Draughty semi : any point in getting a woodburner, gas stove or multi fuel stove fitted at this point?

[bakalava]

I would only have access to expensive wood
Currently, we are ill so we are heating all day at 14 degrees but we really don't need to heat everywhere. There are too many radiators to turn on and off individually.

I pay £65 for a builders bag, but have paid up to £135. These ones come from a local tree surgeon. we also spend at least 15 a week on kindling, firelighters and other paraphernalia.

We have a 5m x 11m through room in an old house , and we have an 8kw burner which I use all day and evening. If you have a burner over a certain size, you will need an air vent, which lets in additional draught, but I cover ours with paper. I get through easily 20 logs a day. The tonne bag is lasting 2 weeks at the moment, total cost of running the fire is about £200 a month.

I argue with dh that if we just spent 200 more on heating each month, the house would be warm whereas by spending it on the fire, one room is warm and the rest of the house is freezing.

Wood prices must vary a lot then. It's 50 per bag here, regular customer so 140 for 3. Burn around 12 logs per day, lighting at 11am till 11pm. Room size approx 18ft by 15ft. It's 24 degrees at the moment, too hot admittedly, not as much control with this method.

I also think it makes a big difference if you have a through room to if you have an enclosed space. Our friends with a small, enclosed snug type room find theirs unbearably hot. Ours, even at 8kw just cannot compete with a poorly insulated, hard floor, draughty big barn of a living room.

I think it does vary tremendously. Our previous guy was buying his in, kiln dried, from Lithuania 😱 we didn’t know this until I queried why the price was going up and up and up. We switched to a local tree surgeon and his are half the price, but not as dry.

I think buying a log burner is madness when your reasoning against a door curtain is it’s “a depressing look”. It doesn’t have to be at all and it’s traditional – old houses would’ve always had one. Thermal-lined ones are best.

You can get a letterbox cover, can’t recall the name something like Magnaflap? It’s held on by magnets so post easily goes through then it flips back down with gravity and seals shut, it solved our letterbox draught before we got a door curtainZ

FWIW I've never put one in and not had keeping it reflected in the sale price people offer.

I have dealt with some of the drafts but I have a wind tunnel effect on the unjoined side.

I have the same and the side gets properly cold. Thick textured wallpaper is game chamger.

Sorry, but it sounds like you just really want a log burner and finding reason to get it😁
Agree with pps though about dealing with draught rather than adding heat source. If you slend half what log burner installation would cost you would have non draughty warm house tbh

There is no healthy indoor wood burner, like smoking like fags instead of regular ones!

You mentioned you do not have secondary double glazing? That would help.

Re. a door curtain, choose a nice fabric and they look nice, but I guess that is a taste thing.

There alternatives to brushes e.g. www.ecoflap.co.uk/

Gas is going to rise and rise in price, the advice is to move away from gas...

The fitter will be trying to offload their stock!

Tip...if you do go ahead, buy logs and smokeless fuel in summer...its a lot cheaper...i stock up and have enough to last a few years ... shed and wheely bins full up and ready to use !

Gas is going to rise and rise in price.

And firewood isn’t?

I spoke against a woodburner on health grounds already!

The only sane thing really is to reduce energy consumption or switch to electric. If you can get solar that is ideal.

We're lighting the log burner in the morning through to 10 pm. We did have the free standing one in our old house. Put a cartridge 5kw one into our newer home this year. What a difference with the new one hardly any mess cleverly pushes heat out with vents. We're burning a lot less logs.

We're burning pine at the moment which burns faster but was free from a developer who cleared a site a couple of years ago. Lots of woodland around us so we bought trailer loads of oak which we had to chainsaw and split. That's for next winter.

OH has built two log sheds, which keep the wood dry.

It did cost 2k to buy and install if that helps

We pay around £100 per cubic meter bag so £140 for 3 is amazing!

