log/coal fires cost is spiralling

[gilly67]

Our heating system is run by coal/wood. The cost of coal has spiralled atm as for people with gas/electricity heating but I would be interested to know how much coal and wood other people like me are having to use. We just cant get warm enough and having to throw more and more coal on every day. I think we are using about 15kg of coal a day right now and we are still cold! Is this normal or less or more than others?

You need to dress warmer. I can't afford heating so it's completely off. I wear 4 thermal vests, 2 pairs of longjohns, 2 wool jumpers, jeans and a long padded housecoat. Thick wool socks & bootie slippers. I'm toasty.

That seems like a lot! 15kg a day?! Is the fire constantly on? Are you using central heating too?

Sounds like OP is in a property without GCH, maybe a Rayburn or something similar?

The price of coal has really risen, it is no cheaper than gas central heating (at the new prices). Wood worked out cheaper last tipper truck load we had, we have a combo of log burners and gas heating though so the log burners aren't having to do it all. Combo of coal and wood burning seems to give out the most heat, not sure if that is an option for you or not?

We are using two baskets of wood a day in the log burner atm, but we do have gas ch that we are using sparingly. Luckily we bought a winters worth of wood in Autumn, it will be interesting to see what happens to prices next year, we are planning on collecting and drying out a fair bit of wet wood to help cut the cost down

Thanks everyone. We don’t have any gas where we live, we are all using Charnwood coal burners to heat our radiators and provide hot water. We often throw wood on too. Our house was built 1772 so not energy efficient in any way but we do have loft installation, triple glazing and draught excluders. Wearing more layers etc but we do feel the need to keep putting more coal on. These coal/wood/gas/elec prices are crippling!

I don't use normal logs now as they burn far too quickly. Homefire Heat logs or Hotties are absolutely amazing. I buy them from Wickes, they're compacted recycled wood and saw dust. They burn for hours, glow brilliantly and give off so much more heat and don't break up like normal wood. Homefire 3 packs of 12 for £24 and Hotties 2 packs of 10 for £15. I'd never go back to normal logs unless I was desperate. And I don't like coal.

@Notaboutthebass I've tried those heat logs before but just couldn't get on with them, they seemed to just smoke and not give out any heat before fizzling out to a black lump. Is there a trick I'm missing with them? (Stove similar to ops)

I used to have coal with a back boiler (for hot water and radiators). Ovoids currently £15/25kg by me and the house was fucking roasting. I’d be delighted burning £10/day for unlimited heat and hot water!

@ISeeTrees in my log burner I place 6 very small pieces of fire lighters on the grate and roughly 15 balls of screwed up newspaper on top of that, then lots of kindling sticks and finally the heat logs. Keep the vents open until everything has been burning for a while and then close a bit to tame the fire, then adjust the vents to maintain the fire. Absolutely amazing, burn for hours. If I've not got any fire lighters I sprinkle a bit of cooking oil over the paper.

im shocked at the price now

i get 2 full builders bags of hardwood with plenty of oak for £120

and in june got 40x25k bags of coal(not smokeless for £300 total bargain and they are now selling for over £550

open fire but does kick out heat and use for 12-15 hrs a day in this cold spell

Thanks @Notaboutthebass I'll give them another try. I'm definitely a bit mean with firelighters, only use 2! But it gets a log & coal fire going no problem.

I don’t use any firefighters I gather pine cone and have a variety of sticks.
if you search online the prices vary for solid fuel. I use a little bit mainly logs. It’s £11 or £12 for brickettes 20kg

@ISeeTrees have a look on YouTube at Nancy Birtwhistle's homemade firefighters great and vvv cheap.

It depends on where you are, but I know that the wholesale price of kiln dried wood doubled in the summer in Kent as more people started ordering in stock and people who had a solid-fuel burner for decoration started using them in earnest.

We use smokeless coal it is up to £34 a 50kg sack was approx £21.50 this time last year.

Yes same here.

Also briquettes which I buy from ebay, on a pallet, were £269 in May now £459. No way can that price rise be justified.

Do you have stove fans, they push more heat out into the room? Sit on top of the woodburner and work by convection.

Is there any way you can order a delivery of tree trunks and split them yourselves?Pretty much our entire village does this, gardens are taken up by the wood and any good day multiple chainsaws are heard.
I only use wood on my stove and have no other heating, but doing it this way is very cost efficient. We bought a log splitter jointly with a neighbour and it’s wonderful, makes kindling easy too. (We can get 30 tree trunks for the cost of 7 bags of anthracite.)

We have a chainsaw and log splitter, and just do our own. Everyone locally knows who has a chainsaw and who doesn't when it comes to a fallen tree/tree they need to remove. You do need a bit of space to store the wood when you've got it and cut it in suitable size to stack, and then space to let dry out for a year or two before splitting it and then stacking it conveniently (ours is a lean-to off a shed, opposite the back door) to bring in over winter.

as for prices in different areas we live in the Lakes and we buy 50kg bags of hot ovoids for £27.50 (£21 in August) dried hardwood logs, a dump bag for £95 (£90 4 days ago and £70 in the summer) box of fire lighters from B&M £1.75 a box (2 for £2 in summer) and kindling from the woods. Wasn’t sure if a stove top fan would work as the fire heats the radiators. Ours is a Charnwood burner.

also dont buy kindling just get an axe and split the already dry logs you have down takes minutes and saves lots

We are going through a lot of logs right now. A lot. We are self sufficient in wood, but already this year we are through this years supply and into nexts. So we are burning at least twice as much as we normally do. We usually have three years supply ready and use in rotation. My husband is going to have to start chopping more now to get them seasoned properly as we have already started burning next years logs.

the Good news is temps start to rise back up from tomorrow. The last couple of weeks have been horrifically cold for most of us.

40kg smokeless is now costing €43 a bag plus wood cost €25 for 5 were using around 4 bags of wood and 1 coal weekly when mild but 2 when its cold. And we're all wearing thermals but fire has to be on as its our only heat source from the back boiler