Open fire or Stove

[Arnie]

Hi everyone

I need some advice please Sometime this year (2010) I intend to have either an open fire or dual fuel stove fitted at home What do you recommend open fire or stove
I have been on line looking at open fires & stoves the price's seem ok but what do you go for ? do you take the lowest and hope for the best, or go mid range or aim for the top of the range because some of them start at about £1,200,00
I have more question than answer's at the moment.

Regards


Kevin

[Geoff]

We have a Much Wenlock stove from Coalbrookdale that we are well pleased with. We try and burn all wood but you get a more stable fire with something else, I use some of the Phurnacite that we use on the Aga if I want it to burn longer unattended.
If you are burning a lot of wood you have to be sure of your chimney, in particular that runny tars go back into the fire without being able to leak out anywhere. I had to modify our chimney with a sort of funnel arrangement round the liner to direct stuff back into the flue pipe.

[John Walker]

With an open fire most of your heat energy is going up the chimney, and there is the problem of drafts (and air pollution from smoke). A quality wood burning/multifuel stove is vital; see it as an investment and get the very best you can afford.

Do plenty of research and go and visit showrooms if you can. I have a small stove from Clearview Stoves, based in Ludlow, who have an excellent showroom (it is very grand but you can see all the stoves alight and burning and they'll show you how they work). Clearview stoves pre-heat the air going into the stove so that they burn at a high temperature, which means no smoke from the chimney (minimising air pollution), and the glass door stays clean. Their web site has a lot of useful information, including environmental guidance.

http://www.clearviewstoves.com/

"If you are burning a lot of wood you have to be sure of your chimney, in particular that runny tars go back into the fire without being able to leak out anywhere."

If you have 'sooty tars' running down your chimney/flue, then something is very wrong, probably that you are burning wood that hasn't been seasoned (i.e. dried out) for anywhere near long enough (or you are burning at too low a temperature).

'Green' wood, which has just been cut down, should be split and stacked (see my log stackers on page 62 of KG Feb) outdoors for at least two years. The wood needs to be open to the air and sun but rain needs to be kept off as much as possible.

[Gerry]

Hi Kevin,
I'm no great authority but I believe that the cheaper stoves are made from welded boiler steel and the better ones are cast iron.

I have a Jotul stove in the kitchen and am very pleased with it. In the sitting room I have an open fire and am again pleased. I suppose it's horses for courses.

Stoves are far more economical and will, if you so wish, stay in all night. My wife often puts a pan of soup on the stove top and it will, in time, bring it to the boil. It's also handy for warming plates.

When I first installed the stove I suffered with the tar, which Geof mentions, running down the chimney and couldn't stop it no mater how much fire cement I used. In the end I got an expert involved and he said that I was closing the damper too soon after it was lit. I now let the chimney get hot before I partialy close the damper and have had no more trouble for the past 10 years. I was also advised that if I burn a lot of wood then use coal occasionly and this will help to keep the chimney cleaner.

Stoves usualy have several options for flue exit. Top, side or rear. I didn't have the room for a rear exit so had to settle for the chimney comming out of the top and this limits the room for pans etc. Also look at how the ash is cleaned out ie. does it have an easily removed ash pan.

Hope this helps somewhat.
Regards, Gerry.

[Chantal]

Hi Kevin

We had a Little Wemlock (Aga and baby brother of the Much Wenlock) fitted in December. We previously had an open fire in the kitchen, and still have one in the living room, but this is SO much better.

We burn mainly wood, but bank up with Homefire when we're going to bed or going out for the day and we've had it burning constantly since the week before Christmas. It will keep hot and glowing on Homefire for 8 hours without a problem. My heating thermostate hasn't been set above 16 degrees right through all the cold weather as the burner has provided so much heat. The chimney breast in the bedroom is usually warm too.

As mentioned by John, this one is "wood exempt" or whatever it's called, allowing me to legally burn wood in a smokeless zone.

To get a really hot fire it's necessary to use smaller logs; it's not the length of the things that's an issue, so long as they fit, it's the width that's important.

I have a kettle (heavy based and designed for the job) on top most of the time and sometimes don't boil the kettle all day. I heat sauces and sometimes small pans of food on there if I'm not in a hurry. I don't have a lot of space ont he top of mine as the flue pipe has to come out of the top, but enough space to make a difference. My mother even opened the door to make some toast when she came round

We love it and haven't lit the living room fire more than a couple of times since the burner was installed as we're living in the kitchen

[Tony Hague]

John is right about the efficiency issue; stoves can be about 70% efficient, open fires probably more like 20%. You get through a lot of wood with an open fire. It is even possible, in the worst case, to make the room colder because the hot air heading up the chimney entrains more air from the room, to be replaced by cold air being drawn in from outside.

You should not, as John says, have tar running down the inside of a flue. You will get condensation though, and the building regs require a flue to be impervious to it, so an unlined brick built chimney really needs a flexible stainless steel liner for wood burning.

