Wood burner - talk to me!

[Notjustabrunette]

I’d like to cut down on the amount of gas we use and was thinking about install a wood burner. We have a fire place with a gas fire currently. And central heating. Was thinking on taking out the gas fire and replacing with a wood burner. Has anyone done this, how much did it cost and are you happy with it?

Just paid £1400 for ours and installation. Very happy. We do however have a current supply of wood which might last two winters if we are lucky.

We had ours installed as just had baby and I wanted to always be able to keep him warm come power cut or oil shortage- good timing if I'm honest!

The kindling bags (ours are reused about a million times) can shed bits like crazy, that's the only messy thing.

You can purchase solar panels that work of UV rather than sunlight, it’s appropriate £5k for enough panels to produce 2500 kwph for the year
An average household uses 2900 kwph

Obviously it’s only through daylight hours

But then you could run an electric fire/ radiator to reduce you gas use during the day

If you get a battery for the solar panels you can store electric to use at night- but batteries aren’t cheap

We made sure ours was a high spec under the clean air act - a Scandinavian design. It cost more than a black-box-of-doom but by the time you pay for the installation and flue there's no point in making the visible bit the cheapest part of it all. It's lined with stone which acts as a storage heater. Releases the heat a little more slowly to begin with, but great over a long burning day.

We use the New Zealand low emission lighting technique which has an extra benefit of making the glass cleaning a lot easier.

Four years ago DH bought a tree off ebay - a huge felled Sycamore that took 8 trips in a rented van and we turned the drive down the side of the house (too narrow for a modern car) into a woodpile. We chop and dry some each year for the winter and we still have at least another winter's worth. A tree came down in our garden in the storms and DH pollarded another tree a few years ago and it's the second cut this year. That's winter 2024 when it will be very dry. It's been a lot of work to keep the wood cost down but right now I'm very glad of having the woodburner.

I really like that, what is the height and width of that opening?

We did exactly that last year as our first winter here had felt chilly. Removed and capped gas fire, installed an inset multifuel burner. Only tried logs so far as I hate the smell and mess of coal.

Having a fire is amazing! We keep it around 200 degrees C as you can get little magnet temperature gauges to stick on the front. Once it is warmed it uses 1 log every 45-60 minutes depending on the size of log. As fuel prices will continue to go up I think it is well worth getting on. Do make sure you use kiln dried hardwood logs so it is less smokey.

We only use it when it gets near zero outside and I just love lying on the sofa with a glass of red wine and an audio book getting hypnotised by the flames. Tonight will be a cold one so I will get to relax in front of it again, will go and light it in a minute.

Ignore the killjoys griefing you about health issues, they just use it to try to remove any enjoyment from your life to make you as miserable as they are.

I'd avoid kiln dried logs tbh - that really is unnecessary and terrible for the environment. Regular seasoned logs, bought inside for a few days prior to burning if need be, should burn fine.

I wouldn’t even consider it OP, especially if you have a child with asthma.

I wouldn’t take out a gas fire for it. It’s no cheaper when you have to buy the logs and gas is instant - log burners you have to faff putting them on. I would suggest adding it to another room and keeping the gas fire if you really want one but definitely don’t take out a gas fire!
we like ours it only becaus we also have a gas fire - wood burners are messy and you have to plan putting them on, letting them heat up etc.

the only person I know who uses hers exclusively lives on a farm and has access to free wood

We did this 3 years ago and haven't regretted it once.
Ours cost (incl fitting) just under 2k.
We just built our own log store with free pallets. We sometimes buy logs, but we often get free wood from neighbours etc. It's surprising how much wood you can actually find when you become aware of it.
I can get a builders bag of softwood logs for £90 (we live SW Scotland).
Annual chimney sweep is £70.
My daughter has asthma and it's never caused any issues with it at all.
I've also had a bit of a wheeze post Covid but the log burner doesn't impact it - exercise and cold winds make it worse, I've been absolutely fine in the house with the burner on.

I love our woodburner. Cost wise it was about £3k to install a few years ago. We run an air purifier when it's on which kicks in if the particulates are raised but this only happens if the door is left open for a while.

I ordered two large bags of wood in July last year (I could see the prices would rise!) for £300 and this has lasted us all winter. We've had it on most days but try to get it so it's a constant low level heat rather than roaring.