Wood burning stove

[Rhyl Lightworks]

With the price of fuel being what it is, and having a garden that produces a lot of wood, I am thinking of changing my gas fire at home to the above and installing one in my shop/showroom, which at present is heated electrically.

Does anyone have experience of these - there seems to be a huge choice out there at vastly differing prices - and can point me in the right direction?

Barrie

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Hopefully you are not in a hurry to use your own wood.It can take two to three years for green wood to dry correctly.Burning wet wood is inefficient and can also lead to tar build up in the flue.
I am going out now but will return to the thread later.Hopefully you will have had some good advice in the meanwhile.
PS Have a look at this. http://www.hetas.co.uk/

 

[Faulty Towers]

Hi Barrie
I have fitted two wood burning stoves in my house and they are great! So clean as apposed to coal and very little ash to empty. I clean ours out about once a month.
We have a Dovre 500 in the front room and a Dru 60 in the back, I fitted them myself and got them and the flue liners etc. from Stoves Online who were the cheapest and where nice helpful people to deal with.
I use pallets (not painted) for kindling, so free! And I bought a chain saw to cut logs down to size and a log grenade from Screwfix to split them. The wood needs to be dried well to burn properly so they need to season for about 12 months. There are plenty of suppliers online if you wish to buy ready dried.
They give out tremendous amounts of heat and can be lit in a few minutes.
Thoroughly recomend them!

Dave

 

[am:pm graphics]

They're great...we have a mutli-fuel one...if you have lots of wood to burn anyway..even better. You just need somewhere to dry them out for about a year.

These ones seem good I bought ours from ebay and collected it from the Peaks.

We were advised that a large stove is not neccessarily good as it eats more wood..

Pauline

 

[alanc]

I've got one of these www.woodwarmstoves.co.uk/products/wildwood-range/6kwwoodburner.ashx
built in Devon to a pattern they developed over thirty years ago and still going strong. It's brilliant.

They do weigh a lot and should be professionally fitted with a flue.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

OK,seems you've had some advice.
I would add,try and avoid the very cheap models.Probably made in China and their idea of "solid cast iron" seems to differ to ours.
Go to your local woodburner shop and get their advice.They should be able to offer you an answer based on your needs and the kilowatts you need to produce.
As said when they work well they are brilliant.

 

we have a morso stove which is bloody ace ,you should have a linner put up the chimney ,shop about for a fitter as the price varies a good bit and get in now mate in a month you will find a stove fitter for love nor money!
only burn dry wood ,and have a look here for reviews http://www.whatstove.co.uk/

 

[CMBUK]

I have one and its great. Warm, comfortaing and the smell of wood buring is great.

Check how much heat output you require in kW as this is how they are rated. Also dont burn unseasoned wood as it will knacker up your flue.

 

[adventurelife]

Again another positive.

I put one in last year to replace and open fire that had seen better days.

The stove is much cleaner and much hotter. Can often turn central heating off when it is on.

Sometimes it does get to hot

We use dried wood that I have collected or these bricks which produce much more heat than wood and also last much longer

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Lots of stuff here.
http://www.whichwoodburningstoves.co.uk/installing_wood_burning_stove.html

 

[Rhyl Lightworks]

Thanks for all the advice - everyone seems to be very positive about them. I had been told by other people that you need to let the wood dry out completely, so it will be 2 or 3 years before we are completely self sufficient. I dug out a device I bought years ago from the Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynlleth, for making combustible bricks from newspaper. Does anyone know if these work in a wood burning or multifuel stove? Also we get a lot of cardboard to get rid of in the business. Can these stoves cope with this? The place next door is a door retailer, and produces some waste wood, which they say I can have. I assume this would be ok to use provided there was no glue in it, and the same goes for replaced kitchens, if they were solid wood, rather than chipboard, which contains glue. I will have to top this up with bought logs in the meantime.

Barrie

 

[cjd]

One word of caution, don't fit it yourself, use a reputable company. A friend of mine burnt his house and garage down this February because he mis-installed a heat deflector plate.

 

[jane exelby]

Nothing but positives!!
Ours is fab - huge heat output that can be felt through the whole house.
Bought from stoves online, used existing chimney without lining, stands on slate slab recycled from snooker table (see ebay) and use mix of our own seasoned logs and cuts from local saw mill.
Only word of caution is find and use a good chimney sweep. This prevents tar build up reducing chances of chimney fires.We have all chimneys swept in August.

