Thoughts on getting a wood burning stove

Lurcheral

Thank you for your reply and it was very interesting to read. What you said is along the lines of what I was hoping and it is all good food for thought.

I will have to address the insulation and will invest in some secondary glazing before the Autumn but it sounds like for the reasons you state that it may save me some money to have a burner. Putting the heating on later in the year and turning it off sooner will definitely help with the oil costs.

I guess as I am fortunate to have a wood with a large supply of seasoned wood lying on the floor it could be a very good source of fuel and will help tidy it up at the same time.

I think I need to do more research on the type of stoves available and what will give me the best benefit.

If anyone has purchased a stove which they could recommend I would be very interested to hear.

Maybe this Autumn I will buy the stove and delay replacing some of the radiators to the year after. If it saves me some money I can probabaly justify buying them sooner.

Lurcheral

By the way, I forgot to mention that the stove will be in the centre of the house in the sitting room but this does flow directly into the study so the two rooms are almost one. Presumably I would need a stove large enough to cover both rooms. The kitchen is also off the sitting room and currently has no radiator in it so the heat from the stove would hopefully permeate into the kitchen too.

FreeBear

Can't recommend a particular stove as it is very much open to personal preference. Some like the traditional free standing style, whilst others would go for a sleek modern design - I fall in the latter group.
One thing I would recommend is to consider a multifuel stove - You then have the option to burn smokeless coal as well as wood.


As for size of stove - Multiply the length, width, and height of the room, then divide by 14 to give the Kw rating of the stove required. For example, my lounge measures (approx) 4m by 4m and is 2.9m high. So 4x4x2.9 = 46.4... 56.3/14=3.3, so a stove rated at 3.3Kw needed. I went for a 6.4kw stove to get the look I was after.


Downside to installing anything larger than 5Kw in an older property is an air vent to the outside is a requirement - Some stoves incorporate an air inlet so that air from outside can be ducted in without having to put up with a draughty wall vent.


Your plan of action re insulation & secondary glazing is a good one. Do the low cost improvements first, and save for the bigger jobs. Putting a radiator in the kitchen would be high on my list and may be something that you could consider for next year.

Davesnave

I too have free and low cost wood, but none of it is really 'free.'

Firstly, one needs to spend in order to have the tools to cut trees up. That was about £700 in my case.

Then, one needs storage; not for a year as someone else wrote, but for the best part of two years.That's fine, if like me you have outbuildings sitting idle. If not, where will all this wood go?

Lastly, there is your time. How you value that is relevant, because chopping up wood and carting it about, though satisfying, takes many hours. I need the exercise, so I don't resent time taken producing logs, but I could be doing something more profitable. I would if tree management wasn't a necessary part of my life here.

The above is just extra food for thought. Others have covered the rest well. We have a well-insulated property with oil CH and one wood burner, plus a conservatory which, on bright winter days, , feeds warm air into our living areas. The wood burner takes the brunt of the strain much of the time when it comes to heating in winter, so we just supplement it with the CH for an hour or two at each end of the night.


Edited to add: I think it's well worthwhile spending a few hundred extra to buy a well-designed stove. There isn't a brand I'm aware of the stands head & shoulders above the rest, but availability of spares and quality of workmanship count in the long term. Do your homework.

Lurcheral

FreeBear wrote: »

Can't recommend a particular stove as it is very much open to personal preference. Some like the traditional free standing style, whilst others would go for a sleek modern design - I fall in the latter group.
One thing I would recommend is to consider a multifuel stove - You then have the option to burn smokeless coal as well as wood.


As for size of stove - Multiply the length, width, and height of the room, then divide by 14 to give the Kw rating of the stove required. For example, my lounge measures (approx) 4m by 4m and is 2.9m high. So 4x4x2.9 = 46.4... 56.3/14=3.3, so a stove rated at 3.3Kw needed. I went for a 6.4kw stove to get the look I was after.


Downside to installing anything larger than 5Kw in an older property is an air vent to the outside is a requirement - Some stoves incorporate an air inlet so that air from outside can be ducted in without having to put up with a draughty wall vent.


Your plan of action re insulation & secondary glazing is a good one. Do the low cost improvements first, and save for the bigger jobs. Putting a radiator in the kitchen would be high on my list and may be something that you could consider for next year.

Thanks very much for your advice. Yes I fully agree, I will have to get that sorted and then hopefully the stove next Autumn. The chimney is in the centre of the house so I don’t think I will be a ken to install an air vent jnlsss they do it alongside the stove.

Lurcheral

Thanks very much for your comments.

I have wood cutting equipment I.e a chainsaw and axe and already chop up wood which I use on my open fire. I do have unused outbuildings so the wood goes in there and I’m happy to do the work if it saves me money. I have so many fallen trees in the wood that I can kill two birds with one stone, remove some of them whilst acquiring firewood at the same time. I enjoy doing this sort of thing in my spare time so it makes sense to benefit from it.

silverwhistle

I don't think I'd disagree with any of Davesnave's comments, but everybody's situation and house is different.



I live on my own in a reasonably insulated post-war 3 bedroom terrace and only use 1100/1200 kwh a year of gas, as the stove is enough for heating, so basically hot water when I don't have enough spare PV solar power to heat my tank. This winter I've only had my CH on as frost protection when away on a winter holiday and when I got back to get the temperature up quickly.



I've enough storage at the bottom of my garden - two stores made from pallets and some longer term stacked wood with top covers which sit under my large tree at the bottom of the garden. Relatives who don't know the practicality of using a stove wonder why I have so much..


Preparation isn't too much of an issue: football and its training for my legs and lungs and wood prep for upper body. Saves on the gym. Tools were reasonably cheap: a decent splitting maul, couple of grenades, bow saw and a cheap electric saw which I use when I've spare solar power!


It can be inconvenient: the temperature is dropping fast and I've just remembered I need to go and split some kindling..

Lurcheral

That all sounds really good. Seems like you’ve got it all worked out. It appears to be a combination of things but I think a log burner will save money in the long term bearing in mind the free wood that I have access to along with other insulation based things that I need to address.

Thank god the weather is warming up, I may not have to have the heating on as much now anyway

savemoney

Not money saving unless you have a free source of wood or very cheap and as said you need some where to store wood. I spend over £300 a year on wood briquettes which have to be stored some where dry not outside under cover, somewhere like a strong shed or garage. Its heavy work lifting them then there's cost of chimney sweep and kindling. I tend to get kindling cheap as I use scrap wood or manage to source some free wood not sufficient to use on fire.

matelodave

We got a wood stove five years ago and apart from two years when we got free wood (after buying a chain saw to cut it etc) it costs us around £200-£250 a year (which is probably going to be nearer £300 this year). We have it lit for about 3-4 hours a night between November and March

Add in the cost of the stove and flue (around £2k in my case), chimney sweep £50-£60 a year and you have to decide where the break even point is. It also cost to build a wood store for the fuel as well.

It probably saves me around 1000kwh a year on my heating bills = around £125 so you can see that the sums dont add up.

However that said, we get a nice cozy fire and we've still got heating when the power supply fails, so it's a lifestyle thing rather than an economic benefit.

If that nice Mr Gove has anything to say about it you'll soon have to buy your logs from an approved (means expensive) supplier in the future so it will become even less economic.