Wood burning stove - come and tell me all about them?

[ivykaty44]

I really would like one for the back room, I need a smokeless one which I have found. How much is coal or wood? How much heat will it give off over a few hours etc?

We have a couple - one large double sided one, and a smaller smokeless one in our Home Office. The amount of wood they take varies tremendously, with the larger one taking a lot (as it attempts to heat a 4 bed house) and the smaller one gets hot really quickly, only takes a few logs to get the room warm all day.

We get our logs free but have bought it in the past. Price varies depending on where you live, Surrey CC has a summary of local prices here - www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Firewood?opendocument

We haven't had our downstairs radiators on at all this winter, and have been nice and warm. Got a nice rebate from British Gas and cut our heating bill significantly. Would never go back to not having one willingly.

We have a lovely cream enamelled Jotul one in our best room and its marvellous - easy to light, kicks out a lot of heat, burns logs to virtually nothing and it has a secondary burner on it so it is smokeless (although I think even in a smoke-free area you are allowed 30 minutes to light it?).

We've got a Clearview one.
DH did quite a bit of research and it was quite expensive, almost £1000 18 months ago.
He chose this one as it has some sort of a cool air wash that goes over the glass which stops the glass blackening up.
Burns the logs to virtually nothing and only need to empty the ash tray every few burns.
It is smokeless as we live in SW London.
We have had 2bags of logs delivered since we bought it. They come from somewhere in Surrey and they are delivered in a cubic metre bag and cost approx £80 .
We still had quite a few logs left from last winter an when the new lot arrived my husband had to build a second log store. Definitely have a log store is my piece of advice.
Enjoy, you'll sit and watch the fire rather than TV. Very mesmerising!

I'm confused..... do you need a smokeless stove??? Surely you just need smokeless fuel, or are there some new fandangled things about these days?

Stoves give off loads of heat, especially if you work out how to "keep them in". A bag of "Supertherm" smokeless coal up here is just under £10 for 25 kilos and serves as a good bed for wood if you don't have a ready supply of that. Should help keep the stove in all night if you close it down too. You'd use a bag a week if you also burned wood and were careful. I live in a non-smokeless area but still use Supertherm as a bed as it stays in much longer than normal coal.

I want a cream enamel one! Mytholmroyd can I ask where you got yours from?

We have one in our fireplace with a watertank above it. There is a pump attached which pumps the water around our raditors. You can use the gas or the heat from the thermochimley. lus there is another switch which you then use the water for household stuff.

It cost about 5000 but where we live we got that back in real money in less than 2 years. However our wood is free, We do a swap with a friend. He uses our land and gives us wood for it,

Chesney do a beeeeautiful cream stove. A bit pricey though.

In this weather we are burning through tonnes of wood - it is keeping the house toastie.

Chesney are amazing, may have to investigate that, thanks ineedaliein although I have a feeling my husband won't thank you

Beautiful

The biggest Defra approved (ie allowed to burn wood in a smokeless area) I have found is Yeoman Devon, 9kw (about £700) or Dunsley do a 13kw. Chesney is 6kw.

6kw is definitely hot enough, but I would prefer the 8kw as you can put larger logs in (less chopping for the husband). Apparently the Chesney 8 should be defra approved by the end of 2011. Worth the wait I think :)

Sorry, I have become a "stove trainspotter" recently

Can I just add a pimp for Dowling Stoves????

For anyone thinking that stoves have to be classic and cast iron, Dowling are contemporary and are blacksmithed forged so will not crack like cast ones. don't have it any more as I left it in my old house, but the Hybrid was great and the aftersales service is amazing.

I thang yew!

We collected free wood all summer which lasted about 7 weeks. We then bought £300 of coal and wood and have used all the wood (20 x 25 kilo bags) in last 8 weeks. Have about 8 bags of coal left and urgently need to buy wood.

I think I need another 40 bags of wood and about 15 of coal, so about another £450 to get through to summer.

So we will have spent £750 on winter.

It's very expensive for logs and coal in the south east.

I'm not sure if that will be cheaper than gas would be?

We have a 12 kw stove. Very efficient. 6 radiators to heat. Rarely gets above 19/20 degrees in house.

Had a look at Dowling Stoves, loving the idea of a waste Burner! No more recycling bollocks, I may get the neighbours to club together. Genius idea!

That sounds very expensive Laura. I collect free wood too, and I am not even half way through after using it for at least 8 weeks. My bedding fuel has so far cost me around £60 and my oil fired central heating costs about £200 over the winter months.

Mindst you, I do have a small house with only 4 radiators and good insulation. Heating is such a specific thing. I used to be able to calculate "K" values for insulation - that's what it's all about in the end really - you can have the best fire on earth and the biggest pile of logs ever, but if every joule piddles straight out of your windows you are going to burn through it and pay through the nose without a doubt!

If you were seriously considering it, Alouiseq, I could not recommend Dowling customer services for help, advice and afersales more. I only wish I had shares for my touting!!!

I just had a look at your profile to see if I could see where you lived and was distracted by that squidgy thing in the beige bed though.

That squidgy thing is snoring next to the open fire, he needs a stove to be truly comfy.

Will investigate after the weekend, thanks for the recommendation :o