Wood Burning Stove

[MightyMeerkat]

The living room in my new house is freezing already and it's only September so I'd to remove the original Edwardian open fire and install a wood burning stove. Has anyone done this? Did you regret losing your original open fireplace?

I've been quoted £3600 including stove, hearth and fitting. Does that seem reasonable? It's about £1000 more than I was expecting....
Thanks.

Yes, but I didn't want to lose the original fire surround so I bought a small stove (a Hobbit) that fitted inside it. It's less powerful though.

Cost me £1000 all in I think, but I didn't need to get my chimney lined which is a major expense.

That's about roughly how much ours was - we have an inset stove which is a bit more speciliast so a little more expensive than standard. It throws out so much heat and as we luckily have access to free wood, we save a fortune on heating. I also feel it's much safer with a toddler

I really wanted an open fire but didn't want the cold so got an inset stoves as a compromise. Means I still get fireplace etc it may mean you would be able to keep your surround etc. Excuse dog in front of fire!!!

Yes I did this last year. Best decision ever. Our chimney needed to be lined and it's a tall house so that was 1000. We chose a very good, efficient stove (Burley Fireball) that pours out heat and makes the whole house cost and warm. I think the entire cost was about 3500 to 4000 but that incudes knocking out the fireplace to make the hole bigger and lots of work building a stone surround etc. The stove was expensive even in the sale (ex display), but was so worth it fir the heat it puts out.

We removed our original open fire and replaced with a small log burner. The open fire looked lovely when it was lit, but a fair amount of heat was lost up the chimney and it was messy. The log burner is Defra approved 5kw output so may not be quite as powerful, but the heat stays in the room and it feels safer because the logs are burning behind a glass door and is cleaner because the ash is contained. Cost was around £2.5k, for the burner, liner and labour, but not mantlepiece or hearth.

Make sure you get the right burner for the space. Lots of people think bigger is better but that isn't the case. For most homes a 5 to 6 K version is more than enough.

Thank you for all of the replies. Sounds like the quote I've had is fairly reasonable then. I like the idea of a fire surround rather than a wooden beam mantle - it will still give me that elegant Edwardian fireplace look which is part of the reason for buying the house in the first place 😃

Just done this into an opening already for the stove. Building the hearth out, covering it with slate, lining chimney, fitting and all safety checks plus carbonmonoxide detector was £1500. The stove is a 5 KW Charnwood and was just under £900. East Midlands location.

Open fire less than 20% efficient - there is a reason they are vanishing!

Make sure it is a hetas installer, he does the building regs and notifies the council, and you get a co alarm.

You will still need a fire guard as obviously it gets very hot.

If you're buying a stove, I'd seriously consider a multifuel rather than a woodburner. They burn cleaner, and it can be a great comfort to have a bag of smokeless fuel handy for those times when you are too ill, or the weather is too bad, for you to be cutting up wood or fetching it from the shed.

Solid fuel also burns longer and contains more heat per load, so I found it handier if you want to keep the fire in overnight.

I have a Morso multifuel, and I agree with PigletJohn - it is useful to have the option to burn other things - coal will glow hot for longer than wood. They are SO well engineered that they are a dream to light. It is really, really worth the extra for a decent model - I hear Charnwood are also really good.

I think I paid about £2300 in total (stove, lining, hearth) but I didn't have anything fancy with the surround, which will make a difference to cost. If you are keeping your existing hearth, I would maybe get a second quote to see if you can get it done a bit cheaper.

we have a hobbit stove, in our original victorian fire surround. it is absolutely brilliant. best of both worlds, we keep the beautiful fire place and it is toasty warm.

the installation is the expensive bit, definitely make sure the installer is HETAS and knows what they are doing. we paid about 2500 all in, including stove.

we have a hobbit stove, in our original victorian fire surround. it is absolutely brilliant. best of both worlds, we keep the beautiful fire place and it is toasty warm.

the installation is the expensive bit, definitely make sure the installer is HETAS and knows what they are doing. we paid about 2500 all in, including stove.

Ah, another Hobbit owner! Bumble - how full do you fill your stove, and do you have any other tips? Mine doesn't warm the house quite as much as I'd like, and I'm not sure how much this is my technique, how much my draughty Victorian house and how much the stove itself.

We are still learning with ours but we do not have it very that full. We have noticed that stacking it at 45 degrees like a fire doesnt work that well, it burns better flat on the bottom. we put max two bits of wood in at a time and fiddle with the various levers to have it roaring if we want heat and turn it down to glowing to tick over.

we also insulated under our suspended wooden floors with thick wool which seems to have made an enormous difference to the temperature of the room and how quickly it heats up.

I cannot for the life of me rotate the photo but here it is:

Oh your fireplace looks exactly like mine!

Interesting about your wooden floor. Might look into that as I have one too, and it is beautiful but not warm!

Be mindful if you are hoping to put a log/mulitfuel burner in the same room ( or that you may knock into ) as a kitchen with extracting extractor fan - as this can be fraught with problems due to clashes in regs !

it was not expensive to do either irene. my admittedly handy DP did it himself. we havent done the hallway and you can feel the difference when you step across the threshold. the floor is 3 degrees warmer and no drafts.

Another wood burner question - would it give off more heat if we enlarged the space that it sits in?
I get the impression with our current set up - approx a hand width either side of the stove - that the heat doesn't project into the room. Other half thinks it won't make a difference.

Hmmm, possibly not. But you can get fans that sit on the top that cycle the warm air through your space more efficiently? Might be a lot cheaper than knocking a larger hole too!

Assuming you have a register plate closing the chimney, with the stovepipe sealed into it, then the warm air that comes off the stove will mostly rise up and emerge from the front of the fireplace. A mantel shelf will disturb the flow and help it mix somewhat into the air of the room.

You will probably find a dirty patch on the ceiling where dust and dirt carried up in the warm air sticks. Unless the chimney is failing to draw, it will not be a severe black patch (this is a warning sign of flue gases).

In France I have seen iron stoves and fireplaces that encourage air to circulate and come out of slots, but I haven't seen it in the UK.

The fans are great - I have one and it really makes a difference.