Heating the house: radiators & multi fuel stoves

B0bbyEwing

QrizB said:

It either has been banned from sale, or will shortly be banned. (There are one or two exceptions but, in general, you'll only find smokeless fuel on sale.)

You could say the same for creosote (proper stuff) but I could go & buy a big 25 litre drum of the proper stuff right now if I wanted (I actually do have a drum so don't need to buy another, I'm just saying).

What should be done & what can be done are two completely different things.

macman said:

You know how much gas you are using and what it's costing by reading your gas meter. Easier with a smart meter, but not essential. Just convert the volume reading from the meter (cu m or 100's cu ft) to kWh (google for the formula). Then multiply by your unit rate.

Was having this discussion the other day actually. We use little gas & it's by far the cheaper energy between that and electric. We were discussing possibly being more conscious of what meals we have (oven, Tefal grill -v- gas hob). First things first, we need to see how this price hike impacts us & then react accordingly if we need to. Not make rash decisions beforehand.

But anyway, so the gas hob is clearly gas, the central heating we've established in this thread is gas. I think that's about it.

Depends how the shower is powered up. You hear the boiler going for it when it's running so I'd say on that note probably gas too? Just never heard of a gas shower. I've heard of electric ones which made me assume it's electric. 

Beyond that though, I think that's our total gas use. So we'd have to calculate when we're not cooking (& maybe showering too?) I'd guess.

Effician

B0bbyEwing said:

Effician said:

Coal of any type burns best when air is fed from below, if you try and slumber or tick over a coal fire by restricting the air from below in a defra approved stove you then start to increase the air as a percentage to the top of the coals, this causes the coal to burn at the top of the coal pile & ash to build up creating a smothering effect , this is also the reason not to burn wood on top of coals.

Many people will say wood on coal is fine & it's worked for them for years ( daughter is a prime example ) but i suspect it's more to do with ease of keeping a fire going rather than an efficient way of burning.

Removing the whatever could probably be done but really depends on your skill level or maybe just buy a proper coal burning stove.

I find it hard to defend any use of old style house coal in a modern  multifuel stove even if in a non smoke free area ,if you have a flue liner it's going to get bunged up pdq, not to mention the pollution aspect from burning it inefficiently in a defra approved stove.

I get your final point but I question how Q in PDQ it will get bunged up. I realise I said I put about a shovel load on but thinking about it, my mothers shovel is quite large whereas mine isn't. I had been burning once or twice per week so I'd question that. 

BUT

I've actually had to pay for the coal whereas I've not had to pay for the wood. Was just really to see what difference it made. 1 bag has lasted me a long time.

Yes the quick ( in pdq) will certainly depend on the quantity & regularity of use but i presumed your intention was for higher usage.

We heat our 3 bed mid terraced solely with wood & have done for some years now , moving the heat around with fans of different types & sizes.

For us it's all about getting as much heat from the wood we burn as possible whilst wasting as little heat as possible from heat leakage to outside  , the benefit being we have to find & store less wood  If good free softwood comes up i'll take it but as of late & with a bit of good fortune we now find ourselves only collecting & seasoning premium woods meaning we store more btu's in less space.

B0bbyEwing

Effician said:

Yes the quick ( in pdq) will certainly depend on the quantity & regularity of use but i presumed your intention was for higher usage.

We heat our 3 bed mid terraced solely with wood & have done for some years now , moving the heat around with fans of different types & sizes.

For us it's all about getting as much heat from the wood we burn as possible whilst wasting as little heat as possible from heat leakage to outside  , the benefit being we have to find & store less wood  If good free softwood comes up i'll take it but as of late & with a bit of good fortune we now find ourselves only collecting & seasoning premium woods meaning we store more btu's in less space.

I got one of those fans after my mother had one at hers. 2 problems:

1) Rattle rattle rattle. I don't know if I just got a bad one as hers wasn't as bad as mine but hell fire did it make a rattling noise. Very annoying.

2) It actually started warping the mirror that's on the face of the chimney breast. Once we took it out, the mirror righted itself but it had started to curve.


Out of curiosity, how do you source your wood? Always curious the different ways people get their stuff free.

I get mine through my work. We'll get all-sorts coming through. Good chunky pieces of dry hardwood, soaking hardwood, dry & soaking softwood, then just pallet scraps. 

The only ball-ache is that the longest length I can get on my fire is 14" so a lot needs cutting down. I think my mothers fire will accept somewhere in the region of 18"-20" long pieces. 

Effician

B0bbyEwing said:

Effician said:

Yes the quick ( in pdq) will certainly depend on the quantity & regularity of use but i presumed your intention was for higher usage.

We heat our 3 bed mid terraced solely with wood & have done for some years now , moving the heat around with fans of different types & sizes.

For us it's all about getting as much heat from the wood we burn as possible whilst wasting as little heat as possible from heat leakage to outside  , the benefit being we have to find & store less wood  If good free softwood comes up i'll take it but as of late & with a bit of good fortune we now find ourselves only collecting & seasoning premium woods meaning we store more btu's in less space.

