Wood burning stoves - any experience? Would you recommend or not?

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I would really love one of these, I think, but have no idea how practical I'm being. They look lovely, but are they a faff?

Currently we have an open fireplace, our house is Edwardian and it certainly would be big enough to accommodate the ones I've seen.

I would love to hear the good and the bad bits, that would be very helpful, as having had a look, this is a significant investment.

Money saving expert is a good place to research, too.

Some points about my experience:

It takes more maintenance & time than a regular boiler, lot off faff for the amount of heat you get out.

They don't save you much/any money unless you can mostly used scavenged wood, I reckon.

I make a mess getting wood in and out of the house, then I spend time cleaning it up (more vacuuming in long run).

Had a few sparks burn holes in carpet (never had that with open fire).

Most the wood I buy needs to be seasoned for a further 6+ months before it burns as well as I'd like, so I have to store a lot of wood.

We do scavenge a lot of our wood, which means chainsawing ourselves (some would say quite risky).

Friends get used-up pallets delivered for almost free which they saw down to size, burn well, I understand, and very cost effective (they had huge piece of land, though).

I sometimes get splinters in my fingers.

The area around the stove is always unsightly with lots of wood & bits of paper stacked up (not found a better way to do it).

It is great for getting rid of paper waste (iffy value to recycle).

You need careful costings on your own situation, chimney may need lining, which is rarely cost effective unless a beautiful stove would raise your property value.

There is an art to how you use the vents to get the temp up and keep it up & burning efficiently (just a learning curve, not that hard once you know how).

Ours was installed badly, dangerously even. Beware of cowboys (although they did come back & fix it for free with apologies). Then it had a broken part (inside panel) which DH has mended (we hope) but seems no spares available?

Ours is about 4 yo, I think? And an especially small model, which I don't recommend tbh.

Have had one before, and loved it. Currently don't have one, but want one.
There's nothing quite like the cosy warmth that they throw out, and a real fire brings a house alive.
They do take work though, and they are very expensive to install - the flue piping costs loads. You need somewhere outside to store enough wood, and somewhere to dispose of the ashes.
Wood is supposed to be getting very expensive in the future, as lots of people are turning to wood stoves.
But, all that considered, I still want one.

ragged thank you do much - that is exactly the sort of thing i need to hear - the stuff the companies don't tell you! Lots to think about there, esp re costings. If you could go back, would you just go back to an open fire?

We have one in our smaller sitting room, and love it. It's almost like a pet in that you need to feed it, clean up after it etc but it's lit now just before we go out for lunch and it'll be lovely and cosy when we get home, just right for an afternoon snooze!

I only clean ours out twice aweek, but we don't use this room every day. We buy a load of logs for £65 which will last us for 3 months in winter, so it's cheap to run (it doesn't run any radiators or hot water though). In winter we leave the door between that room and the kitchen overnight to take the chill off the kitchen in the morning

What else... we didn't have a chimney so the guy put a metal chimney pipe thing along the outside wall. It cost about £3k to install, the stove itself was only about £1.2k. It's a Stovax in dark green enamel.

I definitely recommend it. We have an open fire in the main living room and it's nowhere near as efficient and needs topping up frequently.

No I wouldn't go back to open fire, the stove is so much better at heating the room, and an open fireplace tends to keep the room cold (our was always being stuffed up to stop a draft!). We also had a wood pigeon fall down it once .

Friends rely on an open fire for heating and it just seems so terribly wasteful compared to how efficiently the stove converts wood into heat.

I am happy with our stove, but I can't pretend it's perfect. And I'm not sure it's cost effective, though good for my eco-freak conscience. Friends reckon their house is mostly heated off their stoves.

Because we now use it so much we have to have it swept out annually, another cost we didn't think of. I looked closely at sweeping ourselves but decided that I wanted someone else's opinion on it once a year.

I am not thinking about installing a back boiler on this, at least I don't think I am

I only clean ashes out of ours about once a week or less
U are supposed to leave a thick bed of ash in there, otherwise (protect the base)
Stoves have to be seasoned in carefully, too, need lots of small fires for the metal to adjust for first week or 2 (I think we didn't do that well hence the broken interior panel).
Ours is steel btw.

Oh, and finally! We've broken the glass in the window twice which cost 20 quid each time to replace. And there's an art to knowing how to clean it, too (mostly don't let wood burn whilst touching it).

Love love live my stove. Will never have anything else. Will come back on later to give a more balanced view!

mumblechum1 - thank you and enjoy your snooze So your stove is just to warm that room and any others that benefit from the warmth coming out? Plus obviously tis very nice to look at?

So more efficient that an open fire, I can see it would be.

