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Original poster

Please come tell me about wood burning stoves

25 replies

scruffymomma · 03/01/2010 21:43

Hi there

we have access to free supply of wood so were thinking of getting a woodburner for the front room.

Would appreciate thoughts / advice from anyone who has one - esp in a city.

Is the wood loads of work (not too bothered about a bit of hard work)

how messy is it

dangerous with small kids?

The ground floor of our house is FREEZING, will it heat beyond the one room (we also have GCH)

What about ventilation? We'll be getting 6-8KW and know we need ventillation but we live in an old house (with Double glazing) and there is a might draught blowing through our floorboards.

if you don't mind, how much did the whole thing cost, including fitting?

Many thanks in advance

OP posts:
partystress · 04/01/2010 01:05

Got one last year to replace open fire which always left everyone smelling like kippers. Best thing we have bought for the house. Almost no ash to clean up if you only burn wood. It's a 5kw one and heats a biggish room. Doesn't really heat any more of the house, so bedrooms feel cold if we haven't had rest of heating on. But we have saved a lot on oil already this winter cos heating goes off at 8 wehn kids go to bed and we don't need to top up. Stove itself gets v hot so you would need a guard if you have little DCs. Cost for stove plus fitting plus granite hearth and taking out old fireplace was £1000.

Original poster
scruffymomma · 04/01/2010 10:50

Does is make your house smell all lovely and woody? I would love that!

OP posts:
RealityIsMyOnlyDelusion · 04/01/2010 10:52

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RealityIsMyOnlyDelusion · 04/01/2010 10:52

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mablemurple · 04/01/2010 11:15

You might want to read this before you commit!

Original poster
scruffymomma · 04/01/2010 19:59

Hehe, I saw that earlier and while I am sure that article really touches the downsides, we are going to be supplementing with GCH so no WAY am I getting up a night to feed the stove, don't even do that for my DS!

OP posts:
ampere · 04/01/2010 20:08

Interesting- though it does sound like they live in Montana not Surrey! And whilst the picture is of Mr and Mrs Esher tending their decorative wood burner, do you think the author has actually got one of those basement boilers they have in N America? Big and functional?

Sputnik · 04/01/2010 20:21

I think if you have a woodburner as a supplement to other heating then you get the best of both worlds, esp if your wood is free. I read that article too and while there is an element of truth if you-re not reliant only on the woodburner then it-s a non-issue really.
The room with the woodburner will be lovely and cosy, whether the heat spreads will depend on the positioning of the stove, near an internal wall would be best.

I have always had woodburners and have now graduated to a fireplace that heats radiators too (with gas boiler as back-up). I have small children and they are very good at keeping away from it, I would put a guard up though.

frogetyfrog · 04/01/2010 20:27

What type of wood is your free supply - if its hard wood then great. If its pallets then you will need a lot more than that!

oooggs · 04/01/2010 20:30

ours is great and we like it, all our wood has been free so far and we have had it 3 years.

Easy to clean and light and we have a guard up as have 4 young children.

It is in the front room so with exit doors closed it heats the lounge/diner/kitchen.

We have a large house and also have GCH & double glazing.

It comes into its own (as has already been mentioned) when the heating goes off about 7.30pm (don't want to cook the children in their beds!!)

Looks and smells nice too. I didn't want one, DH did, he won and I love it

GentleOtter · 04/01/2010 20:35

The alternative is a wood pellet stove which is economical to run and mess free plus you can control them with a switch so no need to light.

babyOcho · 04/01/2010 20:36

If you have young children you really need to put up a gard as they get very hot. We have this one.

We dont really have the overnight issue. The stove gets dampened down before we go to bed and first thing in the morning we chuck on a log and open all the vents and it starts going again.

Ours cost 1k and 750 for the installation. We also needed our hearth extended.

HerHonesty · 04/01/2010 20:58

is the wood you have a ready supply of seasoned? if not do you have somewhere to store it?

Original poster
scruffymomma · 05/01/2010 16:08

we are friends with a tree surgeon so it will be mostly hardwood which needs seasoning - we have a big back garden to do this but aware that the wood will need chopping and stacking. Like i say I'm not averse to hard work but am slightly concerned that this could become all consuming and not massively happy with DH using a chainsaw.

OP posts:
Carrotfly · 05/01/2010 16:12

We have quite a small one.

Its amazing how much chopping DH has to do to get the pieces small enough.

Still, keeps him busy ....

BristolIrishGirl · 07/01/2010 13:23

We have one in our lounge and really love it! Make sure that you do get the right size for your room though as there was an enormous one already in our lounge when we moved in - over twice kw that was required and we ended up having to change it to a smaller one as it made the room so uncomfortable we rarely used it. Now we use the smaller one all the time. We have just ordered another one to go into our dining room - old house with two large stone fireplaces!

ilikeyoursleeves · 08/01/2010 23:04

We are thinking about getting one when we do our extension this year, and putting it in what will be our new kitchen / diner / small living area. This will be L shaped and about 8m x 6m at the longest points. But not sure whether instead to put it in our current living room? That's about 5x3m.

What do you think?

Katymac · 08/01/2010 23:12

My stove has been lit since Sunday lunchtime & I didn't get up in the night at all

Eaglebird · 11/02/2010 18:22

Does anyone have a woodburner with a back-boiler? If so, what's it like? Does it provide lots of hot water, and heat radiators ok?

inthesticks · 13/02/2010 18:18

I have a multi fuel stove with a back boiler.
It links in to the oil central heating system.
To give you an idea to compare with,our house has 4 bedrooms, bathroom,large kitchen, dining room , study,downstairs wc, utility (and conservatory not linked to the central heating.

When lit without the central heating pump on the stove will give loads of hot water. With the pump on it cannot heat the whole house on it's own. It will make the radiators lukewarm.
The way I run it is to have the oil boiler on very, very low when the fire is lit. This keeps the house very warm. The heating goes off at night and the fire continues to heat up the water so in the morning you have a tank full of hot water.

If you only burn wood you need lots of it.

Bonsoir · 13/02/2010 21:05

There was a wood burning stove in our bedroom in the lovely mountain chalet hotel we stayed in for New Year. It warmed the bedroom very efficiently and quickly and didn't seem like a lot of work.

bowbluebell · 13/02/2010 21:41

We have a woodburner in our little cottage. Haven't dared light it since dd got mobile, but that's only because it's in an inglenook and so hard to find a guard for.
It's pretty efficient once it's lit, but it takes a while to heat up as it works as it slowly radiates heat. We find it heats the living room of our cottage and our bedroom upstairs too. When it was just us that was fine but we now need heating on as dd sleeps in a bedroom furthest away from the stove. Even so, it's a lovely feature and is so nice on a Sunday afternoon.....

One piece of advice- make sure that your wood is just the right size and really well seasoned. This makes for a happy household and functionning fire (rather than partner in a spitting rage as the stove has gone out yet again....)

DecorHate · 14/02/2010 09:09

Does anyone know a way around the building regs so as to have one in a sort of open plan area? The people who owned our house before us took down the wall between the front room and hallway. We have put back a half wall but there is a gap rather than a door now iyswim and the stairs goes up from the hallway.

A wood burning stove wood be ideal as some of the heat would go upstairs but don't think it would comply with fire regs?

throckenholt · 14/02/2010 09:11

we have a similar setup and it is fine with fireregs if you have enough fire and smoke detectors. We also have a carbon monoxide detector.

DecorHate · 14/02/2010 09:17

That's interesting because a building control person (who was here to look at something else) did that teeth sucking thing and rattled off a whole list of things we would need to do including reinstating the door

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