Wood burning stoves

Now that I'm nearly retired I'm looking forward to having a wood-burning stove, so I can spend my days foraging in the woods for fuel wearing a flowery headscarf with a bundle of twigs on my back like Baba Yaga, then warming my arthritic toes in front of it all evening with a blackened kettle singing on the hob.

I'm resigned to the fact that it will cost around a grand to buy, prepare the chimney/hearth and fit. I'll be looking at budget models, obvs. I would normally buy this sort of thing secondhand from ebay but this might be an occasion where it'swiser to get a reputable firm to deal with it all.

As I live in a town I've been told it's a silly idea because I will end up buying expensive logs all the time. Other people tell me that tons of free wood is available from skips etc.

There's also the wood/coal/smokeless/multifuel debate. As I live in a smokeless zone I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to burn wood.

I'm sure lots of you must have stoves - any comments, words of advice?

 

My parents have one, the only thing worth mentioning is that you should buy 'proper' wood. Stuff that has been dried. If you use any old wood it might be wet and the tar stuff from it gets stuck in the flue, this then needs cleaning by a pro (happened to my parents). If the tar stuff is left to build up it can cause a backdraft as the flame can't escape upwards as there isn't enough room so they come back down.

Buy good wood or you'll regret it.

 

I really fancied a wood burner as well, but the cottage I bought doesn't have a chimney!

Val

 

I have a brick shed which I am planning to use as a wood store so dryness shouldn't be a problem if properly managed. What kinds of wood are more likely to create or contain tar, as i can't see that drying alone would remover it?

 

I have a Douvre 500 wood burner. They do a mulifuel 1 but I went for just wood. Only difference I think is the grate. The 1 I have is smokless zone approved altho I didn't need to get a smokeless 1 where I live, just happened to be incredibly lucky and picked up a brand new 1 off Gumtree for a lot less than they retail for.
Having used an open fire all my life and therefore had plenty of experience with fires, the burner is BRILLIANT. It chucks out huge amounts of heat for it's size (many a night we've had to strip off various layers of clothing!) and best of all it is incredibly fuel efficient in comparison to an open fire.
Mine is a cynch to light and you can regulate the heat output easily. Most of the time we have it on low as when it's on full blast you'd expire from the heat. The only thing you do have to be careful of is the stove is extremely hot to touch and I burnt my wrist on it as I brushed past it.
The burner is in a room which didn't have a chimney so I had to put in 1 of these twin wall flues. They are hellish expensive, however I did lots of homewok on the net and found a make which is good but not quite so hard on the bank balance.
We are lucky and for the foreseeable future have our own wood (lots of hard work barrowing and splitting tho!) I reckon we will have saved at least £750 by using the wood burner rather than oil to heat an extension to our house. We hardly had the heating on in the extention which has an apprx 18x15 ft sitting room, reasonable sized double bedroom, hallway of about 10 ft square and a shower room. The other benefit to an open coal fire is how little wood ash is produced. The wood burner we have only needs emptying baout once a week so no big deal.
Our wood was reasonably seasoned but a lot of it was quite wet (we all remember it never stopped raining last year!) however the glass on the front of the stove didn't really soot up much and as far as I knwo the flue isn't dirty. Personally I hate the look of wood burners and didn't intend to get 1, however we lost a enormous Beech tree 2 years ago in gales, were up to our eyeballs in wood and I couldn't bare to waste it so got 1....absolutely no regrets and worth every penny to get 1 and have it installed. They do get amazingly hot and therefore the castings need to be quality. I would be wary of getting 1 that is a cheap import from the likes of China.

 

Woodburners are good if you have the source and space to find the wood. My neighbour a few doors down has a woodburning boiler and has to fill up 2 garages up to the brim with wood. His entire life is now spent searching for wood.

In contrast the visitor centre I volunteer at has a huge wood burning boiler, roughly the size of two double fridge freezers and a infinite supply of wood. Yet last winter they still struggled to get the thing to work because half the wood was still wet or burned way too quickly.

