Does anyone have a woodburning stove? What do you think of them?

[ilikeyoursleeves]

DH really wants one for our new extension that we are planning, particularly one that heats the boiler and radiators too. I like them but not sure if they are more hassle than they are worth?

Any advice? Would you recommend one?

We have one in the sitting room, built into the fireplace. Has a glass door. It's great, much more efficient than an open fire. Bit of a pain to cart the wood in but so cosy in the winter. Sometimes we keep it going for days and nights. Have to clean the glass door (with oven cleaner - don't waste money on those "specialist liquids!!) every few days.

Neighbours have one which also heats a few radiators, and underfloor heating in their sitting room.

Other friends have one of those nordic free standing black ones, smaller, cuter but again really cosy.

Have had two.

Wonderful.

High maintenence and fuel is expensive unless you have a free wood source

I have one but just for heating the lounge not the whole house. It's absolutely gorgeous and makes the whole room. This winter it has been invaluable. I disagree with high maitenenance, cleaning the doors takes 2 mins if you don't leave it to build up.

We have had 2 and can't recommend highly enough. Current one is in the living room and we have had it on day and night for weeks now. We use smokeless fuel and wood on ours. We have one with some sort of airflow thing over the glass door so it doesn't need cleaning. It also has a back boiler on so heats the water. Fuel can be expensive and if you are going to use it often and want minimum faff then its worth sorting out a wood supplier that will deliver seasoned log burner size pieces.

Sorry, to clarify ,by high maintenence I meant chopping/storing transporting the wood.

You will be astonished at how much wood they burn

we get a bloody great truckload of ready chopped logs delivered and dumped at bottom of garden (then dh has to fill a few barrow loads and stack by the door

yes, do think about where you'll store it and how you'll bring it into the house.

Ooooo they sound great. Does anyone know what the difference is (in £ & size) between a 'normal' woodburner and one that heats the water and radiators?

We have an area under the whole house (sort of like a basement but not high enough to stand up in) so we will be able to store all the wood in there We also live in the country so DH thinks we can just roam about and collect wood, not sure how feasible that is though!

Our neighbours have one, you can tell when they have lit it because our utility room (tumble drier vent and boiler vent) and the living room (gas fire vent) smell of wood smoke

I think they're gorgeous. We lived in a cottage with one for a bit and I loved it. It heated the radiators and water to some extent but there was an immersion and storage heaters too.
If I was getting one I'd just get one for the room though. It can be a bind in winter when you are dependent on it for heat and water- splitting logs, carting them about, having it running all the time etc.
A friend has lived with one with no other source of heat for a long time and she's desperate for central heating, despite being the biggest pyromaniac I know. It can stop being fun.

We have one and I wouldn't be without it.

However we live in an old stone house in which the stove makes the difference between being cold and being cosy.

We were lucky and got ours free through DH's work but if I bought one I would definitely get one which can heat radiators/water.

We buy wood and it isn't cheap but our CH is oil fired and it is cheaper to run the CH at a minimum and supplement with wood than run the CH enough to really heat the house. Much warmer too.

I do think they are the sort of thing where to get the real benefit you need to run them pretty much constantly and that does mean stacking wood and dragging it into the house.

You probably want the area where you stock the wood to be practical and close to the stove or you just won't use it or will hate using it.

We have used it as our sole source of heating and although it was a bit of work it was better than paying a fortune for oil when prices were stupidly high last year (live in France don't know about oil prices in the UK).

We have two and they are great! We live in an old house so keeps the house cosy. Free wood sources are available - you just have to be inventive!! Fallen wood does need time to dry though, up to two years!!

The option to have a boiler fitted to provide heating in the rest of the house can be expensive, especially if there is not already a boiler in place. My parents have one and they can keep the house warm (not hot!) just on the stove.

To second what others have said - they are fab, but you have to be prepared for the work of dealing with the wood and have somewhere to keep it.

If you're having a burner to run radiators/hot water that's a whole different ball game to just a supplementary woodburner for a bit of extra heat, and you will go through serious quantities of wood.

Having said that, the first thing we did in our new house was rip out & sell the gas rayburn & switch it for a solid fuel one so that we can run the house on wood.

Price - I reckon that if you run your house on wood & buy it cut & seasoned, it probably works out the same as buying gas or a little cheaper. If you have the space & the time to buy unseasoned wood by the truckload & season it yourself (buy one winter to burn the next) it can work out cheaper (possibly depending on where you live).

Agree I would only have one when you have a secondary source of heating. We have oil fired central heating as well but hardly use it unless its freezing ! Our neighbours only have a wood fired stove and they have really struggled to keep their house warm during the last few weeks cold snap.

Just wanted to second those that say it's cheaper to buy unseasoned wood and store it for a year, but that you won't believe how much room a year's wood takes up. And you have to have space for a few days' wood in the house, too!

If you are looking for one that heats boilers and radiators too you will need a LOT of wood. Foraging in the forest - unless you are a lumberjack - probably won't suffice.

Also the wood needs to be really dry to burn else you will end up with a smoky fire that chokes you when you open the door and leaves deposits on chimney.

We have oil ch heating and woodburner and oil is cheaper.

My friend has just a woodburner and is spending £50 a week atm to heat her house (and that is just downstairs - is freezing upstairs!).

I wouldn't agree about struggling to heat your house. Our house has been nice & warm all through the cold snap, & we don't have any other source of heating.

We only moved in mid summer, so we haven't been able to get our wood properly sorted - we were also building up to October so couldn't buy wood in advance even at the start of the autumn (when it is generally cheaper & better).

So far we've spent £540 on wood, and I'm pretty sure now we've got enough wood now to do us through the winter and well into the summer (our hot water is from the rayburn, plus we only have a gas hob, so we'll still be using it for cooking in summer. (I'm pretty sure about quantities, as we had a rayburn in our previous house.)

I reckon just buying seasoned & cut/split wood, it would cost us between £6-700 a year. For comparison, the gas company wanted to set our direct debit at £75 pcm, based on previous bills from the house, so even allowing for the fact that they tend to overestimate, it doesn't seem so bad.

If we buy a load of wood to season, cut etc ourself (hopefully we may be able to store at a friend's farm) we could get enough for 3 years for I would guess around £800 (last winter a load was £700, but I think prices have gone up).

I think what we'll probably do is a halfway house - get some oak slabbing from a local mill (less work to process, & comes in smaller loads, but still relatively cheap), then top up with seasoned wood as necessary.

We have 2 woodburners with glass doors and they are fab.

TOP TIP!!
To clean the glass, crumple up newspaper into a ball, dip it partway into some water, then into the (cold!!) wood ashes in the stove, and rub this on the glass to clean it. It works like a charm and doesn't scratch the glass at all which is what I thought might happen.

I was told to do this by the owner of the stove shop when I went in to buy some glass cleaner

Suggest a multifuel one so you have the option for coal which burns a bit more slowly.

Ours isn't a boiler, just a room heater, but it was fantastic in the recent cold weather. We could not keep it in wood though despite getting an entire tree from a neighbour and burning every offcut/oddment even an old chopping board or two, so we back up with coal.

We rented an ex-miner's house a few years ago that still had an open fire/back boiler as the only source of heating. TBH it did stop being fun coming in from work to a dark and freezing house and having to grovel about in the coal store, then (in my case, incompetently) attempt to light the thing. But I guess if you're well stocked up it just becomes part of your routine.

Presumably you have to deal with ashes too so think about the walk from fire to disposal point. (or is that less of an issue?)