Cooker / boiler and woodburner all in one...

[Lotkinsgonecurly]

We are looking for a stove that will cook, heat about 8 - 10 radiators and is fuelled on wood and coal. Any ideas?? i've found a rayburn one but are there any alternatives?

Word of warning - we got rid of our solid fuel Rayburn because

1. It was hard to control the cooking heat, ie you could never get it hot enough to use a wok

1. It sometimes overheated to the extent that you had to open all the hot taps as the banging in the pipes was scary (it wasn't air, it was that the heat was uncontrollable)

1. Coming home from a weekend away, we'd have to spend hours in the freezing cold messing about with kindling before we got any heat, hot water or cooking capacity.

yeah, get a De Manicor ..... they are really well engineered and are very stylish, if you talk to them, they will spec the right stove for your home so you won't get problems with overheating.

In my opinion superior to Rayburn

Thanks, I had thought about the hassle of weekend away etc but we really don't have huge amounts of choice heating wise. We don't have gas and only other alternative would be bottled gas or oil.

At the moment we have electric heating and it costs a fortune and is not very warm.

Massivemammaries - great name. Will have a look at a de manicor, do you have one / used one?

Just had a look at de manincor and think it may be a little out of our price league!

Now having a look at wood pellet stoves, don't think you can cook on them but quite interesting nonetheless. Have emailed for prices.

don't give up, there are other brands available (Wamsler, esse, Stanley etc) ....

I think Esse do one with a single ring on top for a pan or a kettle, that has a back boiler and that is much less money

or get one of these cgi.ebay.co.uk/Wamsler-900-Multi-Fuel-Cooker-/220660357540?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Kitchen_Ovens_Hobs_Cookers#ht_500wt_1154

The back boiler will give you 55,000 btu which is plenty for your radiators

We have bottled gas and a standard gas hob, and don't have any problems with it. We had to have a particular gas engineer fit it, but the bottled gas is actually very low hassle (so long as I remember to order new gas in time) - I just phone up a local firm and leave out a cheque for them, and they come and swap the bottles when I'm at work.

We now have a gas hob with bottled gas, and would agree with Grendel that it's great. The bottles last forever, I think we spend about £25 a year on cooking gas.