Does anyone have any experience with the above? We were thinking of getting one but wanted to get peoples views. Anything to avoid, makes to go for etc.

For the record we live in a 50's bungalow with a chimney so that should help. We would only look at it as a supplimentary heat source as we have gas central heating and really only want it to heat the living room and adjoining dining room approx. 25 Sq metres.

Any ideas?

Thanks

I love mine to bits!

Bungalow similar size room, 5kw burner heats the entire house!

Can't for the life of me remember the name of ours - but will try and find out, because it is a little beauty (and way better/hotter than a bigger one we had on a cottage holiday)

We have a Clearview - not the cheapest, but they live up to their name - if you burn decent wood then the large glass window stays clear, just needing a wipe with a damp cloth every week or two. TBH, most of the brand names are pretty good, but avoid the cheap-and-nasties from places like Machine Mart.

Here's a good place to browse - lots of good technical info as well: http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/
(But they don't sell Clearview!)

We light ours in the evening and a little while later the central heating goes off. Once the living room is good and toasty we open the door into the hall and let the warm air go through the house. The upstairs gets just right by bedtime. This is jonly a 4 or 5KW stove.

[Edited on 20/1/15 by David Jenkins]

There was a thread the other day, worth perusing to get basics.

I'm in the process of getting 2 fitted in a refurb project. My pal intends to use them for his hetas inspection!

I have a Morso Squirrel - excellent piece of kit.

Had it installed now for 15+ years and only replaced a riddlling grate (which warped from using pet-coke!!) and a door-glass (impact damage !!) once each

It's multi-fuel and we run it mostly on wood but we have run it on coal and on coal we can keep it on permanently for days with a bit of tweaking.

It's 5KW and heats an open-plan kitchen/dininmg room and will switch off the CH after about an hour.

We've got an Esse 301 which is an inset stove with a big window and airwash to keep it clear if you need that type. Multi fuel and works very well providing whole house heating when its running. if we want heat just for an evening we use wood but if its for a longer time we use smokeless fuel as it will keep in for ages easily. very good bit of kit indeed

Stovax studio 1 here, brilliant bit of kit, the air wash keeps the glass really clean, although rated at 5kw it must be putting out more than that on old pallets as we have every inside door open and it warms the whole house when stoked up.

As said above - a 5KW stove can heat an average house, given the chance! I you're really only wanting to heat the living room & dining room you can go a lot smaller. I'd recommend going for one with airwash (air is drawn across the glass to help keep it clean) or even one without a glass door - there's plenty of those, and they give out their heat through the body of the stove (lots of heat!). Again, that link I put up earlier has all the info you'll need.

Budget for getting your chimney sorted out (a liner is a minimum) as there was a news item here in the east recently about the fire service being called out to more and more chimney fires because of the rise in popularity of wood stoves. A liner also makes it easier to keep clean (getting it swept regularly is another fire prevention task).

Finally, consider where you're going to get your wood (well-dried hardwood) and where you're going to keep it so that it stays dry.

There great if you have a free supply of untreated timber mine burns all the time hardly goes out. It heats the whole place and cost nothing which is great.

I make hand carved firesurounds and surprising how many get fitted and fired up once or twice a year. This is just over 9ft wide recently went to clean the job its been in 4 years now and only fired up once

I have an Ekol Crystal 5kW. The 'stovefittersmanual' is a great site giving you all the info you need.

Mine has a 5" liner and it was easy to put this down my 70's chimney pot lined chimney.

Our 110sqm bungalow is heated by gas + gas hot water and we use ~£100 of gas per month in Dec/Jan. With the log burner going we use about 40-50, which is heating in the morning before we go to work and a hot water tank morning and evening.

However, i reckon we use at least that in wood, probably 60-70£ per month with it on every evening and all day at weekends.

Here a big builders bag of oak costs about £60. Two wheelie bins of mixed hardwood costs about 30 quid, but it burns a lot quicker than the oak.

We also reduced our gas bill for central heating, but spent roughly the same in wood. However, the heat is all in the right place and at the right time - very cosy in the living room without heating the rest of the house unnecessarily.

I'm just about to get a Hunter 14b boiler stove - 15kw with about 2/3rds output to the boiler. It'll be linked into a heating system which is also driven by a combi boiler - so requires some sort of complex heat exchanger to allow the two to interact (wood stove goes on a vented system, combi-boiler goes on a sealed system...)...

Despite doing this as part of a new build (well - a massive extension to the house) we had some problems - the wood stove boiler feed needed to rise constantly to a heat soak radiator before going into the heat exchanger. Which is a bit difficult in a bungalow... We will end up with a radiator in the loft, but at least the heat will go somewhere if the electricity cuts out...

The cost of the wood burner is not insignificant, I am guessing it'll be somewhere around £5/6k once the heat exchanger, fire, hearth, chimney etc are all factored in.

We have an endless supply of free wood though - if we didn't I would not have considered it worth the investment (or the bother - they are relatively high maintainence devices compared to sitting on your backside and enjoying effortless gas fired central heating!)...

I have a large 7KW job in a 3 bed bungalow. The make is unknown as it was fitted by a previous owner. Ours is on all day everyday and we only burn hardwood from a local supplier. Costs us £55 per builders bag and a bag lasts a month and a half. Coal is cheap cheap at the moment costing £7 for 25KG of mixed ovoids.

