Black Or White Log Burner Stove

[TheCatsBlanket]

We’ve decided to get a multi fuel stove in the living room.
I’d like a white one to make it seem more posh/fancy in the living room, but husband prefers the black ones. Can anyone tell me if the white ones begin to discolour after a while, or is my husband just trying to put me off to get his own way!
Also, as I’ve never had this type of stove in a house before, are they as good as every one claims they are?

All log burners/ multi fuel burners get covered in dust now matter what colour they are :)

Mum HAD a cream enamelled one in her living room, Ive a normal black one in mine. Mine probably got and still does get more dusty cos mines used daily, hers just when it got really cold

Hers, the enamelling chipped pretty badly

Do they create mess? Sure as hell do. Are they expensive? Bloody well are - to buy and install and then to fuel unless you have access to free wood

We have to source our wood, cut and chop and store, wet wood needs at least two years drying so we are always working in front of ourselves, what we salvage this year will be being burned in 2026. We also burn smokeless ovals

We have them as we are rural and no gas. If I had the option of mains gas they would be out tomorrow.

Going down to the farm supplies, loading the car with 20kg sacks, unloading into the coal bunker, filling the coal buckets, having coal buckets and log baskets stacked around the stove, coal dust on the carpets from where the wee blighters roll when falling on filling. The half Inch of dust ( well it seems to be that deep ) thats everywhere. Large amounts of garden space taken up in log storage.

Yep hard work and expensive

my kindling is all just garden refuse (thank you cherry & apple trees & budleias & oak trees on the lane): The bags are reused potato and other sacks. Bringing kindling in the house ends up creating a lot of debris.

White stove sounds like insanity imho.

Kindling for us is old bits of wood, fence panels etc. we buy seasoned wood in tonne bags, usually 2 at a time. Used to be about £90 each, but are now £110 a tonne for a mix of hard and softwood.

We also have a guy that sells unseasoned wood, so will buy a few tonne off him and store it for a few years.

Have you considered getting a soapstone clad stove? They store and radiate heat better than cast iron. They also hide the dust a bit more.

Black. There's something about black bring better for heat conduction as well.

Modern stoves are much better than older ones in terms of air quality, and some modern stoves are better than others. It’s worth researching this.

Like pp I much prefer the black.

Some people have properties that struggle to be heated any other way. The house I am just moving to is a tiny two up two down miners stone cottage from the 1880s. It's eye wateringly expensive to heat with central heating, she was paying £25-30 a DAY on gas and the walls were still freezing. This house was meant to be heated with fire and the next door neighbours have a multi fuel stove that heats the entire downstairs all day and the walls then retain heat all night. The very first thing I will be doing is to put a stove in.

Yes I never quite understand this. We have a jute bag for life thing, old and worn, we go (OH goes) outside, grabs some logs, brings them in and puts them on the hearth, thats our fuel for the evening. No mess, no faff.

What are people doing that creates so much mess, bringing a whole trunk in and power sawing it up on the carpet in front of the telly?

@soupfiend What are people doing that creates so much mess, bringing a whole trunk in and power sawing it up on the carpet in front of the telly?

😂

No power sawing. My logs are always covered in sawdust and bits of dry lichen. I just upend the bag for life into the wood basket and get a little cloud that settles wherever. I suspect I could be tidier but I bring in 3 bags 2 for 8kw stove, 1 for 4kw. I also use old dry sticks as kindling which probably doesn’t help either. I should probably line the wood baskets too as they are wicker and tiny bits slip out bottom/ sides. It’s not a big deal just needs a decent hoover regularly.

You do understand that fence panels are treated with poison right ?

Well, your lungs your choice, and if you’re in a rural area without close neighbors I guess it’s up to you.

But this is one of the things about the UK that I do find insane (= living in 19th century buildings which were originally built to house poor people and which are impossible to heat properly without filling the house with dangerous particulates).

Burning anything in your home is awful for your health and air quality - I can't understand why you'd want to do that, unless it is your only option (i.e, no gas). Wood burners should be illegal unless no alternative.

How can you expose yourself and your family to the horrible emissions from unseasoned wood and old wood. Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts | Air pollution | The Guardian

Have you factored in the cost of chimney lining, regular sweeping and the cost of wood?

i only use novichok on mine , so only harmful to russians 🙂

So all you that are harping on about particles, all live in traffic free zones, ride bikes, do not drink, smoke or eat UPF?

Seriously, you are in more danger from the road fumes. I used to live on Putney High Street, leading to the busiest road crossing over the Thames , could barely breathe during the summer and travelling on the tube? Nose and face pure black

No, living in a house with a wood-burning stove is much worse than any of these things. For example, living in a house with a wood-burning stove increases women’s lung cancer rates by 43% (!). Traffic fumes are not ideal but the lung cancer rate most certainly does not go up by 43% if you live near a road. Etc etc.

It’s not so long ago that we used to hear similar arguments as to why smoking and passive smoking weren’t really such a big deal. Social change happens gradually (as discussions like this gradually raise awareness), and then suddenly. I personally would not buy a house that was impossible to live in comfortably without burning biomass, even if I didn’t care about my lungs, simply because growing awareness of these risks is ultimately going to make these places impossible to live in or sell without massive and very expensive retrofitting that will completely change the appearance of the building anyway.

(Yes, I do ride a bike and don’t have a car, as it happens).

Most people have them to supplement central heating so hardly a big deal to take it out if you’re that set against them.

I think you’re wrong though. If the door is closed then the contact with any smoke or particulates is next to zero

We’d burn logs rather than coal, I’d imagine/ hope it wouldn’t be as dirty?

Sadly not, they are messy. Go with black

It is bad for everyone's air quality in the vicinity, but much worse for the source house.

Of course particulates are being breathed in if you have a wood burner, both from the stove itself and the air out of the flue.

They are known to damage lungs.

https://www.politico.eu/article/cities-wood-burning-stove-energy-air-pollution/

Voluntarily making your indoor air quality worse is quite an odd thing to do, really.

I've seen a really large white one and it was gorgeous

For context it was in a small stone built cottage, I might even have a picture somewhere...

For example, living in a house with a wood-burning stove increases women’s lung cancer rates by 43% (!)

I find it really weird people ignore the science on this.