Wood burner

[iloveyankeecandle]

Getting a bit paranoid about all this gas business. Anyway, it's got me thinking about a wood burner. Has anyone had one fitted recently? What was the rough price and has it been worth it? I have a chimney but it's blocked up at the bottom where the fire would go so I'd need that opening back up.

Ours cost a lot to put in - I can't remember exactly but over 5k I think? I worry about the air pollution issue - I don't think I'd have one now. In your shoes I'd look into funneling that money into a more eco alternative - price up all your options first.

It costs about £100 a year to have it swept, plus the cost of the wood of course. And it's a pain in the arse to clean.

Ours is large and cost four grand all in, a small one is about two but you’ve building worlds, you need to get a defra approved one and use seasoned wood.

you also need to store the wood outside, do you have the space, a supermarket bag would basically jist do you an evening so you need to bulk buy. Wood is very expensive.

Fitting a wood burner is not a simple option. Your chimney may not be suitable, if it has a kink in it ( which many do) you could not fit the liner, so you would have to have it lined with compound( very expensive and I’m not sure that it is available in UK.) you won’t be able to tell if it is suitable until you have unblocked it, which could be a big waste of money and an unnecessary mess. Even if it is possible it has to be lined with a metal liner, and capped. The stove needs to stand on a fairly large fireproof surround. All in all , it’s quite pricey ( and really only suitable in houses where you have space to store wood and keep it dry.

if you install it yourself, you will not be able to insure against fire.

it might be worth looking at an insert, they do not need such extreme precautions and can be multi fuel. We had wood burners in five houses, when we moved here it was just not going to work but the insert is a useful boost on cold nights or if you just want to heat one room.

I got one put in about 4 years ago. It cost £2k in total and I supplied the stove. A 5kw one.
Things to consider:
Have you got space to store wood? They burn a lot.
Have you got space to season wood or would you need to buy seasoned?
What is the access like? My logs get dumped on the road and I have to cart them up a gravelled garden. It is a massive pita. It also restricts the wood I can buy. It needs to be packaged up and that usually means in plastic and I feel bad about that.
I buy 960kg of heat logs at a time. That's 96 trips from road to house. They cost approx £350. Only lasts a couple of months in winter. I live in a cold damp house in a cold damp part of Scotland.
If your house is draughty, they can increase the draughts. They pull in cold air from outside.
The house needs cleaning more as there is black dust on the window sills.
They're polluting.
They need sweeping once a year. Cost of that is about £60 where I am.
They also go through parts. I have had to buy a few parts for mine over the years.
No one issues free newspapers anymore! I buy the Telegraph on a Sunday. You get a lot of paper from your money. I don't read it!

I wouldn't be without it here but I plan to move and am looking for a modern, well insulated house in a drier part of the UK.

Whether its worth it depends on your house and your location and really. If you can improve the energy efficiency of your house, I'd do that instead or as well but that can be really hard (loads of cowboys about) and expensive.
It is lovely seeing a real flame burning away.
Hope that helps!

Wow thank you all so much for your replies. So much to think about that I had no idea about!
I've got space for wood and some neighbours get theirs delivered. But 5k is waaaaay over the budget I'd thought we'd need.

I have a wood burner and we love it.

But, we live in an area without gas and all our internal walls are solid so it severely limits other options without massive disruption. We are also a very open and low population area fronting into the sea with trees behind so there's no chimney obstruction or smoke coming down meaning you can't even tell it's on.

If I lived in an urban area and had gas central heating, I wouldn't bother.
It's a lot of work stacking the wood, chopping the kindling. Lighting it if you only want heat in the morning and are then going out isn't worth it. It takes a while to heat up.

Wood is over £100 a ton now. You need way more storage for it than you might imagine if you are using it as your main heat source.

We really enjoy our winter prep with it but in your case you might be better investing the cost in improving insulation

This bloke wrote a number of interesting and useful posts on the subject.

wood-pellet-ireland.blogspot.com/2012/09/

I know someone getting on installed just now. Roughly 5k. They live rurally and are prone to power outages, only reason it is being done.

They are really horrendous for air pollution (both in your house and outside).
Also a lot of urban areas are smoke control zones so you’re only allowed to burn smokeless fuel (wood is not smokeless).

Look into getting a bioethanol stove

We got one fitted in our last house, 4 5k sllin, about 3 years ago, and are now looking to get one in our new house, but maybe a multifuel stove. We now live fairly rural, we have an LPG tank rather than mains gas and im6concerned about heating in the winter if the power goes off.

They're terrible for pollution, even the so called eco ones. A greener government would ban them in homes with an alternative source of heat.

I considered getting a wood burner and every now and then when I hear about people talking about gas prices the thought pops into my head

BUT I’m quite firmly a no in my case.

-pollution- we live in a very urban environment. Extra pollutant would be too much for me

-cost/ benefit- even with gas prices increasing, the cost of installing and maintaining and running the stove would far outstrip any short term (up to 5years) difference in gas prices for a few hours a few months of the year.