Our chimney is already open, fortunately nothing has ever come down it apart from Santa obviously and when we had building work done not so long ago they said about an open fire keeping a house cold.

Is there really such a thing as self cleaning glass? I have seen it being advertised?

We had ours installed over the summer and its the best thing we have ever done.It makes the house so warm and toasty whereas before we sat shivering around an open fire.
Yes there is such a thing as self cleaning glass or airwash as I think it is referred to.

I'm think that they sound lovely, but need quite lot of effort, I'm just wondering if it is really worth it if just to warm one room. We will also need to save our pennies, as the stove plus installation seems really expensive. Mmmmm... Need to think on....

I love my stove! It is a very efficient heat source although I do sometimes think that I might as well just chuck fivers on it rather than bother the wood man

I really must do more scavenging.

the chucking fivers on it feeling would put my Dh right off!

We love ours, we only have a small cottage (with us and 2 dcs crammed in) and we haven't yet had any other form of heating on - just the stove each night and the whole cottage is toasty.

Get a multi-fuel, then you can combine logs (aw factor, flames, can scavage, cheap) with solid-fuel (easy, easy to store, no chopping!) - we burn a mixture of the two.

I wanted a clearview, but couldn't afford one this time around (have had them before) so ended up with another, cheaper make but one that 'washes' the flames over the glass so that it stays clean (which clearview do soooo well) and it's quite good actually - we give it a wipe now and then but it stays pretty clean.

I'm currently sat here in pretty much my underwear - they are SO much warmer/more efficient than an open fire.

I grew up with them and so, for me, they make a room come alive. I often find myself gazing into the fire of an evening, just thinking... (when I'm supposed to be working!)

Oh, and the cats love it!

Aw... we must do it for our cats!!

we have a Morso cleanheat panther and it is fabulous. It heats most of the house due to warming the chimney breast going into the bedrooms, rising heat etc and we don't use our central heating anymore.

I cook jackets spuds on it, soups and casseroles, boil a kettle, make dropped scones and welsh cakes on a griddle and toast and crumpets. It dries the washing on the airer overnight and looks bloody great!

There is work involved with cutting wood but we do this without grumbles. The heat is wonderful and it constantly draws in and circulates fresh air- much healthier than gas fires or radiators.

Sitting watching the flames on a night when the dc are in bed, sipping a single malt whisky with dh, has to be one of the best things ever

you sell it well Pudden!!

We've just had one installed. We didn't have an existing chimney so needed a metal flue putting in which made it expensive, but I'm so glad we've done it. It's only 5KW but heats that side of the house upstairs and downstairs really well. I think it's worth shopping around for wood as the price seems to vary quite considerably.

Lying on the sofa last night watching the flames was sheer bliss. Don't think I'd ever want to be without one now.

We have an open fire in one living room and a stove in the other. I love the open fire, but the stove beats it hands down in terms of efficiency.
Sitting and watching the flames is lovely, and as others have said the type of heat is much nicer than central heating.
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In our last house the only form of heating we had was a wood burner - the good thing is it warms you twice - once while you chop and barrow in the wood, and then again when you light it.

We have a large woodshed that DH keeps full, mostly from trees he has cut down or stuff that is scavenged. If we were paying for wood it would probably be lit less.

Ours is a multifuel one, it only heats the room, no back boiler. It's no more work/expense than an open fire and much less worry in terms of spitting bits out, fireguards etc. At the moment we are burning wood but when the weather gets really cold we chuck some coal on as it burns hotter.

It's amazing how inventive you get scavenging wood, most of our wood is not so much logs as old beams and joists "acquired" from anyone who is demolishing something.

You need to find a little space for a woodstore outdoors somewhere. So you might have to get an axe (to split your kindling), chopping block and saw too . It costs a lot if you buy tiddly bags of kindling from petrol stations but if you are only using it for atmosphere/ to back up the central heating you won't be using it every night I guess.

I would love one but I can't justify the cost.

We were quoted between £3500-£4500 for the stove, liner, hearth and back panel. If we wanted a back boiler fitted to run some radiators or provide water it was going to be a fair bit more.

£4500??? we bought the stove and our hetas man charged us £1180 for installation and provided ALL materials out of this including a liner, hearth, oak beam, cowl, flue etc. An absolute bargain and he is lovely to look at as well :) He put one in for us at our old house as well and does a brilliant job. If you are in north east england he is yer man!

Sadly I couldn't be much further away from the lovely wood burner installing man

I am so convinced now - even though we will be buying in wood. It won't have a back boiler, but it will have self cleaning glass. A multi fuel one sounds the way to go, and I'm thinking quotes is what we need. Plus I need to find the tree upon which money grows

But thank you everyone, really interesting information, much appreciated.