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Original poster

Wood burning stoves. Anyone know anything about them?

16 replies

changer22 · 25/10/2008 20:38

We are moving back to our old house in an attempt to do it up gradually and sell it. We have a very large open plan sitting/dining room/kitchen with a double height ceiling and are thinking about putting in a wood burning stove as a feature in the large space (plus we would like one for the warmth factor!).

We're not sure where to start though. Has anyone bought one, looked at them recently?

OP posts:
needmorecoffee · 25/10/2008 20:40

you will need a flue installed that goes through the wall and up the side of the house. We were looking at some to go in our fireplaces but it was £3000 for stove and installation for 2 fireplaces!!!!

WriggleJiggle · 26/10/2008 21:54

Set up costs may be high, but they are absolutely fab, and you will have very very low heating costs.

Have you worked out your wood source yet?

tissy · 26/10/2008 21:56

we've got a woodburner in our sitting room, and a Rayburn in the kitchen, and haven't put the heating on yet!

Original poster
changer22 · 27/10/2008 11:34

We currently have underfloor heating run by (can hardly bring myself to type it...) Calor Gas.

Hugely expensive and in such a big space it's really ridiculous.

Are there better woodburners than others? There was a fab big one in the Sunday Times this weekend but it was £2,000.

No idea about the wood source. I was wondering about those newspaper briquette things that you make from your old papers or am I being ridiculously naive?

OP posts:
AMumInScotland · 27/10/2008 12:01

Like everything, some are better built and/or more efficient than others - you need to look at the volume of space you want to heat and the power output of the stove - it's probably not a problem in a big space, but some of them are too powerful for a small room, and they don't come with easy turn-down controls!

Also think about what you want it for - is it just a fireplace, or do you also want to heat water and/or radiators, or be able to warm food on it?

needmorecoffee · 27/10/2008 12:04

is it possible to find a multi-fuel that uses bog standard coal? They seem to say wood or smokeless coal. Thats expensive.

GooseyLoosey · 27/10/2008 12:15

We have one and had to put a flu in for it. The flu requires careful thought as they have to stick out a fixed amount above the roof and can only have a certain amount of bends in them. Your starting point is to make sure that you can get a flu in and whether you will need any planning/listed building consents.

The second thing is that stoves have a heat rating - ie how big an area they are intended to heat. Little ones will only heat a comparitively small area. You need to work out the area you want to heat and then see if there are any stoves you like which will do the trick. You might find that you need a pretty large one.

I have to say ours heats our lounge (and to some extent our bedroom above) but does nothing else for the rest of the house and therefore does not really have a huge impact on our bills. Also we find that it burns quite a lot of wood to make it burn hot so you will need to have somewhere to store the wood.

All that said, they are lovely!

tissy · 27/10/2008 13:24

we have a multi-fuel one (Charnwood Island), we burn wood, but if that runs out, it will burn coal.

I suggest you go into a local retailer, and see what's available, and what they would charge to supply and fit. IIRC, ours cost about £1500, but I don't remember if that included fitting, suspect not.

Charnwood Island

Original poster
changer22 · 27/10/2008 17:56

Thanks for the link tissy. It's the Charnwood Cove 3 that was in the paper yesterday. DH and I are lusting over it...

OP posts:
Xice · 05/11/2008 18:08

We've just had a Wilson Bailey wood burner installed and it's fab. Did lots of research before buying ie , efficiency, how much heat it pushes out,good clean window system (so no nasty black windows) etc etc and also wanted something that was quite eco-friendly too. But the best thing about Wilson Bailey stoves is they look great and you get to customise your own stove. Yup! Haven't found anything else like it on the market. Great choice of door styles, handles, feet, tops and colours. It's not the cheapest on the market but it seems to burn far less wood than our old stove.

Check them out at:
www.wilsonbailey.com

chocolateteapot · 05/11/2008 18:51

Hi Xice, welcome to Mumsnet ! It is lovely having a stove isn't it, mine is going now and it makes a huge difference. Those you have linked to look lovely but I'm guessing they are expensive.

Top tip for those who have black glass on their woodburner. Damp piece of scrumpled up newspaper dipped in cold wood ash. Rub over the glass and it will remove the black. Wipe off with another wet piece of newspaper and dry. Mine comes up good as new doing this.

boogeek · 05/11/2008 18:53

As an aside, we have a newspaper log maker thingummy. It's great and provides anothe rsource of fuel, but I wouldn't want to be relying on it. Time consuming and messy (we make the kids do it in the summer!)

KatyMac · 05/11/2008 18:53

I have an Aarowe Stratford & it heats my whole house & provides hot water

You should be able to get it added to your underfloor heating system quite easily (you may need to cool the water down a bit first

Xice · 06/11/2008 08:27

Hi Boogeek - thank you for the welcome. It's fun on mumsnet! You're right, they're not the cheapest on the market but worth every penny in terms of efficiency and appearance. I think it's also going to save us a lot of money on wood over time too because one split log lasts hours! We buy Certainly Wood logs as they've been really well seasoned and this makes a huge difference too in terms of heat and economy ..... v. important at the moment with such high gas prices.

chocolateteapot · 06/11/2008 09:32

We got our logs a bit late last year and I think the ones we were given weren't that well seasoned. Ordered them early this year and it has made a huge difference. One log will last somewhere between one and two hours, where as last year they were used much faster.

Last week when the children were on half term my Mum came over for the day and I had the heating on 20 degrees for a fair bit of the day and evening. The rest of the week we didn't have it on much. Was really shocked on Monday when I took a reading and worked out we have used nearly £19 pounds of gas just in that week, way above what we usually use and I can only put it down to using a lot on that one day. Made me realise how good value burning wood actually is when you've got it set up.

Our newspaper bricks didn't ever dry so gave up on that. Have asked the builder to chuck any scrap bits of wood our way which will hopefully boost our supply.

Xice · 06/11/2008 13:02

You're absolutely right chocolateteapot. It's much better ordering seasoned logs well in advance coz the longer they're seasoned the better they will burn and just as importantly, won't clog up the stove and chimney with resins. Can't sing enough praise for Certainly Wood logs. I think their website might have a widget for looking up local dealers as they don't supply direct to the public.

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