Wood burning stove?

Locornwall · 6 August 2019 at 4:36PM

I’m not necessarily getting it to save money, although I can’t throw unlimited money towards it.

I really want the look and feel it can add at winter. I won’t use it everyday, probably just weekends when all the family are at home.

Ectophile · 6 August 2019 at 10:09PM

The thing with a stove, is that once you've lit it, you won't get anything done for the rest of the evening. You'll just sit and toast yourself in front of the fire.

They may be a bit messy, and there's all the work of bringing logs in, lighting the fire, and shoving in logs at intervals. But a central heating radiator has nothing on a real fire.

When getting wood, there's a trade-off between how much work you want to do, and how much you want to pay. The majority of my wood is scrounged as green wood from various places. But it's up to me to transport it home, saw it into lengths, split it if necessary, and leave it to season for two years.

silverwhistle · 6 August 2019 at 10:54PM

My stove, flue and fireplace alterations were a bit less than 2.5K in summer 2014. Summer 2013 I had solar panels installed and together they mean that my annual gas bill for CH and HW is around £75. (That's a single person, with a regular guest

in a 3 bed terrace.)

I do occasionally buy briquets, but over a winter that's very few (£30-40? at most) just for convenient storage in the lounge and to adjust the mix I'm burning in the stove. It's not a scientific process: like making bread it's basic principles and adjusting the recipe and not something you should worry about.

For the rest I scrounge wood, including pallets for kindling and the thicker stringers to get the fire going. It involves a bit of work, but as a distinctly lazy lass not something to worry about and it saves on the gym. I actually split a few rounds of ash today: imagined the face of the PM on each round and the job was a pleasure..

You've reminded me to phone the sweep.Last two times he looked up the flue and said not to bother, but I'll probably have a precautionary sweep this year even if it's marginal.

With all my costs: briquets, tools, sweep, a little petrol for the car loads of wood I collect etc. I allow £10 on my budget spreadsheet and that's generous. The last wood was from 400 yards down the road, the load before from next door!

But as you can see from the thread above it's not for everyone.

PS: I've even cooked on/in my stove and boiled a kettle, so it's always best to get a flat top one! New Forest chestnuts are gorgeous!

silverwhistle · 6 August 2019 at 11:01PM

PS: I made a couple of log stores from old pallets. The logs for the year(s) after I keep in rounds or stacked in longer lengths to save space. That's all at the bottom of my terrace house garden and perhaps isn't for the anally inclined, but it's great for the wild life.

FreeBear · 6 August 2019 at 11:40PM

Ectophile wrote: »

They may be a bit messy, and there's all the work of bringing logs in, lighting the fire, and shoving in logs at intervals.

That reminds me... Bringing logs in from the shed will also bring in quite a few spiders & other creepy crawlies. Back in February, I found a load of wasp beetles in the house on a daily basis. They had been happily lying dormant under the bark of some poplar and emerged from hibernation after a few hours indoors.

silverwhistle · 7 August 2019 at 10:08AM

I found some of my poplar susceptible to black rot under the bark, so had the enjoyably therapeutic task of de-barking it with a wall paper stripper. The robins in my garden had a wonderful time taking advantage of the exposed grubs!

Once the wood is split though the only issue seems to be the odd woodlouse, but a quick tap together as you pick the logs out of the store sorts that.

Davesnave · 10 August 2019 at 12:50AM

We have a modern, efficient, 5kW stove made in the UK, which is far better than the 8kW model we inherited here. With a bespoke limestone fireplace and slate hearth, our installation was about £3.2k and we're happy with our choices. No burns yet on the floor after 3 years, but we have a £20 Dunelm rug to take the brunt of that, if/when it happens.

Unlke many here, we run our stove much of the winter 12 to 24hrs a day, mainly because we generate firewood on our smallholding and also receive payments in wood or other products, rather than money. So, the stove takes the place of oil central heating for much of the time, because it's cheaper, but we appreciate it wouldn't be for everyone.

In winter, the living room receives considerable heat gain on many days from a conservatory, but when things are going the other way, the stove can cope with that too if we still want to work out there. It's flexibility is good, but as we sometimes slumber it, we expect to have the flue swept at least annually.

Yes, theres a small amount of dust and the work to tend it, but no glass cleaning and ash removal is about every third day.

If we had mains gas and lived in town, we'd still have a stove, but it would run on gas, not wood. We had one in our last house and it was the most sensible choice there. Just seasoning and storing enough wood would have been a challenge, whereas here we have plenty of space and outbuildings. There are some perfectly acceptable gas stoves made by the same people who manufacture wood burners.

CakeCrusader · 10 August 2019 at 2:29PM

I have one. I spend £120 on logs which last the whole of the winter (I have a cellar so I keep them there, but if you're in a new build you'll probably need a store outside), another £20/30 on heat logs (they heat the stove up faster so I'm not constantly stoking it, I also don't need kindling), £60 a year for the chimney sweep, that's about it. Mess wise it's not too bad. Scoop out the ash and place in a metal tin, HG stove cleaner's fantastic (smells though) and cleans the door like a dream, and I hoover up any bits of ash that I've missed. Some log burners will burn coal too, and if you have one with a flat top you should be able to brew coffee on it. The heat doesn't spread any further than one room, so if you're spending all day in your living room it's fine. I turn the central heating on an hour before bed so the bedrooms are warm, I can't say my gas bill's any cheaper though (it probably is but I haven't noticed).

BananaRepublic · 10 August 2019 at 6:41PM

I have gas CH and a Charnwood wood burner. I don’t use it much, winter weekends only, but I do like it. It is a luxury but a safety feature in case of a power cut, my boiler needs electricity to work.

silverwhistle · 10 August 2019 at 11:27PM

CakeCrusader wrote: »

The heat doesn't spread any further than one room, so if you're spending all day in your living room it's fine. .

It does seem to be house and person dependent though. I keep the door to the lounge shut as it warms up, then open the door to the dining room and then the hall. I never had the central heating on at all last winter apart from an initial test and on frost setting when I was away for a couple of weeks.

Even when I was working in my 3rd bedroom/office I didn't have the heating on upstairs..

Wood burning stove?

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