Wood burning stove experiences please

[PaulSB]

[QUOTE 4837650, member: 45"]We're about to order a wood burning stove. We don't need more than 5kw.

What experiences do you have? We're looking in the sub £750 price range and while there are some that give pretty good reviews I know that you don't get all the twiddly bits for that price and I don't know what's worth it and what isn't (multi-fuel, grates etc). So any experiences/advice appreciated....[/QUOTE]

There's been very little mention of the amount of wood you will need. I've no idea where you live but if you don't have access to free, scavenged wood your fuel will be expensive.

I live in a small village of 36 houses many of which have wood burners or multi-fuel stoves. Whenever a tree comes down, is felled or branches drop a small army appears armed with chainsaws in the race to get the timber!!! It's like a carcas being stripped by scavenging insects of some sort. Fun though.

You're going to need a decent chainsaw, £300+, I use a battery powered one, log splitter, access to timber and a log store large enough to store 12 months fuel - today you need next year's fuel cut, stored and drying out. You'll be surprised how quickly what looks like a large store of logs disappears. All this takes time!

In my area, Lancashire, a bulk bag of wood - the size gravel, sand etc is packed in by builders' merchants - is £55 - £65. It won't last five minutes if you use the stove as a source of heat. If your burner is simply to enjoy the occasional wood fire it's less of a problem.

 

[perplexed]

We've got one of these, a Morso. Bloody marvellous, far more efficient than the central heating. Multi fuel and secondary burning/airwash or whatever it's called. Our model is suitable for smokeless zones, DEFRA approved.

 

[TVC]

Cripes that really should not be happening. If smoke is coming that is potentially lethal as CO poisoning is insidious. I'd do some serious checking of the gaps in the chimney maybe under the floorboards and buy a CO detector. People have died from this kind of thing. It wants sorting PDQ

It's my neighbours chimney, and I get the smell when I keep the window open and the wind is in the wrong direction. The smoke can clearly be seen coming from the chimney. Following the replies to my post I will have a word with the council if it starts again in the autumn.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

@PaulSB is right. I do tree work for a living so I have a cheaper bill than most. It is worth getting hold of some decent literature and learning about the different woods, storing, drying, burning processes as this will help immensely. Some people put anything in the burner but that's why their neighbours have cancer and all the birds are dead. Keeps the sweep in a job I guess.

In the same vein, I would swot up the subject of chainsaws or go on a course if you go down this route. In the Autumn/Winter A&E is full of retired office boys and weekend lumberjacks. They just don't have the space for you. Splitting logs is great cross training. You'll have Popeyes's forearms by the Spring.

 

[Julia9054]

I go through 1 - 1 1/2 bags of wood per winter. At, as somebody else said, about £60 a time.
It is on most evenings in the winter but is not used to heat the water or anything. It does mean that the central heating can be on a little bit less when you can get one room really cosy.

 

[Julia9054]

I don't have a chainsaw but i do know someone who got hold of an old telegraph pole, chopped it up and burned it and managed to set his chimney on fire due to all the soaked in creosote.
Cue fire brigade, lots of water, ruined living room carpet and a massive, massive telling off. Silly bugger

 

[Bonefish Blues]

OP, be aware that by and large these stoves need feeding very dry wood, with an under 20% moisture content. You can do this yourself, but you do need a year or so, from "green" wood - or you can buy kiln-dried wood to use straight away.

 

[Drago]

Some people put anything in the burner but that's why their neighbours have cancer and all the birds are dead.

Its OK as long as the council clear up the corpses promptly.

On a serious note, I wonder if my inveterate wood scrounging habits are a hangover from my years in Shetland? Virtually no native wood (the only significant wooded area is on Unst) so we'd burn off-cuts, old fences, broken furniture's, coal, peat, paper bricks, anything that will combust.

 

[Brains]

Look at Jotul stoves.
They are the benchmark against which all others are measured

 

[Spiderweb]

[QUOTE 4838829, member: 45"]Sorry for all the questions, but is yours the Little Wenlock or the Little Wenlock Classic?

