Am I missing something?

duchy

I'd nod and let him do the research....... If you don't have a free source of fuel there's probably no saving anyway

Seanymph

We have one that was cheap in France, and we cook on it.

The expensive one we have here is not so easy to cook on - because it's better insulated I think, but our French one is lovely...

And wood is renewable - you can grow trees much easier than you can create new gas!

I suspect he thinks that he can turn the heating down if he has the fire lit. That's why we got one.

Have you been using the oven a lot over winter? If you have, treat yourself to a slow cooker - that makes a lot of difference for me.

Ozzuk

I'm pretty sure if you want a wood burner installed you could have extra costs like chimney/lining for chimney. The flues required can be £150/meter just to buy, let alone install and have to be a certain height above the tiles.

dandelionclock30

Wood burners are expensive to run unless you have free wood and a place for it to dry out first for x amount of months. My friend had one and soon stopped using it because her husband stopped getting free wood from work.
The gas bill will have been expensive because its the winter quarter and gas is expensive. Does he not realize this? I mean its on the news all the time about the cost of energy. I would be looking at his level of understanding and if he doesnt get it then explain to him. The only way around paying the going rate is to not have it on.

Tygermoth

We have a draughty old cottage.

Our gas bill for the first winter quarter we were in here was £600!

We paid to have a log burner installed and oh my the saving was brilliant.

But..

its dusty, the wood has to be bought, stacked and brought in. Kindling and fire-lighters sourced.

However the saving on the gas bill made it worth it.

soursweet

I have a wood stove and I run it on very dry discarded pallets. I installed it myself as I am a hetas registered and my gas bills are tiny and my wood is free and heating the whole house with carbon neutral wood.
Jamesthesweep.co.uk

Better_Days

Unless you can get free/cheap seasoned wood it probably wont be cheaper than gas. We got a woodburner because I like them and we have oil heating (which isn't cheap and I feel the cold dreadfully). It does throw out an astonishing amout of heat and if you burn it properly it should only produce smoke when you first light it.

It is much better than an open fire and I find it easy to light with newspaper and kindling. You do need somewhere to store your logs or you could go for heatlogs which are easier to stack and need to be kept dry (we keep ours in the garage)

We bought a mid range stove and with HETAS installation and liner it came to £1,800. That's quite a bit of gas! Would a gas fire be a better option for you OP as electric ones are expensive to run?