I got one of those fans after my mother had one at hers. 2 problems:

1) Rattle rattle rattle. I don't know if I just got a bad one as hers wasn't as bad as mine but hell fire did it make a rattling noise. Very annoying.

2) It actually started warping the mirror that's on the face of the chimney breast. Once we took it out, the mirror righted itself but it had started to curve.


Out of curiosity, how do you source your wood? Always curious the different ways people get their stuff free.

I get mine through my work. We'll get all-sorts coming through. Good chunky pieces of dry hardwood, soaking hardwood, dry & soaking softwood, then just pallet scraps. 

The only ball-ache is that the longest length I can get on my fire is 14" so a lot needs cutting down. I think my mothers fire will accept somewhere in the region of 18"-20" long pieces. 

We have a caframo stove top fan which we've had for 10yrs or so & it's ok but the main air movement is done by 2x 42" ceiling fans downstairs & a 54" ceiling fan on the landing + 3 small 8" 5w dc fans to move air into bedrooms & bathroom as & when  needed.

We always seem to drop in lucky with wood though which may be down to the fact we never really stop looking for it, going out of our way to help people get rid of their trees or good untreated construction timber makes a big difference.

Running an old estate car means lugging what we acquire is not an issue & any excuse to get the chainsaws fired up & the old 6lb Elwell axe swinging is a bonus.

B0bbyEwing

Ok so today I thought I'd see what it costs to have a shower and I'm not so sure as the dial turned so little so am hoping someone here can help advise.

My prices are in the OP although that's going to change soon enough.

So I took gas & electric right before the shower:

Electric: 88667 with a clear 9 in the red square.
Gas: 22851 in black, 81 in red and the end one in red - the line was between 7 & 8.

Shower had, re-read:

Electric: 88667 with the red square showing the top section of the 9 all but disappeared with only the tail showing
Gas: 22851 in black (so same), 92 in red with a clear 4 in the very end square in red.

Gas says m3 on the meter.

Nothing major electrical on when shower was being had. No kettles, no TVs, no lights, just your basic stuff like everything plugged in but in standby mode if you will - microwave displaying clock, BT box with the red light showing, that kind of thing.

Before anyone posts back saying that cost £7.50, which would be fine to give me the precise amount, could you say how you calculated it so I can figure it out for future?

As whenever I give a meter reading to the company, it's only the first 5 numbers - which all stayed the same in this case. I don't provide the numbers in red - which are the only numbers that altered here.

[Deleted User]

Looks like your electric went from 88667.90 to something like 88667.94 - so about 0.04 kWh (units).  Multiply that by your rate to get the cost.

Similarly for gas, from 22851.8175 to 22851.9240 - so about 0.1065 m3.  Convert from m3 to units is more complicated - it's m3 x calorific value x conversion factor / 3.6

Conversion factor is normally 1.02264.  Calorific value varies a bit, but you can use 40 if you don't know better.

That makes your gas usage 0.1065 x 40 x 1.02264 / 3.6 = 1.210 kWh (units).  Multiply this one by your rate to get the cost.

Excuse my fat fingers if I've made a mistake here, but no doubt someone else will post very similar maths and we can see how much I got wrong.

B0bbyEwing

Thank you. So with

electricity being: 28.020p kwh
gas being: 7.343p kwh
----correction factor being: 1.02264
----calorific value being 39.9

0.04 * 0.28020 = 0.011208
so £0.01 in electricity

0.1065 * 39.9 * 1.02264 / 3.6 = 1.20709869.
so £1.21 in gas

So £1.22 for that particular shower.

[Deleted User]

B0bbyEwing said:

Thank you. So with

electricity being: 28.020p kwh
gas being: 7.343p kwh
----correction factor being: 1.02264
----calorific value being 39.9

0.04 * 0.28020 = 0.011208
so £0.01 in electricity

0.1065 * 39.9 * 1.02264 / 3.6 = 1.20709869.
so £1.21 in gas

So £1.22 for that particular shower.

Electric - yes.

Gas - not quite.  You did the maths to get how many kWh you used, but then missed the unit price bit.  1.207 units @ 7.343p per unit makes the shower cost about 9p in gas.

Assuming this was using a combi boiler?

macman

If you don't have a combi boiler, and assuming you already had some hot water in the tank, then your boiler is not going to fire up when you turn the shower on anyway. So, do you have a combi or a conventional boiler?
Nor is a non-electric shower going to use any electricity, except a) a tiny amount to power the boiler electronics (and the boiler would be using that on standby anyway) and b) a shower pump, if it's a power shower.

B0bbyEwing

We have a Worcester Greenstar 30si

Link1
Link2.

And thanks SparkyGrad, I got a bit carried away there haha.

9p for a shower. That's not too bad actually. 
The wife has laid the marker down. I can't let myself cost any more than that