Buy a multifuel version - it will pay for itself in the end. Also don't be convinced by people saying 'I am a chippy and I can just get wood free'. Unless people can get hold of hardwood offcuts then its not worth entering it in your cost saving calculations for anything else than kindling. I have access to 7 full time carpenters and virtually unlimited softwood offcuts. It burns though softwood far to fast to be a viable solution. A full days use would probably use nearly a dustbin full. I would have to fill the car boot every two days or so!

[Edited on 21/1/15 by Irony]

quote:

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Originally posted by Irony
A full days use would probably use nearly a dustbin full.[Edited on 21/1/15 by Irony]

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I have 5kw Stovax Huntigdon multifuel stove. Best thing we have ever done!

We use it instead of the gas central heating, it keeps the living room, dining room kitchen and bathroom warm, and the bedrooms upstairs.

I just poick pallets up on my way round the doors and cut them up, if they are Euro pallets I sell them andcuse the money to buy smokeless fuel (smokeless zone here)

Its slashed our gas bill right down, Decembers dual bill for gas and electric was £78.

Do it!

quote:

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Originally posted by iant88
I have a Morso Squirrel - excellent piece of kit.

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Thats all useful stuff - thanks. I think our only issue is getting decent wood to burn, unless we go the multi-fuel route.
Generally seems that Ash, Oak are the best with Apple and Pear not far behind.

Will check out the various brands mentioned and do the usual cost/quality checks.

Top stuff guys!

Some woods are better than others - but they all burn if they're dry enough! When I get a load there's usually a lot of beech and other similar stuff. Just don't use softwood, as it burns too fast and tars up your chimney.

Forgot to say this: it also reduces your electric by using a kettle on the stove

quote:

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Originally posted by chris68
Thats all useful stuff - thanks. I think our only issue is getting decent wood to burn, unless we go the multi-fuel route.
Generally seems that Ash, Oak are the best with Apple and Pear not far behind.

Will check out the various brands mentioned and do the usual cost/quality checks.

Top stuff guys!

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I bought a super-cheap moisture meter off ebay - it's easy to tell if the wood is well dried, just by turning it on and jabbing the spikes in. I normally just do it a couple of times on the outside, but very occasionally I split a log and check inside.

Finding a decent supplier is often a challenge though - best if you can get one via recommendation. I was very lucky!

quote:

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Originally posted by coozer
Forgot to say this: it also reduces your electric by using a kettle on the stove

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Dunno mate, I don't like tea, just coffee.

All depends how much your electric is and what the gas price is like, mains, bottles??

For me quickest way to boil water is a 3kw rapid boil that will do one cup.

We have a kettle on the stove constantly and when we want a cuppa we just tip the hot water from the stove kettle into the electric one.

The council sell logs over here for £10 a trailer load. They do need seasoning for a year or so Get in touch with your local parks dept.
Oh, and buy a hydraulic log splitter (machine mart have them) They are worth their weight in gold.

Andi

I've just had a 9kw yeoman double sided stove fitted and I'm not overly impressed with the heat, maybe I was expecting too much. It's placed in a central chimney breast between front room and dining room, which is then onto an open stair case. I originally had 2 gas fires which I ripped out and knock through the centre wall so you can see through to the next room. Dining room and front room are both 3.5m x 4.5m and wall height of 2.2m.
When looking at the guide lines it said a 5kw would suit our size rooms but it's very difficult to get a double sided with low output, also the house is very old, not insulated and is open to the kitchen and upstairs.
I went and bought 6 bags of wood for £30 and was told it was hard wood, it burns fairly quickly and doesn't produce the blistering heat others talk about.


[Edited on 28/1/15 by Sierra]

Hi Steve,

With a 9kw stove open like that you should be roasting! With a two sided job there the thermal movement between the rooms should be good to keep you warm.

Mine is 5kw as required for our smokeless zone and heats our room, which is living room, dining room, kitchen about 10.5m long and 4.5m wide a treat. We also have an open staircase and if we leave the doors open upstairs heats the whole lot a treat.

You need one of these:



This helps you control the fire better to get the most out of it. Also you should find the whole of the chimney breast gets really hot, acting like a storage heater.

Mine running at that temp is enough to get us nice and cosy with tons of hot water from the kettle. Enough for cuppas and washing up.

How big were the bags? Not from a petrol station I hope! I have a leaflet here for seasoned sycamore and ash at £30 for a dumpy bag!

I get a few leaflets and door knockers when the fires on with the smoke and chimney cap thing.

But, all I burn is pallets, they are free and burn canny, although the chimney clogs up quick, needs sweeping twice a year and I just do it myself with some rods and brush I got off ebay.

What kind of fire is it? Looks like a solid fuel burner, I cant see any controls for air at the top, which is what a wood burner needs.

Steve

It is a wood burner with primary vents at the bottom of the doors and secondary vents/air wash at the top on the sides.
The wood was from a stove shop where I had to bag the wood myself from a large barn. It burns quick which makes me think it could be softwood which I've been told will not let as much heat out.

quote:

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Originally posted by Sierra
It is a wood burner with primary vents at the bottom of the doors and secondary vents/air wash at the top on the sides.
The wood was from a stove shop where I had to bag the wood myself from a large barn. It burns quick which makes me think it could be softwood which I've been told will not let as much heat out.

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