Log burner investment?

mmmmikey

Thanks @PennyForThem_2 and @ariarnia I've overlooked the obvious - doh - just put them in the brown bin.

Petriix

Mstty said:

We haven't been here long enough to do the calculations and really the log burner in the lounge has been out for aesthetics.

As a rough rule of thumb our ASHP running 24/7 at 19oC for the whole house and heating  November to March will use 22.5kwh a day so £987 of electricity at our current price per kwh.

I can't see the log burner in one room beating that for whole house heat and the added hassle of lighting/cleaning out. Happy to be proved wrong.

Don't get me wrong I love it at weekends for aesthetics and who doesn't love a fire at Christmas.

~ £1000 for heating seems like a lot to me. I guess heat pumps are quite limited in their ability to be dynamic, which is actually really important when trying to save energy. I only heat the parts of my home that are in use by people who are awake. That means most rooms are allowed to be cold for most of the time, with doors shut to isolate from heat and moisture.

FreeBear

Mstty said: Don't get me wrong I love it at weekends for aesthetics and who doesn't love a fire at Christmas.

If only for somewhere to throw that darned stupid elf....

Ally_E.

mmmmikey said:

Busy day at the woods on Thursday Left home early, drove to the woods, split enough logs to fill trailer, drove home, stacked logs. Just recovering now ready to repeat 3 more times. Exhausting (at my current level of fitness!) but tremendously satisfying - I felled the trees in February this year and cut logs to length where it felled. Should be seasoned and ready to use by next winter  

On the subject of ash, up until now I've been doing some big landscaping jobs in my garden so it's been easy to scatter it round and lose it. But now the garden is finished and there's a limit to the amount I can put on the beds (not a huge garden). How do you dispose of the ash? I'm guessing it's a question of cooling it so there's no embers and then chuck it in the bin, but how do you do that without making a mess everywhere? Any suggestions welcome....

We clean it before lighting the fire, by that point it's completely cool. Get a newspaper and dump it on top of it and then gently fold the corners to make a parcel. If you're gentle it doesn't make a mess at all. The parcel then goes in the normal bin. 

Sometimes when we have a BBQ, empty the ash into a shopping bag and tie the handles, goes in the main bin in the kitchen or the wheelie bin outside. 

Effician

We burn wood as our only form of heating & only completely empty the stove of wood ash once a year at the end of the burning season, for us it's about managing a bed of ash between 20mm & 40mm throughout the burning season, this means we remove about 3-5 litres of ash from the ash pan below the wood grate around once or twice a fortnight, this either goes on the lawn, the beds or in the compost bin.

Ally_E.

My partner is obsessed with cleaning the ash out every time we use the woodburner, I however don't think it's necessary. What do the others think? 

Effician

Ally_E. said:

My partner is obsessed with cleaning the ash out every time we use the woodburner, I however don't think it's necessary. What do the others think? 

If you're only burning wood the ash bed forms an insulation layer , this helps with fire starting & maintaining the temp of the fire box during normal operation for a more efficient burn, also the residual heat left in the ash will keep some heat in the stove for some time after the fires gone out.

ariarnia

i agree. wood burns better on a bed of ash. coal burns better on a grill with air from under. the first fire in a cold empty stove takes a long time to get going an to heat the room. it sounds like were being lazy but we empty ours once a week or so but it will really depend on your stove and how long you have it lit for in the week. 

PennyForThem_2

ariarnia said:

i agree. wood burns better on a bed of ash. coal burns better on a grill with air from under. the first fire in a cold empty stove takes a long time to get going an to heat the room. it sounds like were being lazy but we empty ours once a week or so but it will really depend on your stove and how long you have it lit for in the week. 

Totally agree - was also recommended this by 2 separate chimney sweeps who sweep the chimneys but leave a layer of wood ash in pan.

thriftytracey

I don't understand how you can leave the ash to build up - our wood burning stove has a tray underneath that is almost full after each fire.  Could probably leave it for two fires max before it would spill over.

We have lots of flower beds and a compost bin so easy to dispose of.  It is clay soil so adds nutrients.