Log burner or multi-fuel burner?

13Kent

Photo of the new log burner. Not sure what to do about the tv.

Ectophile

Unless you have a fire surround to deflect the heat, you could find your TV gets cooked very quickly as heat rises from the stove.

Davesnave

13Kent said:

 Not sure what to do about the tv.

You could have it with chips.

FreeBear

13Kent said: Does anyone have their TV on the wall above the burner?

I have one of those infrared thermometers and will occasionally point it at the chimney breast above the fire. The temperature will vary from 120°C just above the fire, dropping to around 50-60°C near the ceiling. A TV would be lucky to last a week mounted above my fire.

BTW - I really hope the fitters didn't use Gypsum plaster (Thistle Multifinish or similar) around your fire - It will get hot and the plaster will crack & flake off. Either use a heatproof plaster (cement based) or a lime plaster, never gypsum.

phoebe1989seb

I definitely wouldn't put the TV above the wood burner, as others have said there's every likelihood it will melt!

Imho, TVs above fireplaces just look wrong anyway.....and are usually too high for comfortable viewing 🙄

Our TV is in the recess adjacent to the wood burner in our *snug*, on the wall above a sideboard, but at a comfortable position to view (there are guidelines online for suggested heights). Even if we wanted ours above the wood burner it would be impossible as our fireplace is so tall it's only 50cm off the ceiling, lol!

Agree with Freebear about the plaster, btw......

Davesnave

If they are regularly fitting stoves the plaster will surely be OK? Our plasterer wasn't au fait with such matters, so we used cement board on the chimney breast and put the stove in a galvanised box, painted a suitable colour. The fire surround hides the joins.

TV is well distant from the stove. The last new TV we had was in 1981, so we took no chances!

FreeBear

Davesnave said: If they are regularly fitting stoves the plaster will surely be OK?

Gypsum plaster is OK when exposed to temperatures up to around 50°C (you can check this with British Gypsum if in doubt). I have a friend who installed an inset wood burner and finished off around it with Multifinish. It started to crack and flake off within months of the fire being used. I used lime plaster around my stove, and apart from a couple of very fine hairline cracks, the finish is still looking good four years on even in the areas hitting 100°C or more. Draw your own conclusions as to which is better.

A high allumina cement based plaster from someone like VitCas would also work - It is a bit of a pig to work with and you can't feather it in like you would with Multifinish.

logsnearme

My advice would be to buy a wood burner and only purchase kiln dried logs. It's a bit of a myth that burning logs is bad for the environment. Burning kiln dried logs actually emits less c02 than a dead tree left to rot. Most seasoned wood will be hard to come by in February when the new Government regulations come in. 

FreeBear

 said: My advice would be to buy a wood burner and only purchase kiln dried logs. It's a bit of a myth that burning logs is bad for the environment. Burning kiln dried logs actually emits less c02 than a dead tree left to rot. Most seasoned wood will be hard to come by in February when the new Government regulations come in. 

The new regulations coming in only cover selling unseasoned wood and the display/storage of dry (typically nets from garage forecourts). It will in no way affect supply of larger quantities of firewood.

The energy used in kiln drying wood should always be taken in to account when considering the carbon footprint of your fuel - Unless one is using a solar kiln, there will be CO2 emissions from heating the space and ventilating it. Kiln dried logs are often worse for the environment than well seasoned air fried logs.

As for the claim that burning produces less CO2 than leaving logs to rot.... Well, that is just plain rot. When wood is decomposing on a forest floor, bacteria, fungi, and insects will feed on it. The wood will slowly get buried in the soil, and in conjunction with insect/plant action, some of the carbon will get locked up. And unlike burning wood, the CO2 release will be very slow and reabsorbed by the tress growing in proximity.

Bottom line - If you want to burn wood, use locally sourced seasoned air dried logs to reduce the environmental impact.

Mickey666

13Kent said:

Does anyone have their TV on the wall above the burner? They were going to put a concrete lintel in that would stick out but when they got into the fireplace it they found an original lintel so it would have been a big job to replace it but this means the wall is now flat. Should we leave it, put up a shelf or move the tv? Any thoughts?

I have a 60-inch flat-screen on the wall above a large inglenook fireplace with an 11kW multi-fuel boiler stove installed.  It has been there for about six years without any problem so I'd say the doom-mongering posts above are somewhat exaggerated.

The simple answer is to leave the TV where it is and monitor how hot it becomes when the wood burner is actually alight.  Based on my actual experience - rather than guesswork about the thing melting! - I think it'll be fine.  Besides, if the room was hot enough to melt a TV it would be far too hot for comfort!  Just be sensible and check how warm things actually get before worrying about what is probably a non-existent issue.