Advice on Log burners please :-)

karensmith

Hi, advice please
At the moment we have a standard log burner that just heats up the front room. My husband wants one that heats up all the radiators and hot water e.t.c. We are unsure as to what sort of log burner we would require ? Can anyone help ? Thank you

muckybutt

You will need a survey to assertain what Kw output in terms of boiler size you need for starters.

Eg we live in a brick build terraced cottage - no cavity no dg - two up two down type arrangement. We have an 11Kw Charnwood CoveII which heats 5 5ft double rads with ease, the Kw is split 3 Kw to room heat 8Kw to ch.

So it really depends how big your house and the size of rooms.

Have a look on stoves online http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/stoves_with_backboilers.html and have a read about boiler stoves.

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/choosing_the_right_stove.html

Greenfires

Do you have mains gas already Karen? If so, and being a big fan/promoter of woodburning, then in all honesty you'd be better off financially using that. Many people, even those just using fairly average sized dry stoves tend to find they've underestimated the amount of wood they'll be needing - they see the little log stores on ebay and figure they'll be just the job - which they are for about a week! So unless you have fairly hefty supplies of wood available or a very cheap source, then gas would probably be your best bet.

Leif

I've only got a stove for heating one room, and warming the house, and I use gas for the central heating. Basically the stove is a backup, and takes the chill off on very cold nights. But if you have a stove as CH, how do you get it to start before you wake? How do you get it to run for an hour at midday to keep the house from getting too cold on a freezing day? Where do you store all of the wood you will need? How do you get hold of a sufficient supply of <20% moisture wood? How do you programme the stove to warm the house in the morning and evening when you are away over Christmas, to prevent pipes freezing?

ericonabike

Agreed - I'm a total woodburner convert, but I cannot imagine using oit to heat water as well! I suspect I'd be doing little other than cutting wood - we use ours for the afternoon/evenings, letting it out overnight and it 'costs' me 2 or 3 hours a week in the woodyard. My advice would be not to do it if you have an alternative.

hethmar

My OH fits wood burners but he always says he doesnt think that a wet system is a good system with wood. If you have gas, stick to that.

Johnandabby

If you're looking at an automatic whole house system then you are looking at large costs. The two options are normally wood pellets (processed in a factory, with higher energy output and smaller storage requirements, but more expensive), or wood chips (lower energy output requiring more storage, but less expensive). Very different to just putting logs into a wood burner, and is certainly more expensive than a standard gas heating system.

For a fully automatic system look at Wood Energy's website (just do a google search) - I'm not recommending them but they have some good European biomass boilers on their website of all sizes.

jr77

We have a multi fuel burner which heats all the rads and the water in the house. The boilers heat 70,000 BTU's in it and it's very efficient on wood. We have it connected up to a neutraliser so the oil comes in as a back up when the boilers aren't up to temperature.

It's very simple and very efficient - would definitely recommend!

gornalboy

Had a wood burner installed last September. Love the warmth and general ambiance BUT.... it's a 5 kw as dictated by the room size and to date i have spent £230 on logs which has substantially added to my heating bills!!!!!!!!

SEE

gornalboy wrote: »

Had a wood burner installed last September. Love the warmth and general ambiance BUT.... it's a 5 kw as dictated by the room size and to date i have spent £230 on logs which has substantially added to my heating bills!!!!!!!!

Where do you buy your logs from? £24.50 for 100kg from cheap coals. I'm not sure if that is a good price, or not, but I'm pretty sure I used to £60 for that weight a couple of years ago.

Greenfires

Trouble with buying logs by weight is that it encorages sellers to palm off their wet stuff on you!