Usually the rule of thumb is a log per hour once fire has started roaring, although we probably get through a. It more than that.

We had a truck load delivered about 6 weeks ago for £280 and we have less than 1/3 left. Ours is on constantly 4 days per week, plus evenings and we use coal through the night to keep the house warm.

We paid £5k for an install but think it'll save money in the long run, plus we can source free wood for the next year

It’s all a bit irrelevant really since they’re like hens teeth at the moment. But I agree, you’re just looking for a reason to get one. I think they’re great and the health risks are massively exaggerated on MN (as long as you buy a modern defra approved burner) but it’s crazy not to fix the draughts first. Having a three pane bifold which has no curtains is just ridiculously wasteful for you and for the planet. If you can’t get a curtain pole fixing (unlikely but possible) then get a tension rod. You can then get a pair of thermal curtains from Dunelm for £100 which will span a 3m stretch. I have long curtains on all of my windows even though the radiators are underneath. I just tuck them behind the radiators when they’re drawn so the heat still comes into the room.

the sale of logs is now restricted and they have to be dried to a certain level. I suspect the low prices quoted here are for unseasoned wood which is no longer supposed to be sold.

There's constant government talk about banning them, due to both the indoor and outdoor health risks. It is absolutely not exaggerated.

I live in a 200 year old cottage and have a wood burner. The biggest thing to improve the heat was installing double glazing. Made a huge difference. We now just use the wood burner at night to heat the lounge, rather than heating the whole house. It's a lot cheaper than using the central heating all day. I use a heater in my office and the wood burner at night.

I get 3 tonne of logs delivered 3 times a year, it costs around £90 per tonne (gone up from about £65) a tonne for mixed soft and hardwood. It's saved me money over the year, about £250 when fuel prices were normal. It'll have saved me a lot more this year.

Don't buy the small bags from garage forecourts, find a local supplier and they will come with the logs on a trailer and drop them off on your driveway. It takes a bit of shifting a few tonne of logs to the back garden but well worth it and a lot cheaper. I put an advert on my local Facebook or Nextdoor page and got recommendations for a log supplier.

The risks from defra approved log burners with doors and well maintained chimneys are very low. They’re totally different to open fires

Thanks - there is a lot of good advice on this thread! I had not thought of repurposing wheelie bins. I have a dry storm porch where I could pile them high but is it a problem to expose them to full sunlight? I know that the local garden shop runs a delivery scheme but I haven't properly investigated. I'm off to look up the alternatives to letterbox brushes!

You won't get much in wheelie bins OP. Maybe a few days' worth.

There's a difference between having a log burner for a lovely cosy effect and lighting it for an hour or so an evening and relying on a log burner to warm your house. You'll need a lot of wood. I think you need to sort out your draughts first or else you're just releasing heat into the world..

Thanks, i agree. I finally gave in and put on some socks today (something I never thought I would do) and even that has made a huge difference. I don't know what I will do about the woodburner. I have never swung to and fro so many times on a single issue! The gas stove that looks like a woodburner may be in the running once more.

You think a door curtain looks depressing and don’t normally wear socks in December?? And it’s too hard to turn radiators on and off? You don’t sound To have much common sense too me

Had 18 houses married to a builder, had every kind of heating etc, now on u/f air source, not cheap but my squirrel wood burner in the dining kitchen takes 5 min to set empty ash from clean dry wood once a week light for a couple of hours in the evening, the ambience apart from the heat is the joy. I would have thought multifuel were banned. Wood is pretty renewable, sometimes we have to think of ourselves and our kids. Plant trees.

We have a log burner (installed in September) and it's been a game changer for our old cold house. Logs are very expensive but when compared with the cost of central heating now it works out better value for us. We spend about £120 a month (averaged out as we buy in bulk) on wood and ancillaries. We only have the central heating on for a short burst twice a day to protect the pipes. Plus I've read a wood burner can add value to your house so that's a bonus. Wouldn't be without it now.