if you have a wood burner with a beam above...

[noyouhavehadawee]

got me stove all fitted been running it to burn all the factory residue me it and notice the beam above got quite hot , does your beam get hot and how can we stop it cracking and drying out or is that just inevitable?

As wood ages it cracks and drys out. I'm in North Wales and our builder told us in properties he'd worked on in Llangollen when they fitted new beams they rammed pennies into them to hasten the ageing process.

really guess i wasted my time picking the smoothest cube job i could find

i've oiled mine, for the look and so its wipeable. Its oak been in place over three years, we've had many hot fires (all winter each year) and its not got significant cracks. The inglenook one in the kitchen is probably 100+ years old, we've oiled it since the wonderful black tar/ paint it was coated in was shot blast off, but it does have age cracks.

Rambling now but wooden furniture and flooring survives without drying out if treated so why not a hearth?

i take it you use some special non flammable oil

behind the stove in its inset is just fireboard at the moment was just going to paint it matt, anyone done anything exciting to there's so i can idea steal? it is sat on natural grey slate .

Be very careful. The bean above my mum's fire ignited while we were out, and just my (clueless) teen brothers were home. When the fire service removed it, it was clear that had we not realised it was smouldering and gone to bed, we'd have been toast. The smell had been around for a few days but not visible until a hefty chunk of the beam had burned away.

when you say beam, do you mean mantelpiece?

there are minimum distances between the stove and the mantelpiece if the latter is wood. If this has not been followed in installation then a) your installer is a crook and b) your house insurance is invalid.

like a oak floating beam like a mantle yes three- hetas fitter assured us it would get hot but not ignite .

get out the manual for your stove and find the minimum distance. Be sure it is correct. A HETAS guy should be right though.

BTW hope you aren't running the stove in these temperatures!!

Inset stove here, A 4.5kw woodwarm, with a wooden mantle piece six inches above ( but only sticking out about 1 inch. Stone fire surround in between.
The mantlepiece gets warm, but not as warm as the stone. After 3 winters no cracks.

We've got two wood burners both with beams installed at the regulation distances. Ours both get hot and cracked in the first year after installation but have not really got any worse since. I suspect they were not seasoned enough before they were installed. I do try and remember to oil them a couple of times a year.

I have just had a composite beam fitted above an inset fire because they don't need as much clearance above the fire as a solid oak beam. My fire has a proper certificate and the beam was fitted by a proper installer my question is the beam does get very hot but how hot is too hot for even a composite beam?