Wood Burners

Poppycat

Hi yes we got it in, boy it kicks out a lot of heat although it doesn't seem heat the upstairs, its in a dining room/kitchen, we leave the dining room/ living room (double doors) open and kitchen door to let the heat escape into the hallway, in the kitchen the thermostat on the wall reports 24c and that's with the burner on low.

We used up pallets we got to break up and logs which we paid for. The glass does get dirty on the door, which is meant to be self cleaning but easy to clean with some bar keepers friend cleaner, every couple of days. We used burner a few times this week but last 3 nights it hasn't been cold.

I get some pallets from a industrial trading estate

As I said it gives out a lot of heat the walls at the side and hot to touch and wouldnt dare touch the burner it could easily fry and egg.

scbk

I'm sure you'll know this anyway...but make sure you take all the nails/screws out the pallet wood before burning or you'll end up with big lumps of clinker blocking up the grate etc.

Oh and noticed the post above re: papers logs, I've never heard of these before but think I'm gonna invest in the maker, they should burn nicely alongside the logs and coal:cool:

Poppycat

Yes we burnt several pallets and took out the nails it take ages. Although today we did some and left some nails as we couldnt get them out for love nor money.

I found the blocks between the top and bottom of pallet harder to get nails out although the blocks would last much longer

We also invested in a damp meter to check the water content in the logs, so we burn wood thats almost near and damn it dry and leave some logs closr to burner that arent to dry out, they dont take long with a fire going.

I did think about the paper log makers but wouldn't they create a lot of ash?

We also save the ash for garden and some friends and one neighbour has asked use if we can let them have some

Poppycat

This is the meter we got from Ebay only a couple of quid plus a pp3 battery

The_Economist

Poppycat wrote: »

Hi yes we got it in, boy it kicks out a lot of heat although it does seem heat the upstairs, its in a dining room/kitchen, we leave the dining room/ living room (double doors) open and kitchen door to let the heat escape, in the kitchen the thermostat on the wall reports 24c and thats will the burner on low.

We use up pallets we got to break up and logs which we paid for. The glassdoes get dirty on the door, which is meant to be self cleaning but easy to clean with some bar keepers friend cleaner, every couple of days we used it a few times this week but last 3 nights it hasn't been cold.

I get some pallets from a industrial trading estate

As I said it gives out a lot of heat the walls at the side and hot to touch and wouldnt dare touch the burner it could easily fry and egg.

Sounds like it does everything it says on the box. Now im getting excited (sad i know) realy need to work out cost. Did you need a liner in your chimmney in the end. Do you have it connected to your hot water supply or is it just for heating the local area? Gotta get my butt in to gear and get one sorted.

scbk

If you're splitting the pallet planks anyway I find the often split where the nails are - ie take the axe to it and then go through taking out any remaining nails.

Oh and I'm sorry to get technical over this...it's a saturday night and I really should have "better" things to do:o ....

But if you go along smacking the planks with a sledge hammer in the places I marked on this pic then the remaining pieces are roughly perfect length for getting in most burners:cool: :




And I know what you mean about the blocks, near impossible to get the nails out of them so I usually just stick them on a bonfire as a way of egtting rid of them

Poppycat

Thanks for help scbk. We just used a hammer and crowbar and spare piece of wood as leaver ridge . I did find that cutting with a jigsaw across where you shown that they do indeed just fit length ways in the burner. I also found so pallets had unsuitable wood blocks like chipboard or something. I found old pallets the best wood tend to be thicker.

We have about 12 rubble bags full of wood for Winter etc

The_Economist our old chimney had lining in, but it wasn't suitable for a burner as it was for a old gas fire, so we had stainless liner it costs us about 2,200k in all with burner and fitting. We had a cheap finish, just cement rendering sides and back (painted in white emulsion) and the floor is thick slate tiles that is finished off with boiled linseed oil to blacken the slate as it showed bits of grout inside the tiny holes in the slate.

I think a burner is a investment that what we see it as, we spent all our money on it but hope to cut down on central heating wherever possible.

Sorry we dont have it connected to hot water you can do that and I do like the sound of that, need a more powerful burner for that mine kicks out max 6kw I think

We have a spare garage where we store the wood, and we built a frame to store it in so it doesn't fall out easily and allows air flow, costs us about 16 for wood to build it and some screws, even used some old pallets to fasten the logs in.

Poppycat

This is burner we got

Savoy

http://www.franco-belge.co.uk/pages/fbmultifuel.html

scbk

We have an old rayburn in the kitchen, so it heats the imediate area, can be used for cooking in/on, and also heats the hot water and central heating. There's a seperate electric immersion heater and normal plug in heaters for the warmer months of the year. I think we'll be switching over to the rayburn any day soon as it's getting kinda cold, just gotta clean out all the chimney etc!:(

In the past it's been run on mainly coal but last year I managed to get a good bit of firewood so it waa like a 50/50 mix of the two.
This year I got a massive amount of firewood (infact I'm selling some to a friend!) so not gonna be that much coal used.

I made a woodstore out of some leftover fence posts, old pallets and a lorry tarp pulled from out a skip. Keeps the rain off them before there's space in the old shed

Poppycat

I noticed it said on the instructions for log burner

Prohibited fuel :
¤ Homefire and any form of bituminous coal or
petroleum based coke.
¤ “Green wood”. Green or damp wood reduces stove
efficiency and makes the window, the internal walls and
the flue dirty (soot, tar, etc.).
¤ “Used timbers”. Burning treated wood (railway
sleepers, telegraph poles, offcuts of plywood or chip
board, pallets, etc.) quickly clogs the flue ways (soot,
tar, etc.), pollutes the environment (pollution and smell,
etc.) and cause the fire to burn too quickly and overheat.
“Green wood” and “recovered wood” can cause a
chimney fire.