How are wood burners better?

zolablue25

martinthebandit wrote: »

Three years ago it cost us £2056 to have one fitted from scratch in a room that didn't have a chimney, that included the stove, hearth, flue etc.

Does that help?

It certainly gives me some idea, thanks.

lisa701

Thinking about how much it would cost to run my wood burner I've done a quick calculation based on a leaflet I've received from a company I used in the past for logs.

If I was to use our wood burner each evening from 1st Oct to 31st March, it would cost me between £364 and £400 if using the small bags of logs. If I were to use the large bags it would be between £228 and £350.

Looking back at my old gas bills, over the same period of time, it cost me £623 on heating.

Its definately saved me a lot of money, but that may not be the case for everyone.

michaelgordon

just got mine installed about 3 months ago for £1400 this was to uncover the bricked up fireplace install stove flue liner hearth everything really and will admit the done a fantastic job and would not hesitate recommending them to anyon in Manchester area

Gloomendoom

lisa701 wrote: »

Thinking about how much it would cost to run my wood burner I've done a quick calculation based on a leaflet I've received from a company I used in the past for logs.

If I was to use our wood burner each evening from 1st Oct to 31st March, it would cost me between £364 and £400 if using the small bags of logs. If I were to use the large bags it would be between £228 and £350.

Looking back at my old gas bills, over the same period of time, it cost me £623 on heating.

Its definately saved me a lot of money, but that may not be the case for everyone.

But are you comparing like for like? For example, does your gas heating heat every room while your woodburner only heats one?

Dieselman

To remove the gas fire and open mine up to the builders opening 3 ft square it cost me nothing but it's a messy job, I should have hired a skip there is plenty of rubble in that hole.

Cleaned the bricks with brick acid and came up nice fire and fitting with new hearth and plaster/paint etc £1300

If you can use a hammer & chisel and several buckets you could save builders costs for one day, it took me 4 hrs on my own.

ericonabike

Fie and installation cost around £1k three years ago. Cost of fuel for heating since then? A few boxes of matches. Plus a yearly sweep at £60. The answer is pallets - free from an industrial estate near you. We use around one a day, sawn up with a circular saw. May not be as aesthetically pleasing as logs, but a damn site cheaper unless you own your own forest.The best thing we've ever bought - and I was sceptical initially, and assumed it would only be for show rather than go.

skivenov

It's a case of if you're prepared to do the graft, you'll save the brass.

I use one in the workshop. Made it myself out of an old gas bottle and some odd bits of steel. It cost some welding rods and electric. I found a flexi flue in a scrappy, kicked it back into shape, and they let me weigh out with it. It gets sooty, but I just knock it out and hoover it up.

I run it on whatever I find on my travels. Yeah, I have to get my hands dirty to do that, I end up fishing in skips at daft times of day and loading my motor up with a load of dusty crap.

But, 4 years on, I doubt it's cost me a tenner, and I can brew up on top of it.

zolablue25

Dieselman wrote: »

To remove the gas fire and open mine up to the builders opening 3 ft square it cost me nothing but it's a messy job, I should have hired a skip there is plenty of rubble in that hole.

Cleaned the bricks with brick acid and came up nice fire and fitting with new hearth and plaster/paint etc £1300

If you can use a hammer & chisel and several buckets you could save builders costs for one day, it took me 4 hrs on my own.

Don't think I'd want to tackle it to be honest. I'm sure I would end up creating more work to put right what I have done than if I left it for builders to do in the first place! Really appreciate your input though, thanks.

Dieselman

It wasn't hard just messy if you look at pictures of what they look like and get the idea in your head once you start it all comes together.

If you have a flat wall with a gas fire on and surround remove all back to the wall with a hole in for the flue.

Now take away the plaster from the centre of the flue hole outwards and upwards so you expose the brick, soon you will see the outline of the original builders opening and the lintel.

It may have a arch or a stone lintel mine is stone.

I had a old stone fireplace at the front had to remove all this before i could get at the gubbins to clear out.

Just hire a skip i used a trailer what a real pain in the !!! that was.!!:mad:

seven-day-weekend

We had a logburner installed last spring. We didn't really do it to save money, but to supplement the GCH and in a way be a little bit 'off grid'. If for some reason we had no gas we can still heat the downstairs of this Victorian terraced house and stick a pot of stew or curry on the stove or a potato wrapped in foil in it.

We paid £200 (our Winter Fuel Allowance) for some dried logs to start us off, but have scavenged all the rest which is now drying in two woodsheds. Will probably buy some more dry logs this winter.

It heats the whole of the downstairs of our house in anything other than the very coldest weather, when it needs to be supplemented with the GCH, but of course that doesn't need to work so hard, so it still saves money on that. We pay £74 a month dual fuel with EON and at the moment are a couple of hundred pounds in credit.

The stove cost about £400 and we paid about the same to have it fitted into an existing fireplace and chimney, with a register plate, flue pipe, cowl on the chimney, a chimney sweep and a HETAS Certificate.

We had this stove:
http://www.stovesareus.co.uk/firefox-5-multifuel-woodburning-stove.html