Log burner investment?

Astria

dunstonh said:

And your bedroom falling to 14-15c at this time of the year suggests insulation problems. I live in an big old house with poor insultation and it is only falling to 18.5c when there is no heating for many hours.

And finally, why would turning the heating on for the bedroom heat the living room?  Your radiator TRVs would prevent the heating in the room with the burner from coming on in there.    Are your radiators missing TRVs or are perhaps you have them set too high?

For me, a bedroom at 14-15c is toasty, this was our bedroom last night (lounge was at 16c)

Some TRVs never fully turn off as an efficiency measure, they will greatly reduce flow but never fully turn off. This is because it's said that if a boiler is only heating one radiator, then the loop is small and it may actually use the equivalent amount of gas having all the radiators off as it does having them slightly on as the efficiency is much less having them off. Maybe I don't understand it, but the gas engineer said something about turning off radiators fully is a poor choice as it doesn't actually reduce energy usage by much if at all sometimes, but does decrease the effiency of the boiler through higher return temperatures and does increase the amount of waste heat lost through the boiler flu, plus something about the cooler the upstairs rooms are increases the rate of which the downstairs rooms lose heat because the insulation between the two is typically poor.

MuckChucker

I've just realised (duh), as the hive thermostat thingy is in the living room, when the fire is on the CH will never kick in to heat the bedrooms. . . .I wonder if this will be an issue when winter actually kicks in. The fire does a great job of heating the whole of downstairs - in truth, kitchen and dining room doors need to be opened when fire is on just for comfort levels, not a bad problem to have. I can't say I've noticed any of the bedrooms being cold yet and the coldest one is my office. This is all a learning experience and I must admit I am enjoying it.

I need to get a proper splitting axe. Can anybody recommend/highlight ones to avoid, please?

FreeBear

MuckChucker said: I need to get a proper splitting axe. Can anybody recommend/highlight ones to avoid, please?

I got myself an electric log splitter from Screwfix. It struggles with the really big rounds, and I'll often need to part cut the with a chainsaw.. Just don't stand in the line of fire, especially with part seasoned logs.

dunstonh

I've just realised (duh), as the hive thermostat thingy is in the living room, when the fire is on the CH will never kick in to heat the bedrooms. . . .I wonder if this will be an issue when winter actually kicks in.

Is it a portable thermostat?     
It will make a difference as the heat from the fire will prevent the heating coming on for the rest of the house.     We have a portable thermostat and keep that away from the rooms with the burners.  However, one room has underfloor heating with its own thermostat and is affected by the hallway burner which sends some heat into that room and often turns the underfloor heating off, which is a pain as its not enough heat to warm the room, but the airflow and location of the fixed thermostat for that room happen to be a bad match.

I can't say I've noticed any of the bedrooms being cold yet and the coldest one is my office. 

I have a burner in my office.  There are two radiators as well in the office, but they are turned down to 10c on the TRV (so never come on in reality), and I just run the burner in there during the day and switch to the hallway burner later in the day.  

This is all a learning experience and I must admit I am enjoying it.

I agree.   And it's nice to see how different people get different outcomes to see if you can pick up pointers and learn how others do it.  Not everything works for different setups but 

I need to get a proper splitting axe. Can anybody recommend/highlight ones to avoid, please?

I bought a Stihl.   However, I don't use it.  It isn't how you see it on TV.  I just ended up getting it stuck in the wood without it splitting.   So, I stick to the chainsaw.  Most of the wood we cut is small and doesn't need splitting.  However, I have a mechanical splitter for the larger bits.   I have an oak that is due to come down (been saying that for nearly 3 years now) and that will give some very large pieces that need splitting.

Effician

MuckChucker said:

I need to get a proper splitting axe. Can anybody recommend/highlight ones to avoid, please?

 A 1960's 6lb Elwell felling/splitting axe with original handle for me, the Roughneck maul didn't last long & was never fun to use.

MuckChucker

Electric/mechanical splitters you say. . . interesting.

@dunstonh yes, another "duh" moment for the morning that's in it, as soon as I typed the above it did dawn on me that it is a battery powered portable that's merely stuck on the wall.

Thanks folks.

Ally_E.

dunstonh said:

Ally_E. said:

Cautiouslyoptimistic said:

We had a Blithfield Clock 5 kwh wood burning log stove installed 3 years ago on 0% finance spread over 12 months.  It wasn't cheap as we also needed chimney repairs to make it work. It was only ever intended to be a focal point for the lounge replacing a 30-year-old clapped out gas fireplace. However, fast forward 3 years and we are now in the midst of a fuel price crisis. Based upon a 4-bed detached house, our predicted annual fuel bill based on the October government capped rates was just under £4,700 over the next 12 months.  This included about 27,000 kwh of gas of which about 24,000 kwh was used between October '21 and March '22. That's nearly £2,500 on this years "fixed rates" JUST for central heating over 6 months or £416 per month / £104 per week.

