My Mum's woodburning stove gives out very little heat.

[chipmonkey]

My Mum bought a woodburning stove after visiting my aunt and being really impressed by the heat. However hers is rubbish! The make is Stanley which I think are supposed to be reputable. Does anyone have any ideas as to why it might be so bad? She has it in her kitchen which is a good-sized room but not enormous.

Did she get one which was a big enough kw rating for the room?

could be the wood she's burning?

there's a great variation in speed and temperatures of burning different types of wood...believe it or not!

Stanley are good stoves.

Is the draw plate fully open or is it drawing too quickly? Is she going through a lot of wood in an hour?

Viva, I have no idea! I wasn't there when she bought it. She does have a habit of buying the cheaper thing rather than the better thing so it wouldn't surprise me if she skimped on it. She originally had an Aga-type range there which she just wasn't using and IMO she should have put in a range cooker and gotten rid of the very-badly set up hob and oven arrangement that she has but she never listens to me!

She does say that she keeps having to top up the fuel and she is using turf briquettes rather than wood which did surprise me as I thought you should only use wood?

Is the wood burning cleanly with visible flames and without much black smoke or soot forming? Is she using well-seasoned wood?

Can she contact the person who installed it and ask their advice. She should follow the manufacturer's recommendations with regards to fuel or she could invalidate the guarantee.

I don't know about turf, but weight for weight, wood gives out far less heat than coal, and burns away faster. I can imagine turf might be the same. Is that peat? I used to have a multifuel. Is hers capable of burning smokeless nuts?

An iron stove can take quite a while to heat up. If the doors are open, it sucks a lot of heat up the chimney.

is it in the room or set back in the chimney?

is it just a fire or is it doing the radiators too, if it has a back boiler to heat up first then heat to the room can seem to take a while longer

well seasoned wood or peat should give a lot of heat...we use that in ours, which to be frank is not that efficient as it is quite an old esse stove, but am still here with no socks on and quite toasty!

She needs to check the instructions for a start to make sure if turf is ok - some stoves are sold as multi-fuel, but others are just for wood. The base of the fire area is a bit different IIRC. But the instructions ought to say.

There may be a number of things she can adjust - you need lots of airflow to get them started, but then it will be hotter and more efficient if you reduce it a bit - mine has a sort of vent on the back which you close up as the fire gets going (open at the start, closed after maybe an hour).

don't know about turf, but our stove gives out much less heat if we try and burn wood that isn't properly seasoned (ie a bit damp).

Sorry to be dim but is turf peat?

It does not give out a huge amount of heat especially in brickette form.

Yes, turf is Peat. We're Paddys!

Peat is like paper, it doesn't burn high or long but it does burn easily at low temps.
You need a stove thermometer on the flue pipe (like these) to get the stove temp to optimal; there is a whole fine art of how to get a stove quickly to the right temp & keep it there. Not hard, really, just has to be learnt.
I suspect she's burning it at low heat which isn't all bad; you are supposed to do lots of low heat fires to season the stove in, offhand I think for at least 2 weeks after installation.

Moneysaving expert is the best website I've found for tips on how best to use your stove.

Some people even get little fans to help the air circulate off of the stove, but I don't think they're cost effective.

I have a woodburning stove in living room, not very good one, open fire, using cole or wood. My advice is to try cole - there is no smell and lasts for hours, and produces heat in whole room. really perfect for winter. i have something simple like this stove

I have just recently moved into a new little cottage and in the process of fitting a wood burning stove after many many hours and days trying my best to do a bit of research. I finally decided on a stove that was traditional and had great reviews this was the Stovax stockton 5 here is what it looks like.

stovesaver.co.uk/product/stovax-stockton-5-multifuel-wood-stove-defra/

After doing a bit of research too the heat you get out of the stove also depends on what wood you are burning, I don't know too much but I believe it is to do with the moisture in the wood.