Woodburners are only a fad in my eyes and are not worth the hassle.

 

Not sure off the top of my head. My parents thought it would be a good idea to use the leylandii they chopped down in the garden...it wasn't. That stuff is jammed with tar, it oozes out. A bit of googling should help you out.

They store their wood outside with a thick tarp over the top, does the job fine.

 

Ooh no, I wouldn't use any sort of pine tree, always oozing resin. Seems those leylandii are absolutely good for nothing!

 

The best wood to burn is kiln dried hardwood such as ash but it's also the most expensive, you should not burn softwood such as pine & leylandii is a definite no no as it tars up the flue & will invalidate any guarantees.
Also it must be fitted by a registered installer as it must comply with building regs. If not you will also invalidate your home insurance.

 

What I'm talking about is something roughly 2ft square not something on a commercial/instead of boiler scale! Yes if all you have ever done is push a button or flick a switch to get heat then maybe wood burners are not the answer for everybody. If on the other hand if you are used to a bit of labour then in my opinion they are terrific. Wood burners have been around for many many years. I kept warm in my kindergarten class 55 years ago sitting next to 1 and in many parts of Europe they are commonplace so I would have to argue about them being a fad. Perhaps they are a fad for those emerald coloured people hell bent on saving the planet while at the same time jetting off on long haul holidays and delivering their little darlings to school 1/2 a mile from their homes in Chelsea tractors!

 

Thinking about finding scrap wood - pallet wood is easily obtainable but is surely soft pine. I have heard it spits and cracks a lot - is it suitable for a multi fuel stove?

Other found wood might include builder's offcuts, broken furniture and old window frames. How stove-worthy are these? I would also pick up fallen timber while out walking, in my experience this needs drying and might be semi-rotten so doesn't last long on a fire.

I am aware of the work involved in feeding the thing. I have got central heating and a gas fire as well for those times when I need to press a button.

A friend of mine has a woodburner the size and shape of Bilbo's smial. The round front door is 6' across and it goes back into the wall about 8'. She loads it with scrap wood, especially pallet wood and it heats a big house and provides hot water. She loves it!

 

Madahhlia
Never try to clean the tarred up glass with wire wool or, with anything other than the special cleaner. You will never see a living flame again

Wood storage, unless you buy expensive dried hard wood, you must not store it in a shed or the wood will never dry out enough you need the top covered of course, but the logs need to be at the elements so the Sun and wind dry them out (about a year)

M.I.L Bought a good one, and lived in the country, but not allowed to take wood from someones woodland
It was difficult sourcing delivery of two ton loads, and when we did find one it was very expensive
We then went the cheap way, but the wood was green and within six months the chimney had glued up, expensive clean required
Yes I made the mistake of taking a Brillo Pad to the Glass, DOH

The heat provided was brilliant, including as much central heating and hot water anyone could wish for

The end, after eighteen months MIL passed on, we sold the house, and six months on, the house had been gutted of all internal walls and the almost new wood burner and tank were in the skip

Think long and hard, as to what you may be able to do in twenty years time ?

Regards Jack McHammocklashing

 

it is quite a lot of work to maintain a wood burner. Mainly because of the wood. It has to be cut, dried, transported, tidied in the storage, transported from the storage to indoors in the freezing cold,it is messy, smoky (especially if it is not dry and aged). I see it worth it if a few people are taking turns in the above activities.

In the burner itself the ashes have to be cleared daily and they fly just everywhere.

On the plus side the heat produced is quite a lot (especially if you look after the fire every half an hour and put in nice dry wood chunks). It is pleasant and a nice fire make the place comes alive when it is on, but all cold and sad when it is off. It becomes a bit the heart of the house.

 

OMG, that's shocking! Why didn't they slap it on Ebay, the fools!

Indeed but it would be a shame to plan my life now based on what I might or might not be able to do in 20 years time. I might as well give up now if so.