The issue of steel/cast iron is mostly down to taste. Often steel stoves have a more contemporary appearance, and cast ones can be more baroque. There is no fundamental correspondence with quality. Some of the cheapest stoves are cast iron (like Tiger), some of the pricier stoves are steel (like Clearview). With regard the price, IMHO ... I'd steer clear of the cheaper stuff like Tiger and look to the quality brands like Clearview, Charnwood, Stovax, Morso ... By the time you have paid for the liner, installation (which should be inspected by the local building control, unless you use a HETAS approved installer), any building work etc, you could easily be paying £1500-£3000 for a stove, and the difference between a Tiger and a Clearview is not a good economy.

My main advice would be, whatever you go for, if you need to buy in wood, do it in the spring before the winter you'll want to burn it, and stack it up where it can get the sun and wind on it. The log suppliers who tell you that their wood is seasoned and ready to burn are almost all liars. Most any wood will burn well when dry, and all woods will be disappointing if not (including Ash, despite popular belief).

[Elle's Garden]

My parents have had a Jotul that they love for nearly 30 years now. Great little thing that really puts out some warmth.

[sally wright]

Dear Kevin,
I would lok at the green living forum for further information on woodburning stoves.
Regards Sally Wright.

[Essexboy]

Hello Kevin,
Lots of good replies from previous posters, a couple of points, nobody mentioned the cost/neccessity of having a woodburner/multifuel stove installed professionally, there are all sorts of issues surrounding HETAS cetificates and the possibility of problems with your house insurance etc. The HETAS certificate is the solid fuel equivalent of CORGI for gas installations. Finding a reputable installer can be an interesting and complicated procedure, I know! look on the Selfsufficientish website for some horror stories on this subject ie people being told unnessicarilythat they need to have chimney liners fitted (at around £40 pound a metre!) if you see what I mean.
It is worth having a look in your local paper small ads/ freebie advertiser newspaper to see what is on offer, we had a real stroke of luck and got a two year old Devon Exe multifuel stove for £80 (list price £750!) I thought the bloke was on a wind up when he said how much he wanted for it! Hope this has been of some use/interest.
Regards, Essexboy.

[Essexboy]

Sorry Tony Hague, just noticed that you posted about HETAS installers!!
Regards, Essexboy.

[Tony Hague]

Just to be clear, unlike gas appliances (where the installer MUST be on the gas safe register, which recently replaced CORGI) wood stoves can be installed by a general builder or even DIY, but must meet the requirements of building regs (part J, available free on line), and be inspected by building control (unless the installer is HETAS registered, in which case they can self-certify).

With regard "unnecessary" liners - I think I side with the liner fitters here, and suspect that a lot of people believe what they want to hear. Part J requires that the flue gasses be non-condensing, or the flue be impermeable to the condensate. It must also direct any condensation back into the appliance. In the case of an unlined masonry chimney (likely if pre 1960's) used with a stove, that means lining. Don't be fooled by the argument that it was OK for an open fire so should be OK for a stove - open fires, as I said, entrain a lot of air from the room, and send more heat up the chimney, so condensation is not so big a problem. Stoves, being more efficient, have cooler flue gasses and burn with the minimum of air for combustion - so are much more likely to generate condensaton in the flue.

Aside from the issue of condensation, a lined flue can be swept properly; if you close the base of the chimney off with a metal plate, you create a collecting point for soot where it can't be easily removed.

[Geoff]

The mistake I and my builder made was the new chimney was clay lined but we put the metal flue pipe inside the clay and thought we had sealed round it. I got a stainless steel funnel made that went outside the liner and inside the metal flue to solve the problem. My chimney draws like a blast furnace so the stove usually runs just on the air that gets in through the gap in the door seal with the ash door adjuster fully closed. I don't buy wood just burn all sorts of prunings from the garden so I guess that's why I get a lot of condensation. When did regs come in? We didn't bother with anything in 1990, bit like the way I did all my own wiring and plumbing with the main build in 1985.

[Catherine]

We put a Little Thurlow 5 kw multi fuel into our dining room two years ago. The sofa is moved into the diring room and the table moves into the lounge, and we vegitate in front of the fire in the evenings whilst one of us is cooking in the kitchen and one of us is toasting their toes in front of the fire. We were going to open the fire in the lounge to make a normal open fire, at the moment we have a gas coal fire in a rather nice surround, but have changed our mind and have decided to put in a Little Thurlow in our lounge in place of the gas coal fire which we currently only use at Christmas.

They are made by Town and Country, are very well made and are very easy to regulate, they have an airwash system with a secondary tertiary air flow which burns off any unburnt gas left in the fire box. (ooh I sound quite technical ) we can highly recommend it. In the first year we bought our wood in loads off a flat bed transit which cost us £45 per time. we ended up getting three loads. Also we bought eight bags of anthracite. You always get told that the qood is seasoned but in our experience it is not.

This year as we have access to wood we bought a chain saw and cut several loads of wood which has saved us rather a lot of money. We collect small branches for kindling and use newspaper and two small peices of firelighters to get it going.

I have heard that you can get a temperature guage to fix on the flu pipe to ensure that the flu has reached optimum heat before closing down any of the controls, this is supposed to prevent a build up of tar in the chimney. Hope this helps.