View attachment 356630 [/QUOTE]
My mistake, it is the Little Wenlock Classic.
I have no other experience of other manufacturers but as others have mentioned Jotul are supposed to be excellent, we did look at those but they were beyond our budget.

 

[Tilley]

Don't forget to allow for the flue lining and installation cost, it could cost at least as much as the stove.

 

[hopless500]

Ours is a multi fuel Stovax. We've ended up removing the grate and just burn wood in it now. It doesn't have any fancy gizmos.

Can't remember how many watts but it's a little more than it needs to be for this room which is great as it starts to heat the rest of the house too.
Edit... we can keep this ticking over overnight and 9 times out of 10 get it back to life in the morning. Also we've never yet had to buy wood in the 11 years we've been here

 

[hopless500]

I should've cleaned the hearth before I took the photo

 

[Globalti]

Here's something I wrote earlier to somebody else who wanted advice:

The first thing you need to do is find a local chimney sweep and get him to come and assess your flue. The quality of the flue is vital for the creation of a rising column of hot gases, which creates a low pressure and sucks the air through your stove. He might recommend that you get your flue lined with an expensive stainless steel liner; you will need to question him about this because the liner, at over £60 a metre, can exceed your stove cost, which is a nice earner for him. If you're lucky enough to live in a modern house, which has a chimney, the flue might be made from a stack of concentric clay rings and in good condition. Older houses will have a square section flue built into the wall from brick and it's likely that the mortar might be in poor condition allowing gases to escape and necessitating a liner. A liner is good in an old house because it's smooth inside and will be packed in insulating material, meaning it will warm up fast (cold brick takes longer) and encourage the gases to rise in a nice thin column. A warmer flue means less condensation and less nasty acidic liquid attacking the brickwork. Get the sweep to quote you for a chimney cowl (must be stainless) and check the flaunching around your pot.

Once you've sorted the flue, start thinking about the stove. Here is my view on the pros and cons:

Wood burner: You are limited to wood only but wood burners usually have spacious grates and big windows giving a lovely effect. However it takes a bit of practice and plenty of smaller pieces of fuel to create the all-important bed of embers on which to burn your logs. Logs alone in an empty grate don't burn very well.

Multi-fuel: more choice of fuels and easier to create the bed of embers with some smokeless nuggets, which will glow all evening and on which you can burn logs if you wish. Usually has a smaller grate, lined with fire brick. We have two Dovre 250s, which we think are about perfect. Never burn coal in a stove, it burns too hot and I've seen it melt a cast-iron baffle plate like chocolate.

The best advice I was ever given was to err on the side of a smaller stove, which you will be burning harder and therefore hotter and cleaner - nothing looks worse than an oversize stove, shut down and smoking up the glass.

Once you've decided on the stove the next thing is to think about your log store. You need somewhere well ventilated where you can stack the logs and air will pass through them to dry them. Most wood merchants or tree surgeons will deliver big builders' bags of logs, which will have been heaped in a barn and so will be semi dry and not fully ready for burning. A summer is usually enough to get those logs dry enough - you can tell they're ready by the radial shrinkage splits in the ends and the ringing sound when you bang two together.

Get the stove installed by the chimney sweep; this will make you a good customer who he'll be happy to come back and sweep at shortish notice or attend to any problems. He will fit a sweeping port in the flue for his own future convenience.

Next go and buy your coal scuttle, log basket, tools, some spare door seal rope and glue, some glass cleaner gel, a tipper box for the ashes and your multi-fuel nuggets and kindling and a huge box of fire lighters.

Then fit a TRV to the radiator in the lounge to prevent you from overheating when 'er indoors has got everything on full whack and is still sitting moaning about feeling cold. Finally, start to enjoy your stove.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

Its OK as long as the council clear up the corpses promptly.

On a serious note, I wonder if my inveterate wood scrounging habits are a hangover from my years in Shetland? Virtually no native wood (the only significant wooded area is on Unst) so we'd burn off-cuts, old fences, broken furniture's, coal, peat, paper bricks, anything that will combust.

Obvious new source of fuel is obvious