Wood burners

[SpokeyDokey]

We have a nice open fire here which we love but when we lived in Tunbridge Wells we had a woodburner installed.

There's not a house in the village that does not have a woodburner or open fire and it's lovely to see the smoke drifting out the chimneys on a cold morning. We are not in a smokeless zone either so we can use 'proper' coal.

We went off to the shop (Blazing Something-or-other in Tee-Dub) to order a whopping great woodburner. Fortunately we listened to the advice given and purchased a smaller one - this still produced masses of heat.

First night we used it it was scary - the flue (which we had lined) sounded like a jet engine and we thought the house was going to be set on fire!

 

[summerdays]

It's a Burley, we went with his recommendation and it was the one they had lit in their workshop.

Seems to be going now, and a little whiffy I think. It's nice being able to shut the front door after two days when it has been permeantly open!

 

[Ganymede]

To be honest, i'd probably have one myself if i could....cough...cough
A friend of mine who lives abroad has a couple of wood burners, but he now burns these pellets instead of logs which automatically feed into his wood burner from an outside hopper or something like that. I think you can even have them with a heat exchanger inbuilt to run radiators off of them, probably cost a few bob though..

I'm sorry to say that pellets are very unecological, due to the effin great racket which is the international wood pellet trade. Sounds like I'm joking but "biomass" is now an international business and your pellets have to be cut, processed and transported, making it not a good idea at all. http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2013/biomass-faq-2/#C4

 

[Ganymede]

It's a Burley, we went with his recommendation and it was the one they had lit in their workshop.

Seems to be going now, and a little whiffy I think. It's nice being able to shut the front door after two days when it has been permeantly open!

Yay!

 

[welsh dragon]

We have an esse. Great fire and it throws out a ton of heat.

 

[welsh dragon]

I'm sorry to say that pellets are very unecological, due to the effin great racket which is the international wood pellet trade. Sounds like I'm joking but "biomass" is now an international business and your pellets have to be cut, processed and transported, making it not a good idea at all. http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2013/biomass-faq-2/#C4

I don't like the pellets either. Not efficient. Its a racket. Wood is more efficient and more cost effective. And its just nicer to use

 

[hopless500]

Ok burner men have left and we are desperately trying to get it lit so any tips will be gratefully received.

A match always works wonders

 

[hopless500]

We had an open fire but Mr Hop wanted a woodburner instead. It works well, but an open fire is actually easier to keep clean.

 

[hopless500]

Ok burner men have left and we are desperately trying to get it lit so any tips will be gratefully received.

As the vents can take a bit of getting used to (as in what they do), I'd suggest not completely closing the door/doors, just push them to so that they are ajar and some air is still getting in. Once you've got it going really well you can fiddle with the vents to find out what works best.

 

[Crackle]

I'm sorry to say that pellets are very unecological, due to the effin great racket which is the international wood pellet trade. Sounds like I'm joking but "biomass" is now an international business and your pellets have to be cut, processed and transported, making it not a good idea at all. http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2013/biomass-faq-2/#C4

One of the reasons I decided not to get one, it's all imported. There was a local producer when I lived in Scotland but not here.

 

[Globalti]

Ok burner men have left and we are desperately trying to get it lit so any tips will be gratefully received.

Get some firelighters, it's cheapest to buy a complete carton of boxes from your coal merchant. Get a couple of 20 kg bags of smokeless nuggets, sometimes it's called Pureheat. You need to start the fire with easily-combustible materials, which will create lots of flames so as to warm the flue. You are aiming to achieve a fast-rising smooth column of hot gases. Start with the door a little open then once it's got going and the smoke is beginning to be replaced with flame, close the door fully but keep the vents open. Once the kindling is well alight your combustion temperature is high enough to throw on a few smokeless nuggets - these will create the all-important bed of glowing embers on which to burn your logs because just logs alone won't burn very well. It goes without saying that the kindling and the logs need to be perfectly dry so your log store and wood planning are as important as the stove. Bear in mind that throwing cold nuggets or worse, cold damp wood onto a young fire will suck out lots of heat and damp it down badly.

This is a good mature fire with a bed of glowing embers, fading by now, and a nice dry log burning on top, primary combustion underneath and secondary on top where the stove temperature is high enough that what would be emerging as smoke is actually incandescent:

Don't burn real coal in any stove; it burns very hot indeed and can actually melt the inside of your stove. This is what happened to my neighbour's baffle plate when she didn't get her chimney swept and she had a chimney fire, which ran away with itself creating so much updraft that the coal she was burning went white hot:

 

[welsh dragon]

I hate coal. It smells horrible, and the dust on everythng is horrendous. You lot can heat yourselves on my fire

 

[Rooster1]

We got one of these lovelies

Scan Andersen

 

[Drago]

That's the sort of thing I quite fancy for my fire place

 

[Globalti]

Have a look at a Dovre 250. Same as the above but a bit fussier.