Advice about solid fuel please!

A._Badger

Actually, I'm afraid I disagree about the wood/coal thing. I heat with solid fuel in my new (old) house and have just come through the first winter in it (though I've used solid fuel heating most of my life, one way or another). Because there was a wood burner installed, I shopped around, found the best local source I could but within a few months came to the conclusion that wood was really not cheaper to burn than coal.

Coal seems expensive because it's very dense, but you get far more heat out of it than you do wood and it burns for longer. Having spent a tremendous amount of money last winter on wood, I've just bought a large coal bunker and will be shopping around in the Summer to get the best deal I can on coal.

If you can get free wood (and assuming it's suitable to burn - not all wood is, by any means) then, obviously, that's great, but though wood looks lovely when it burns, I don't think it's very economical at current prices.

spinningsheep

I too have an open fire in my new (old) house and also had one in my old house before. It doesn't run the hot water as well, and we have only been using it for a couple of weeks now since we moved in, as we have found that it has been getting a bit nippy at night, but so far, having a fire every night, we have used about 20kg of housecoal, premium trebles and we do live in a smokeless zone in the city centre, but hey, the council don't pay my gas bill, and if anyone comes knockin, i'l plead ignorance or say it's smokeless and we've just lit it, after all, even smokeless fuel smokes a bit when lit! You will find, like us that the housecoal is good to get it lit and if you want lots of instant heat, but for slumbering or overnight burning, you need a decent smokeless coal that burns longer and hotter with no or little flame like supertherm. Hope you find that it is a multifuel. Could it be a parkray? They also did one called the Chevin I think, that was a standard parkray heater that runs best on smokeless fuel, but had a woodburner look rather than the brown enamel that parkrays usually come in.

PS: We pay about £12 per 50kg for the trebles, £6.50 per 25kg for smokeless

alyth

I'd second badger's comment about coal giving out more heat than wood - having lived for four years with only a coal fire! I'm trying not to think about the fact that I will have to come in at night and light a fire before I can do anything, I live up in the wilds of Scotland so it's not going to be an easy winter for me!

pinkbubble

hello spinningsheep, so tell me if this sounds like a good plan - in the winter i will need the heating overnight, so assuming I'll need to clean/lay a new fire once a day perhaps I can lay my new fire at night after the kids are in bed, say around 9pm, and I could put on a certain type of coal that's good for slumbering, so that it would still be lit in the morning? Then I could come down and whack a different type of coal on in the morning? So that would mean I need 2 types of coal... so is Supertherm best for night, and Housecoal for day? Is all coal smokeless? I don't know if I'm in a smokeless zone, I've never heard of it before.
I got a chance to have a closer look at the stove on wed, it looks just like the Parkray Cumbria... it's black, it has a dial on the side to let air in from 0-10, there is no instructions leaflet!
The council man was round doing an inspection when I popped over to see the house again, he said the house needs more radiators really, but the stove only has a small water tank or something so can't have anymore radiators, so basicaly nothing is going to be done. They are putting a bigger water tank for the immersion heater. There is no insulation in the property, or lagging on the tank, just regular fiberglass stuff in the attic. Housing Associations - Pah!!!
And, we were moving on the 13th June, but now looking at a couple of months as they are going to reline the chimeny which is a good thing I spose, I'm impatient and want to move now & get ma paintbrushes out!!!

pinkbubble

Aha I just googled it and the Cumbria is the new version of the chiltern, it's slightly smaller.
The council man said it only burns coal though??? Maybe he was wrong??? There is a bit of wood and some coal in the bunkers out the back that the last people have left, but the lids on the bunkers are really sad and it's all soaking wet, with puddles in the bottom!

lilac_lady

I lived in a house with coal fired central heating. The water was very hot but unless you were near the fire the heat output was poor. It was expensive to keep feeding it with coal and in the winter I had to use a hairdryer to remove the ice fom the inside of the windows despite the fire being on all night. I'd never want to have a coal fired system again.

spinningsheep

Hi Pinkbubble. Yes it would make sense for you to "bank it up at night" with a suitable smokeless fuel to serve your heating and hot water in the colder months, but you cannot burn housecoal on the heater you have,well, at least its not designed to burn anything but smokeless fuel. you will have to let the fire go out at least every couple of days to empty the ash and clinker from the pan below the grate, and NEVER let the ash build up so it touches the grate and firebars, as it can damage them. The advantage of coal rather than gas is that you can "pay as you go" buying the fuel, so no nasty bills to worry about in the spring from a cold winter, and no trotting off to the shop to buy credit. One tip though, buy the coal in bulk from a merchant in open sacks and store it in the bunker and any other dry areas you may have, and invest in a coal hod so you can avoid having to keep going outside to get coal if its cold!