Woodburning stove users - do you have a problem with tar?

[NewLifeDownSouth]

Hi everyone
We're moving house at the end of the summer, and after reading everyone's rave reviews about wood/multi fuel burning stoves, I really fancied installing one in the new house.

I grew up with open fires but have not had a woodburning stove before. My DMIL does not think they're a good idea - she says that when they had one in the past, they had a lot of problems with tar lining the chimney and resulting in smoke in the room. Reading the other threads, I have not seen this mentioned as a problem but would welcome your views? We are getting the chimney lined and she mentioned getting kiln dried wood to reduce the tar build-up (her neighbour does this) but this isn't something I have seen mentioned on the threads and I would probably prefer to avoid this if we can to minimise post-installation costs.

Does anyone have any advice?

The instaler should be able to give you some detail, some woods are more prone to it than others, but it might be a blag from the wood sellers.
I would ask on the forum here
www.arbtalk.co.uk/
Very nice friendly lot they are too

Thanks zumo, I will check the website out. Looks really useful.

this should not be a problem if you burn the right wood, and make sure it is really dry. This means wood that is 'seasoned' as well as not damp.

if the room is filling with smoke there is something badly wrong with the stove, the chimney or how it is being used.

The chimney does need lining if it isn't already, and needs to be swept once or twice a year.

We have a woodburning Steve which we use all the time since we have a free wood supply. We have never had a problem with tar (and haven't had the chimney swept in three years). Just make sure you don't burn synthetic rubbish only wood and paper.

Oops woodburning stove not Steve!!

Most of our wood is birch, oak and pine, none of it seems to cause a tar problem.

More important consideration for you is probably how much your local wood supplier will charge you and whether you have the space to store the wood to season it and keep it dry.

Get proper seasoned wood (there are little meters you can buy that measure the humidity in logs).

Do not bank up the fire for the night.

Avoid going for a cooler, slow burn. Less wood and a hotter, less smokey burn avoids build up.

Get a proper sweep to clean the flue. Those "sweep" logs that claim to clean your chimney when you burn them...don't work.

Start the fire with a burn from top down, not bottom up...much less smoke.

That should stop any tar build up. From what I have heard less sophisticated "inefficent" older models are less prone to build up than the newest hyper effienct ones. But don't understand why. Might be worth a google.

I had been looking into a proper storage area as we will have quite a big garden when we move so that should help.

Interesting that the older models might be better at build-up. I will have to have a google...

Some great tips - thanks guys!

If you are connecting to an existing chimney I would seriously consider getting your chimney lined (stainless steel liner). This seals off the house completely from smoke and the possibility of carbon monoxide leaking from a chimney.

I have had 2 woodburners for nearly 20 years 1 that burns every day i have a joiners workshop so all my wood is offcuts, i swept the chimney for the first time last year and got a small bag of ashes out of the chimney probabley because the house is over a hundred years old, i burn all species of timber and is all kiln dried, if you burn logs you should store them for at least 2 years a moisture meter will only show the surface moisture, don't burn mdf it burns too hot and will ruin your fire.

We have no problem, we used well seasoned wood, walnut for the last two winters, and Dh being Mr clean freak gets the chimney swept annually.

Great to hear that so few people are having problems! Definitely going to be following up on those tips. Thank you!

There's loads of advice on our site about wood as a fuel and how to use it. This is a link with some scary pictures of how a flue can look if you smoulder your wood and don't sweep the flue...

www.woodburners.com/about-us/blog/2012/03/29/next-winter%E2%80%99s-wood;-why-it-pays-to-start-early,-and-the-perils-of-smouldering-damp-wood/

We love ours - burn seasoned dry wood only (mostly cheapo ash, but our wood chap tends to chuck a bit of softwood and some oak in as well) never had a problem. We had it swept last year, our chimney is lined though, whole thing including lining, opening the fire place and a new hearth and stove was about £1500. Best money we've ever spent on the house, saved us a fortune on heating, and as we've thinned out the trees in our garden, next years wood bill will be even lower. Roof timbers also burn well, as do old floor boards :). I think your DMiL may have a badly installed stove. Mind you, my DMiL burns hers with the door open, which is crazy.

Sorry, didn't finish my thought on sweeping - we have ours swept every two years unless it seems like it needs it. It's not crazy expensive to have done, but trying to preserve the life of our liner by not bashing it around too much.