The Wood Burning Stove and Open Coal Fire Thread

No, it all seems fine. The scuttle gets a bit warm but I've had it like this for over 5 years now and use it a lot. The two plinths at the front left and right have a wall behind them going back to the far wall, which protects everything outside the inglenook. The only issue I've ever had was when I clumsily over poked it one night and a burning coal fell out onto the rug, but that's my own buffoonery going on there

I suspect it really comes down to the layout of your house, the insulation and how you run your stove as to whether or not it's actually cheaper than gas.

What I've noticed is that if I have the central heating on for an hour - to warm up the entire house, then the log burner keeps the house at that temperature for the rest of the evening. But if I just had the log burner, god only knows how many hours it'd take to warm up the entire house, as my stove is tiny - under 5Kw. Basically I split every log I get into two, and those two new logs are enough to last roughly 45 mins to an hour. So usually I'm averaging around 4 or 5 "actual" logs an evening.

So last winter, with all the price increases, it did work out cheaper using this method. That's including all wood + fire lighters, chimney sweep etc. Comparing the gas usage from the winter before I had the log burner, I'd say I saved roughly £350 in gas using this method, based on the new pricing.

But I live in a small terraced house which I've insulated under the floors, redid the loft etc. etc. so it doesn't lose heat very quickly.

Not sure if it will be such a big difference this year, logs have definitely gone up a lot this year, so it might be closer to being the same as central heating, but we shall see...

Haha, that's a postcard from my mate. Was too funny not to put up

I swapped out my old stove for a new one last winter, but didn't have a new chimney liner installed at the same time because the current Dura Flue liner is in very good condition and only 7 years old.

The stove I had installed has a lifetime warranty on the body, and out of interest I was looking into the warranty and how to claim.

The manufacturer insists that any warranty claim be "accompanied by the Certificate of Compliance issued at the time of installation" but the installer didn't issue me one. However, I do have one from 2015 when the old stove + liner was installed.

I contacted the installer today and he insisted that he told me at the time he couldn't issue me with a certificate unless I was getting a new liner installed too. I don't remember this conversation.

None of this adds up to me. Why would the stove's warranty be tied to whether I had a new liner installed at the same time? More to the point, why wouldn't a Certificate of Compliance need be issued when installing a new stove?

I suppose the installer can't guarantee another installer's work on my chimney, but surely he should have issued me with documentation of some description? The only thing I received was a very basic scribbled invoice. He didn't even give me his HETAS ID number.

It's maybe my fault for simply not knowing the ins and outs of stove installation, but does anyone have any insight? I can't be the first person ever to swap their stove.

Okay fair enough. The installer also supplied the stove, but at no point mentioned the warranty would be null and void without a Certificate of Compliance.

In fact, he gave me no warranty documents whatsoever. I've had to find them online.

I think this maybe comes down to very litigious and unreasonable warranty requirements then, on the part of the stove manufacturer.

I'll just have to remember that when I get a new liner installed in a few years I also get another new stove installed at the same time, and insist on the installer providing their HETAS ID and a Certificate of Compliance, so the installation is treated as a whole and meets warranty conditions, etc.

Often older multifuel stoves will have a top loader access for sticking logs in. So you can load coal & smaller logs from the front, but for bigger logs you can chuck 'em in from the top so they fit. So is perhaps that?

I guess it might be a cooking plate? Although cooking plates I've seen before have just been attached to the top of the stove, rather than being part of it, so you can remove them if not needed etc.

If it's a different material then maybe it is a cooking plate? They're usually made of stainless steel for more even heat distribution I think.

The benefit of top loading is, I believe, that it's much easier to fully fill the stove when it's lit, as well as fit in bigger bits of wood - so you can really stuff it full of wood etc. for a long burn. Much harder to do via the front door!

Of course there's no reason it can't be both! ;-)

I'm half tempted to try loading it via the top and see if that's the use.

Of course, this exercise might prove fraught with peril as I'm on pint number 3, and there's more to come, along with some smoke.

So, er, it may potentially be a fucking nightmare if it goes wrong!

I shall be in touch

Haha. I didn't do it in the end. First extremely obvious pointer is that you need to lift the panel up and it's obviously red hot so you'd need some kind of bespoke tool. It has a little hole where you could slide a tool in to lift it.

I might just go back to leaving it alone again

Certainly explains why they think wood burning stoves are an expensive way of heating, it would be if you base all your calculations on delivery in London!

We are trying to use ours less as the effects on air quality are becoming more and more obvious. You only have to go for a walk on a cold still night around here and the air is thick with wood smoke. Can’t be much fun for those with asthma or other breathing issues.

Yeah that's definitely a factor. I got some cheap logs from tesco once. Christ, never again. They were shite and I spent more time constantly reviving a smoked up fire.

Back on the kiln dried ones, and bingo. All clean and a piece of piss to maintain.

Those logs and some smokeless oval coals hardly produce much smoke at all. I go outside and check the chimney and can't see any smoke half the time, never mind smell it.

Don't tell the guardian that though, they'll explode in fury.

Yep - the firewood they flog at silly prices in supermarkets and garage forecourts is usually absolute shite.

I'm lucky enough to have my own source of wood, so I know exactly what type of wood it is, where it's come from, how long it has been seasoned and I always check the moisture content before burning. Like you, I check the chimney once the fire is lit and you wouldn't know that there was a fire burning.

Same with our next door neighbours - they rarely light their stove, but you can tell when they do because there is a constant stream of stinking smoke pouring out of their chimney. Fuck knows what he's burning but it certainly isn't well-seasoned firewood.