-we’d only be heating one room so it’s not that efficient for what we need

sometimes I’m concerned re: outages/ rationing of gas/ electric but we have loads of blankets and super warm outdoor gear

A the one person who knows better than defra,,😂

Worth every penny, I had one in my last house and I'll get one in this house.
They are actually very easy to clean. You can get woodburner hoovers in machine mart that you attach to your own hoover and then just suck up all the hot or cold ash and take it outside.
Cost me £70 for a whole winter of heat whenever I wanted it if you order a big load of dried wood.
I live very rurally. We can't afford to heat our large house with gas or electric so its the only way we'll stay warm.

I have a 5kw stove-top one in a fairly small house, cost me 3k some years ago. When on it heats the room we are in the most (open kitchen/living room) and the cost of wood to get me through winter is approx £250 from Nov - March for this year, it was less last year. Kindling gets picked up on the dog walks in summer and stored.

We do have central heating but it's only on 6am - 8am. The house is reasonably well insulated and heat is fairly well retained if we keep doors closed.

I am very pleased I have one. It will also boil a kettle, heat food in case of blackouts etc... It's a bit of a faff to clean but it only gets cleaned out properly once a week, it's just ash removal day to day which is not particularly messy.

Wait till putin turns Europe’s gas off......... best thing we ever did was fit a wood burner. There is plenty of free wood about if your willing to put in a bit of work, in ten years I’ve never paid a penny for any wood.

current one was £1600 charnwood arc 5 5kw £400 granite hearth and £600 for the flue/ chimney parts. Fitting free.

We love ours. Cost about £1800 two years ago. We use a mix of heat logs and wood offcuts from my DHs work and it costs us roughly £30 a month in winter to run. We use it instead of the heating if the kids are at their dads or already in bed as it’s cheaper than heating the whole house.

But, it’s cheaper to heat the body than the room. This year I’ve invested in heated throws and Oodies and warm socks and plan to use heat as little as possible.

£3000 including fitting, waste and slate hearth. We love it, but it’ll take a bloody long time for it to prove more cost effective than gas. Even if you’re saving £200 a year, it’ll be 15 years before you’ve broken even. We’ll have moved house by then. But, we love having it on in winter, nothing better than a cosy night in front of the fire

We had one installed (albeit 6 years ago!) for 2.5k. This included a 5kw DEFRA approved multifuel burner, hearth, flue, tiling, carbon monoxide detector, etc. A winter's worth of wood costs £200 (we buy unseasoned wood a year and a half ahead and season it ourselves). A service costs us £50/year. It definitely saves us waaaay more than we would spend on gas heating. Cleaning it is not that much of an issue. It is very warm and toasty!

We have a chesney Salisbury 4kw. Love it. Great security for power cuts too.

Cost 2k to fit but we already had a different stove there. £220 for a crate of kiln dried wood that last all year We have built in log stores along one of house. Takes an evening and more to move and stack. Chop crate by hand for kindling. An hour a week to bring in enough for a cold winter week, more if we are at home eg xmas. Ned to able bodied to shift the wood. Some companies stack it for you.

Can burn pallets if you want free wood but have to chop and it's time consuming and messy and need a chop saw and there are full
Of nails and chemicals. Smokeless fuel (ovals) last longer but is a PITA to get going but if we put it on a well established m fire it keeps it warm and going till morning . If you want to burn coal you need a multi fuel option.

Have you got access to free wood? Because it’s expensive to buy. I don’t think I save money by using my woodburner instead of the heating.

My sweep is charging £60 this year.
We get a lot of free wood, phew.

The study about pollution was carried out in Greece, on poor stoves. Not the very best extra approved stoves. If it was the case,why aren't most of swedish,finish,Norwegian populations, dying in droves. And of course you have to use the best wood.
You certainly can have a stove fitted. with a flue liner, even if your chimney has a link in it,or a turn as it's known. a competent stove fitter uses a guide rope to guide the flue liner down the chimney.
We had a morso squirrel fitted a few years ago,in our old house and it cost about ,including scaffolding,stove fittiing,etc. But you might need to pay for the chimney opening up,tiling, a surround,depending on what you might be able to do yourself.
Weve.Just had two stoves fitted in our new house, they are large and cost about £8k in total ,but the stoves were very good ones,one cost £2700 for the stove alone the her about £2300, we got a white dovre 50 and a large morso, classic 2b._
This time the fitted user a cherry picker,it was really efficient instead of the scaffolding.
You won't get your money back,I don't think,by getting a stove fitted, but if you are responsible and get the best wood and stoves,they cannot be beaten.
Were looking forward to winter, now, when we won't be freezing our fits and blocks off, like last winter, when we struggled with our old boiler from 1974!
We now ha e the stoves, a fantastic efficient gas boiler and some new radiators, although I'm still dreading the gas bills, not as much a roast year though,despite the hikes.

We had a Clearview put in when we moved 9 years ago and it is our main source of heat. We have just bought 3 truck and trailer loads of local logs for £330 and that will do us until next spring. Our 8kw stove was £1800 and installation was about £2000. Sweep is £75 a year.
Before we moved I had a Clearview put in in a suburban house with an external flue installed. That was more expensive and wood not so easy to source as I was in a city and had to buy prepacked logs.
We have a massive log store and it is hugely comforting to look out of the kitchen window and know my winter fuel is paid for. We keep loo rolls and twigs, cardboard and off cuts for fire starting and buy matches in bulk.