Kitchen Garden Forum

Garden_serf (being a slave, in 'bondage' (in the contract sense), to the garden!). GS will do.

In case I was not clear, it was the old woodburner setup that caught fire to the inside of the floor/ceiling joists. The flu was too short, it only entered the chimney then stopped, expecting the chimney to do the rest I suppose.

The new flu is 8m long!! It goes from the top of the new woodburner in the lower floor salon, inside the chimney and all the way up to the top of the chimney. Its a 400 year old stone property on 4 levels. Its a compact house, oddly built into the side of the mountain, with a huge grenier. Yes we still have it. It was my husbands childhood dream to own a place in the south of france, in the mountains, and it was a real challenge to us to make it happen,.

GS, your story takes me back some years ago to when my father and stepmother had a place in S France, a cottage in one of those higgledy-piggledy villages built on a hillside. My dad and I did a lot of work on the place, while my stepmothers artistic talent made sure the alterations did not change the character or 'feel' of it.

I loved the place and the whole area, and am reluctant to go back now that they have sold it, because the changes which are inevitable will make me sad.

But things move on, and now I visit them in the Yorkshire dales, equally wonderful in a different way.

Oh, and I am now not going to sleep at night, because our chimney has no flue from the woodburner,,,

Just a few thoughts on wood burning stoves having recently become the proud owner of one! Just a little gloat first of all, we managed to pick up a Yeoman Exe multi fuel burner for £80, they are £750 new, it is only two years old, the previous owners took it to their new house that did not have a chimney. Having looked into installing the aforementioned burner in some detail, I would be very wary of installing one myself, we ended up using a local firm to instal ours for around £400.
The main reason being that you need a HETAS certificate, if your house burns down and you do not have one there can be all sorts of implications with your insurers if it was found that your woodburner was the cause of the fire. Having said that, it pays to shop around, as due to the recent surge in popularity of woodburning/solid fuel stoves there are reports of people being quoted huge amounts for instalation on top of the purchase price of the stove.
On the 'Selfsufficientish' website there were reports of people being quoted up to a £1000 for instalation. A common factor was being incorrrectly told that a steel chimney liner was required (at £40 a metre!) Apparently around 90% of properties do not need a liner in the chimney.
I would agree that regulations vary from area to area, but one constant seems to be a requirement to have a concrete hearth that projects 12 inches minimum in front of the stove, our installers would not go ahead until we had done this. This of course, if, like us you have wooden floors! Hope this has been of interest/use to people, we would not be without ours, dont burn money burn wood! dont be held to ransom by dictators turning off the gas!
Regards, Essexboy.

You can find a lot of discussion about wood stoves on the New House Farm Forum (the home of the family best known from the TV series It's not easy being green):

http://www.newhousefarm.tv/forum

A soild fuel heat generating appliance which is not installed by a Hetas registered installer, or inspected by the local building control department contravenes building regulations and as such is illegal.

If you think that is harsh, remember that the flue gasses from a solid fuel appliance with the air intake closed down contain vastly more corbon monoxide than even a poorly functioning gas appliance. Condensation forming in the flue of an incorrectly installed wood stove will deposit nicely flammable creosote at just about the level of your children's bedroom. To meet the regs properly, most older masonary chimneys WILL need a stainless steel liner to burn wood in a stove. The flue gasses of a closed stove are much cooler than those from an open fire, without an impervious liner of some sort the condensate will eventually soak through the walls.

It is definitely a job to do properly.

We bought and installed out woodburner 10-11 years ago. We bought it from a proper woodburning stove supplier who knew we would be installing it ourselves and they never said anything at all about having it inspected or that we would need a certificate! What's more our house is a council barn conversion and they know we have installed it but have never asked to check it.

AnneT, You may see it somewhere in the small print on your insurance.
Also the regs change so quickly its hard to know/keep up with it all.

In the end we came down on the side of common sense for our own safety. Very old stone house, old chimney pointing, previous fire = Belt and braces approach. It also seemed the right thing to do at the time. The kids (teenagers) also learnt from the whole process, including helping to site a carbon monoxide detector and fit smoke alarms and test them regularly(They are not hard wired in this house).

The Insurance on the house with the new woodburner & full flue, also states 'yearly chimney cleaning from a qualified sweep', who has to issue a certificate. A copy of which has to be submitted to the insurance company every year!!! If not done this insurance is invalid!!

Hi GS

The trouble possibly lies in the fact that we live in rented - so the insurance isn't ours and we never get to see it. We do have our chimney swept every year and the sweep has never said anything to us either.

Its not just a case of trying to get away with things but we genuinely didn't know about these certificate requirements or chimney dangers until this forum topic. The added difficulty is that our tenancy will be running out in a couple of years and we will have to move on anyway so we are very reluctant to spend so much money - although I know our safety should be top priority! Can't see Caradon paying for it - especially as we know they want to sell the property as soon as the lease is up. They know the fire is in - their estates manager has been into the house and inspected a leaking window in the same room, so they have seen it.