During October just gone and mostly as a trial we bought two 1 tonne builders' bags of chopped log delivered including free kindling wood. We used 338 kwh of gas as opposed to 2,048 kwh last October, so we saved about £100 on gas heating just in October.  If we can get through the next 5 months by just using the log burner during the days and evenings, then we will save thousands on the gas central heating.

Personally, if you already have a log burner installed then you would be mad not to use it IF you can find a reasonably priced wood supply.  Mentally I've written off my install costs from a few years ago and now everything saved on using gas is a plus. I'm a week into November and I've only used 105 kwh. It won't go above 400 kwh which will be a further saving of 3,400 kwh on last years use.  For us it's a no brainer.  The gas CH is not being turned on.    

 

The logburner gets the living room nice and toasty, but the rest of the house is not heated. Especially the bedroom which is above the living room. So going from living room at 18-19C at night to a bedroom that's 14-15C is quite a shock. That temp in the bedroom will continue to go down. So I'm not sure how to balance that. I ended up turning the heating on for a bit just to get the bedroom warmer before bed and that would heat the living room too which was wasteful. 

A couple of things on this.....

18-19c from a room with a burner in seems very low.  Certainly not toasty.   Do you have a fan on top of your burner?

And your bedroom falling to 14-15c at this time of the year suggests insulation problems. I live in an big old house with poor insultation and it is only falling to 18.5c when there is no heating for many hours.

And finally, why would turning the heating on for the bedroom heat the living room?  Your radiator TRVs would prevent the heating in the room with the burner from coming on in there.    Are your radiators missing TRVs or are perhaps you have them set too high?

I am on oil central heating and like very many rural properties, we have burners to reduce the amount of oil that is used.  We have 3 burners.  Two of them only heat the room they are in.  The third is in the hall and that has a number of rooms and one of the stairways coming off it and has good airflow that does transfer the heat around the house.    When that one is on, it prevents four radiators from coming on and slightly increases the heat in two of the bedrooms.

I only heat the living room where the burner is to about 20C as anything higher is too toasty.

Regarding TRVs I do have them, but one is in inaccessible place and yes I probably haven't figured out the exact settings to make it work. They all are different brands and even after loads of experiments I haven't worked out the exact setting for 18C.

I don't heat the house with central heating to above 18C, so after a few hours of the heating being off bedrooms do go down to 15-16C. It's a solid wall house that loses heat quickly, but we use about average amount of gas for a detached house according to Ofgem archiotypes. 

Ally_E.

How do those of you who heat the room with the burner to 28C tolerate it? During the 40C heatwave our living room topped out at 28C and I was desperate for the night to come and cool it down. 

ariarnia

Ally_E. said:

How do those of you who heat the room with the burner to 28C tolerate it? During the 40C heatwave our living room topped out at 28C and I was desperate for the night to come and cool it down. 

it depends what you mean. we run the burner hot from about 4pm and aim to stay about 180-200c according to the meter on the pipe but it takes a while to heat the hole room not just the space directly around the burner. so it can be very hot by the stove but much less back over by the sofa area. so people can choose who close they sit depending on how cold they are.

and if we keep the lounge curtain open then a lot of the heat goes out in to the hall and kitchen (and a little bit up the stairs) which also slows down the heat building up in the lounge and keeps the chill out. then when we've eaten at about 6 or so then we will slow down or stop putting on logs and pull across the curtain to keep the heat in the lounge. the fire is normally mostly out by 10ish but the room will stay warm until the early hours/next morning  

it is important thou that you do burn your stove hot enough that the wood or whatever you burn can burn completely. its good for you because you get less ash and less wasted heat but also your flu doesn't get all dirtied up so you have to get it swept less often and you have less chance of a chimney fire. and its better for your neighbors and the enviroment because theres less dust and ash going up the chimny as dirty smoke. 

Ally_E.

ariarnia said:

Ally_E. said:

How do those of you who heat the room with the burner to 28C tolerate it? During the 40C heatwave our living room topped out at 28C and I was desperate for the night to come and cool it down. 

it depends what you mean. we run the burner hot from about 4pm and aim to stay about 180-200c according to the meter on the pipe but it takes a while to heat the hole room not just the space directly around the burner. so it can be very hot by the stove but much less back over by the sofa area. so people can choose who close they sit depending on how cold they are.

and if we keep the lounge curtain open then a lot of the heat goes out in to the hall and kitchen (and a little bit up the stairs) which also slows down the heat building up in the lounge and keeps the chill out. then when we've eaten at about 6 or so then we will slow down or stop putting on logs and pull across the curtain to keep the heat in the lounge. the fire is normally mostly out by 10ish but the room will stay warm until the early hours/next morning  

it is important thou that you do burn your stove hot enough that the wood or whatever you burn can burn completely. its good for you because you get less ash and less wasted heat but also your flu doesn't get all dirtied up so you have to get it swept less often and you have less chance of a chimney fire. and its better for your neighbors and the enviroment because theres less dust and ash going up the chimny as dirty smoke. 

It's more of a reply to those who said keeping living room at 19-20 while using the woodburner is too low. I normally need to use about 4 medium sized logs to get to 20C temp from 16C