 

[Faulty Towers]

One word of caution, you must have a flue liner fitted. This is because the stoves are upto 80% efficient therefor there is not a lot of heat being wasted going up the chimney, the flue liner heats up quickly with this reduced wasted heat and so creates a draw to remove dangerous fumes. If vented into a normal chimney cavity the draw will be severly reduced and the installation become dangerous.

 

[movietub]

Thanks for all the advice - everyone seems to be very positive about them. I had been told by other people that you need to let the wood dry out completely, so it will be 2 or 3 years before we are completely self sufficient. I dug out a device I bought years ago from the Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynlleth, for making combustible bricks from newspaper. Does anyone know if these work in a wood burning or multifuel stove? Also we get a lot of cardboard to get rid of in the business. Can these stoves cope with this? The place next door is a door retailer, and produces some waste wood, which they say I can have. I assume this would be ok to use provided there was no glue in it, and the same goes for replaced kitchens, if they were solid wood, rather than chipboard, which contains glue. I will have to top this up with bought logs in the meantime.

Barrie

Can your garden actually produce enough wood to keep this going long term? Wood burning stoves will burn a lot of wood very, very quickly if they are required to heat a whole building.

My old house had one and it was a great feature, at Christmas I miss it a lot. But Christ it got through some wood when we used it! Old, slow grown logs would last a long time - but you can't grow dense logs like that without 20 years notice. And even then the amount of fast burning timber bits required to get a log burning is quite a lot.

If you have a personal half acre of woodland you can probably run this FOC. But short of that, you will surely run out of 'free' stuff to burn before the cost of the stove is met?

 

[SillyJokes]

Woods for Burning.

Logs to burn! Logs to burn!
Logs to save the coal a turn!
Here’s a word to make you wise
When you hear the woodsman’s cries.

Beech wood fires burn bright and clear,
Hornbeam blazes too’
If the logs are kept a year
To season through and through.

Oak logs will warm you well
If they are old and dry.
Larch logs of the pine smell
But the sparks will fly.

Pine is good and so is Yew
For warmth through winter days,
But poplar and the willow too
Take long to dry or blaze.

Birch logs will burn to fast,
Alder scarce at all,
Chestnut logs are good to last
If cut in the fall

Holly logs will burn like wax –
You should burn them green.
Elm logs like a smouldering flax,
No flames to be seen.

Pear logs and Apple logs
They will scent a room,
Cheery logs across the dogs
Smell like flowers in bloom.

But Ash logs all smooth and grey,
Burn them green or old,
Buy up all that come your way
They’re worth their weight in Gold!

Un-known.

*Elder, sweet chestnut, cedar, hemlock, balsam, spruce and the pines all spit hot cinders into the air.

 

[jane exelby]

One word of caution, you must have a flue liner fitted. This is because the stoves are upto 80% efficient therefor there is not a lot of heat being wasted going up the chimney, the flue liner heats up quickly with this reduced wasted heat and so creates a draw to remove dangerous fumes. If vented into a normal chimney cavity the draw will be severly reduced and the installation become dangerous.

This may be the accepted wisdom but ours goes directly into the existing flue without a liner and draws beautifully.
Chimney draw depends on heat rising but can be more complex than that.
Our chimney is an original build over 200 years old and that may account for it.

Although the house is old the electrics are state of art and have appropriate CO and smoke detectors, so I would also recommend these for peace of mind.

In response to expense of logs try investigating sources such as saw mills and joinery operations. Of course seasoned logs are fab but there are many other options.

 

[SillyJokes]

Gulp, you reminded me to order wood and I have to pay £75 a load now! It's a good lot and nice ash, but wowser.

 

[papverpoppies]

Also go for one with a back boiler, more expensive but at least you get the water heated..

I have two stoves the Morso Squirrel and the Little Wenlock, (the wenlock has the back boiler) both are multi fuel stoves - I would not just go for a straight wood burner myself (depends on what you want really).

Would never like to be without one, not only are they efficient, they look good, (do jacket spuds in the ash pan) wrapped in tin foil of course, they are scrummy, you can also keep the kettle going on top.

Agree with vvaannmmaan that the cheaper steal ones, do not last, if you are looking for something to last, go for a good make.

Good Luck

Pops ~xx~