Woodburners...

Melaniep101

Love, love, love our woodburner. My hubby took some convincing to get one installed, but he's totally hooked!

Definately try to buy good seasoned logs in bulk, those small bags at the garage are so expensive. We pay £55 per cubic metre bag (probably 80 logs) and a couple of those see's us through til spring. I found our supplier by noticing a pile of firewood outside someones house, and asking them where they got it from!

Make sure you have some kindling, we bought huge bags for 3 quid last year that we're still using. Keep hold of cardboard boxes, as this is useful to get the fire going.

If your stove is multifuel, you can pop a couple of coals in to prolong the burn time. We tend to shut down the stove once it's got going, so that it burns slower.

There's nothing quite like a real fire, hope you enjoy using yours :-)

Rainy-Days

When you have one of these you never want to look back. Well done on getting it cleaned out beforehand though.

I tend to buy my wood and coal (as mine is multifuel) in the summer and then that gives me a chance to get everything stacked away, but you still have time to do this. The log burner gives off a good heat but the multifuel burns much hotter and for longer due to the coal. It would be worth checking with the landlord as to whether it is just logs or you can use coal as well.

If you can use coal - get the anthracite stuff. This burns far hotter and is far more economical.

In the interim, save any paper products such as envelopes (take off the plastic around the window of the envelope though) and use that as the basis of starting your fire. You can also use old newspapers but make sure you 'twist' the paper as that will make it burn a bit longer and allow the wood and coal to light.

Wood is for the flame, coal is for the heat. If it is just logs, make sure that when you store them, they have air circulation but that they are dry as this will allow for good even burning. I clean mine out every other day. I have a bucket at the side which has my kindling in it and I sometimes pick those up in bags from Wilkinsons or the garage if I am running short and not going into town. Generally I keep about two bags in reserve and use about one sackful every week or thereabouts.

To clean the glass door on the front - use old scrunched up newspaper, damp it off with water then dip that into the ash from the fire - so it's ash on ash and use that as that as the abrasive to form the cleaner for the glass. Then take another scrunched up newspaper - again wetted - and then clean it off. Don't use fancy gimicky cleaners, your cleaner is already in your fireplace!

Lastly, really enjoy it because this is one of the nicest things you can have in your home especially on a flipping freezing frosty - maybe snowy - cold night. It's bliss!

Butterfly_Brain

We are saving for a wood burner, but DH is not convinced that it will heat the whole house.
But as I pointed out they are fantastic for when you have no heat or cooking facilities because at least you can boil a kettle or put a saucepan of soup or beans on the top to heat through and I would just do toast in front with a toasting fork like we did as children happy days.
We are in a smokeless zone too so have to have a Defra approved stove especially if we want to sell the house it is a requirement so it has to be fitted and certified by a HETAS engineer which adds to the cost

[Deleted User]

DH has suggested a good idea would be to invest in a stove thermometer (you can get them from E*ay if you can't find one locally) they stick magnetically to the outside of the burner and show you the optimum temperature for burning economically which helps keep tar and soot deposits to minimum in the chimney.

Melaniep101

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

We are saving for a wood burner, but DH is not convinced that it will heat the whole house.
But as I pointed out they are fantastic for when you have no heat or cooking facilities because at least you can boil a kettle or put a saucepan of soup or beans on the top to heat through and I would just do toast in front with a toasting fork like we did as children happy days.
We are in a smokeless zone too so have to have a Defra approved stove especially if we want to sell the house it is a requirement so it has to be fitted and certified by a HETAS engineer which adds to the cost

Hi BB

Ours doesn't heat the whole house, just the living room really, but we have a very cold conservatory which warms up a bit from the woodburner. We tend to spend our evenings in the living room anyway, and put our electric blanket on before we go to bed as our bedroom is pretty cold!

My DH loves the fact that we could keep warm if there was a power cut, and that we could boil a kettle on the woodburner :-)

lisa701

Getting our woodburner was the best money we have ever spent. Saved us a fortune on gas bills so far, so much so British Gas didnt believe our meter readings lol

Whilst it doesnt heat the whole house as much as the lounge, if we leave all the doors open the heat does get round the house and take the chill out of the air. We opted for a clean burn woodburner as we live in a smokeless zone. With a supply of free wood it wasnt worth opting for the multi-fuel stove as that would have meant we had to pay for smokeless fuel.

PipneyJane

Oooohhh I'm jealous. I've wanted a woodburner for years!

It's on the list, below "replace kitchen roof" and "fit kitchen". (It's vying with "replace bathroom" for third place.) I'm assuming we'll get a multifuel burner. What would be a good price for buying/installing one?

whiteguineapig

i love mine too, i pick up sticks all summer for kindling, i also treated myself to an eco fan for on top to spread the heat a bit

[Deleted User]

PIPNEY I don't know todays prices but ours cost £2,300 with the installation and a full chimney liner. The aftercare has been superb and we have not been charged for anything despite the stove having to be taken out and reinstalled four times to rectify a fault. Hope that helps Cheers Lyn.

whiteguineapig

i'm not sure but i had to have a full liner fitted as well, it was expensive , i nearly sold everything in the house on ebay to pay for it but i'm really pleased with it