful looking piece of kit, but leaves in awe of it.

I have insisted on the chimney bieng swept which it badly needed, but need to glean some information on there efficiency, cleanliness and what fuels to use ie new wood, older wood etc.

Are there any basics I need to know re woodburners or just general day to day things that folk have picked up over the years of owning one.

I do have full gas combi boiler central heating, so am not dependant on the woodburner for heat etc, but as the area I live in is prone to lots of power cuts I think this will be a good back up if any happen.

I have a large outbuilding to store wood, logs etc.

Any tips on where to source decent priced logs etc.

Be kind to a newbie woodburning stove owner/virgin

esmf73

Hi Suzanne! Welcome to Mse, everyone very friendly. You need to use what is called seasoned wood for your burner, so anything you collect now needs to be kept dry for a year before you can use it (ideally). Others will belong with more info soon x

joedenise

If you're area is prone to power cuts I'd be tempted to use the woodburner in favour of the CH. Not only can you use it to heat the place up you can boil your kettle for coffee/tea or even cook a casserole on top of it.

We use our woodburner as long as possible before putting on the CH. We buy a load of seasoned wood early in the year (once most people have already bought theirs and it's usually a bit cheaper) to use the following winter. Also get wood from other places whenever we can for free.

Certainly saves money and is much warmer than the CH.

Denise

skivenov

I use one in the workshop. They're easy to get a good flame going, just build up what you're burning. A bit of paper lights a bit of corregated card, lights some bits of light wood (kindling), lights a nice lump of wood/log.

I've not bought any fuel for it yet, there's three secrets to that.

Pick up a free newspaper whenever you can.

Make friends with a greengrocer, the wooden baskets the veg comes in makes great kindling. He'll probably be happy to lose some cardboard as well.

Never pass a full skip! MDF gives out a crazy amount of heat.

Another good trick is keep a few logs on top, under, or as close to the burner as possible, and the heat off the burner will finish drying them.

SpikyHedgehog

Hi Suzanne, welcome to MSE & to Old Style

I'd suggest you pop in to Preparing for Winterhttp://https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4202003
and ask there for some more advice. I'm in envy of your woodburner!
[URL="http://https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4202003[/URL]

pinkypig

Hi Suzanne - you will learn to love your woodburner because they are great!
Is it just a wood burner or is it multifuel? Ours uses wood or coal which is quite handy. Well done for getting the chimney swept not only is it safer but they draw more efficiently.
We save all our papers and have been know to raid our family's recyling bins and we screw it up into tight balls and use this and dry sticks (collect when out walking or scrounge from those doing DIY) to get it going. We are lucky that we have a bit of woodland and windfall trees and other casualties tend to keep us going. Season logs are best as they burn well and tend not to spark (unseasoned pine sparks like fireworks!!)
Once you get it going you can use the valvles at the front to regulate the heat so you can get it on a long slow burn overnight so all you have to do is build it up again in the morning.
We find that when it is on it blasts out such heat you don't need any other heating. Also if you ave a back boiler it might even do your water.
Sitting watching it in the winter with the lights off and the wind and rain raging outside is one of the nicest feelings in the world. You will never want to go out again!:rotfl:

Good luck with it and your new home.
PP x

Patchwork_Quilt

There's some good advice from Pinkypig. I would suggest going on the internet and checking whether you are in a smoke free area too. We are not but we had a multifuel burner put in so that we could burn smokeless fuel if necessary. If you are in a smoke-free area and you have a multi-fuel stove you may be better off sticking to Homefuel or other coal substitutes.

morganlefay

Welcome to a nice friendly place! You are a lucky lady to have a woodburner - we have just moved and are going today to see about buying one (they seem to be very expensive nowadays). We used to have one in our previous house but were in a smokeless area, and so burnt smokeless fuel in it. It made so muck clinker and mess that I couldn't keep it in while we were out at work, and in the end we had it converted to a gas fire, which wasn't nearly so satisfying. If you can just burn wood on yours it'll make much less ash (good for deterring slugs) and smell wonderful in addition to all the nice things that people have already said. Nice dry wood though !
Good luck :beer:

Slowdown

Hi
Lucky you. I love our burner and often yearn for a cold evening just so I can light it.
A few tips
collect free newspapers etc for starting the fire. Tear out a double spread and fold it into a long thin strip then curl it round your hand and tuck the end in to make lots of little circles. Lay these at the bottom.
on top of that put the kindling. We use bits we have cut off trees and bushes in the garden and pick up branches etc on walks.
On to that I put a smallish log and then light.
To get it going well make sure the airflow is strong and it may help to leave a crack in the door while it draws. Once it is going well add another log and close the door. You can reduce the airflow once it is really going. This will slow down the burning time of the wood.
Log burners like to have a layer of ash at the bottom so don't feel like you have to clean it out all the time, just if it gets too thick.
Then put your feet up and enjoy.
Happy toe warming
Slowdown

empressemma

Check eBay for logs! (Use the 'nearest first') option.
We get a ton of logs delivered for approx £55, and this lasts us about a year.
We have an open fire that we don't use every day.

[Deleted User]

Hi SUZANNE we installed a multi fuel stove some 3 years ago and haven't used the central heating since then. The stove seems to make the whole house warm so we only use the boiler to heat the water twice a day for an hour.

We have a paper log maker which makes brick shaped logs. Very easy to do, just tear newspaper into long strips a couple of inches wide, tip them into a bucket/container with some water in the garden and leave for a couple of days. It makes papier mache, then use your log maker, squeeze out as much water as you can (OH stands on ours for max squish!) and dry the logs in a shed or greenhouse, we use a mesh rack to get the air round them. We start making at the end of March and keep going until round about now. Have ended up with more than 200 this year and they are good for getting the fire going nice and hot, and they're free.

If you're not sure about operating the stove, go to your nearest showroom and they will give you a running lesson and teach you how to operate it.

We only use wood on ours and be prepared for collecting wood to become an obsession!!! Cheers Lyn.