Wood burning stove - keep or remove?

[Noeggsontoast]

We have bought a house with a wood burning stove in the lounge and are considering removing it and blocking the chimney and placing an electric fire in the hearth instead. No idea how much this would cost or whether we should just keep the wood burner for occasional use. Anyone have went experience of removing a wood burner? Thank you in advance

I would just keep it, use it and then learn from my own experience as to whether or not I wanted to replace it. You'll know enough from a year or so of operation as to whether it is a useful and fun heating source or a pain in the arse.

I guess it really depends on whether you need it as a primary heat source. Some houses have wood burners because they are decorative, others because they are a low(er) cost way of heating. If you remove it and replace it with an electric and it is necessary to keep the house at an acceptable temperature then your bills could go up a lot and you will struggle to replace the power with electric fire as it is likely to be a lot lower in power.

A wood burner is also a useful backup heat source if the power goes off..

Depends on house and where you live. If you’re in a built up suburban area, with a modern house, and efficient central heating you don’t need a wood burner. If you’re out in the sticks in a chilly house, with limited utilities (we don’t have mains gas) then a wood burner is worth keeping.

You will also now get a number of posts about how awful wood burners are. Modern wood burners are fine, old ones may need replacement with something more efficient.

We had one in our old house. Loved it. In winter it's so cosy. If there's a power cut you can still be warm.
Keep it for a year & see how you get on. Personally I would not remove a properly installed, full working order wood burner.

Keep it for very cold nights and emergencies.

I'd definitely remove, they're awful for air quality. I think they've had their day really, most people now know how bad they are for health.

I live in the sticks and wouldn’t be without mine.
It augments the central heating and during power cuts we can boil kettles and cook on it.
We keep the room it’s in well ventilated and the flue clear.

They are more popular than ever with 175,000 installed last year.

We are rural and need ours

5 days without electricity in the winter - we would have froze without it

@Noeggsontoast , use it this winter, see how it goes, but a word of warning, they arent scheap to run if you dont have a constant supply of free wood and storage to season it. We have been lucky this year, the storm that took the power out also bought down loads of trees - and we got 3 - enough wood for the next 4 or 5 years

As others have said, keep it, try it, see how you get on. We moved into a house with one and absolutely loved it straight away. It’s very efficient and helpful for boosting the temperature. Obviously a great back up in the event of a power cut. Best of all it makes the room feel extremely cosy when lit.

Keep it. So lovely on really cold nights and at Christmas.

I'd keep it just so all the utilities are not all in the electric basket.

Def keep it. They’re a brilliant supplementary heat source, so cosy on a cold winters afternoon.
Even our log store is lovely

I wouldn't know whether that's up or down on other years, but happy to be informed.

My anecdata is all people taking them out due to the air issues.

In December our electricity went off numerous times when it was below freezing.......i would never be without mine despite not using it often!

Remove it. They're very ugly and not environmentally sound.

As a PP said, it's not necessarily the most cost effective way of heating a home if you aren't able to get your hands on free or unseasoned, cheap hardwood.

Iirc you can season wood yourself and it has to sit to dry for a couple of years before you can use it. That stuff's cheaper. You don't want to risk using it before: the sap will stick to the inside of the chimney and set it on fire (it happened to my parents when they were renting a barn whilst building a house).

The seasoned, ready to use wood, which we got delivered from our local farm shop. Well, that went up from £80 to £110 a builders' sack (1m x 1 m x 1m, approx 750kg) over the 3 winters we had to use one (22-beginning 25), and they ran out early Spring each year too.

You can buy softwood for a lot cheaper, but that does what you'd expect: you'd burn through it at a rate of knots.

But, it depends on how you use your heating, and what the weather's like where you live, and how 'connected' you are. We were in a small village where nobody would give a rat's arse if our power went out for 48 hours, and we had no gas supply, so the woodburner could have been a useful backup.

As it turned out, the underfloor heating was so poxy (installed incorrectly) and the wind so very violent on such a regular basis that we basically couldn't control the temperature of our house at all, it was either balls off cold or too hot to walk on. So, we only had the UFH set to come on from 4am til 10am then in the evening, we'd snuggle up and if the cold was unbearable we'd light a fire.

They're actually pretty fast and easy to do once you get the knack (or, the right firelighters/kindling).

So, I certainly wouldn't get rid of a woodburner until I'd had at least one or two winters of seeing how my house behaves during different seasons.

And - if I was in a built up area - I just wouldn't use it. Not fair on people who get no say what's getting in their lungs (we had no neighbours to speak of).

Keep it just to annoy the Green crowd.

Whereas a blocked up fireplace with an electric ‘fire’ is just beautiful 🙄

Why would you say that? It would be anything but. How strange, but taste is subjective.

We wouldn’t be without ours. As others have said, during electricity outages, we can still keep warm, boil water for hot drinks/hot water bottles, and do some basic cooking on top of it in fry pan. But on nights like tonight, it’s cold, blowing a hooley & raining- the wood burner is on, we feel warm and cosy, the dogs are splayed out on the carpet roasting nicely! Also, I find it relaxing, the crackle, the flames.

Agree.

Same. Do 12 days after Storm Arwen without power and see how you feel!

I'd live in the house for a winter before you decide unless it's a very built up area.

Seasoned wood burned at the correct temperature shouldn't be visible from outside.

Everyone I know is putting them in! We just ripped out our old gas fire and replaced with a burner.

We have saved a fortune on gas since we had ours fitted in March 2024. Unless it’s really cold, the fire in the living room is enough to warm the whole house (our bedroom is above the lounge), so whereas the times we would have had the central heating on, now we often don’t.