Multifuel burner for my living room.

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Funkykipper said:
Looks like I may have to get a survey then to find out what I can fit.
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Find yourself a good independent HETAS registered engineer to come round and measure up to get the right size stove and specify the flue system, too many barstool experts out there these days , personally i would recommend the Charnwood range of stoves ,uk made and good quality, shame you a bit far north as i am a Hetas engineer and would of sorted it out for you, use the find an engineer section on the Hetas website to find an independent
 
baggyjim said:
Find yourself a good independent HETAS registered engineer to come round and measure up to get the right size stove and specify the flue system, too many barstool experts out there these days , personally i would recommend the Charnwood range of stoves ,uk made and good quality, shame you a bit far north as i am a Hetas engineer and would of sorted it out for you, use the find an engineer section on the Hetas website to find an independent
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Cheers Jim.

Dave did mention the HETAS Certificate earlier.

It's all coming together now. :clap2: :clap2: There's a fella about a mile away from me according to the HETAS site.
 
I have a morso and for a 4.5kw stove it cant half pack a punch! run it on a mixture of logs and coal, 10year guarantee on casting, paid about 550 for it 2years ago, whatever you do don't buy a cheap **** one it wont last and wont through much heat out as the cast is ****e quality! you buy cheap you buy twice.
 
Vincemcdonald said:
You're better off buying a smaller wood burner and running it hard, than a larger one and running it with the air doors shut. Ideally, the chimney temperature should be above the dew point of the flue gas otherwise you will create creosote inside the chimney leading to fouling.
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Thats what i do, door shut to get it roaring then doors open its like a furnace in 10 mins, some you have to wait a hour for them to warm up.
 
Unless you've got access to a LOT of free wood, gas will be cheaper. Check this discussion on Arbtalk "Real World Heating costs"

We have wood as a primary fuel, we use about 30 cube a year (imagine storing that lot somewhere dry) check the price of hardwood logs around you, cheapest I can buy round here is £85 a cube, most are pricing above £100 a cube. And that's if you can find anyone with any seasoned logs left in the middle of a hard winter, you have to be well in front stocking up through the year or pay higher prices in winter.

There ain't no such thing as free logs.

A Sankey full of STOLEN wood will only last you a week, add in the fuel to steal it, the cost of the tools, and your time to process it into logs, and the space to store it while it seasons... ain't free by a long shot...
 
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I've been looking into buying a wood burner too as my other half decided she wanted one - takes her back to her childhood in Belarussian forests. The place where she wanted to install it we have been told is a non starter without major structural alterations, so there's me thinking we've saved some money, but then she decided that the external wall, where I initially suggested and was told was a daft idea, is actually now a good idea, so it looks like I may have to research a bit more.

Apparently we need a DEFRA approved stove to burn wood as we are in a smokeless area, and the external flue pipe is gonna cost loads as the manufacturers are not embarrassed by adding additional zeros in their price lists. :eek:
 
Pumpy said:
Unless you've got access to a LOT of free wood, gas will be cheaper. Check this discussion on Arbtalk "Real World Heating costs"

We have wood as a primary fuel, we use about 30 cube a year (imagine storing that lot somewhere dry) check the price of hardwood logs around you, cheapest I can buy round here is £85 a cube, most are pricing above £100 a cube. And that's if you can find anyone with any seasoned logs left in the middle of a hard winter, you have to be well in front stocking up through the year or pay higher prices in winter.

There ain't no such thing as free logs.

A Sankey full of STOLEN wood will only last you a week, add in the fuel to steal it, the cost of the tools, and your time to process it into logs, and the space to store it while it seasons... ain't free by a long shot...
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Most folks would use a fraction of that, and there is free wood you have to keep your eyes peeled, offer to step in with the saw when someone tips you off of a tree they want to get rid of, freecycle etc, my woodstore is half full of ash & birch, plus some conifer gathered this way; yes you have to season it all apart from the ash but I've only bought a couple of builders bags in the last two years to top it up, and I rarely use the central heating.

For the Defra limitation mentioned above, as long as your stove is approved to use in a smokeless area, such as my Morso 04
 
darius said:
Most folks would use a fraction of that
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if by "most folks" if you mean people who only have a woodburner to look good, or to be "green", and only light it now n again, when they're off work, you'd have a point. Otherwise you'd need a LOT of wood. If you take the cost of the stove and installation into account, it makes it an expensive luxury just to look good a few days a year.

If you light a logburner for 12 hours you're going to use about 1/7 of a cube, or a large wheelbarrow full, twice that for softwood, it's all relative.

and there is free wood you have to keep your eyes peeled,
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I said there's no such thing as free logs, and I stand by that. If wood were really free there's be no fuel costs, or labor costs, to collect it, process it, and season it.

offer to step in with the saw when someone tips you off of a tree they want to get rid of
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Do you have any idea how many professional tree surgeons are killed and seriously injured each year? If the tree is small enough for an amateur to cut down, there'd be next to no wood in it, if it does have enough wood in it to take on the job for the wood, is it worth your life? or the cost of replacing someones greenhouse/conservatory when you feck it up with no PL insurance? Is your time worth nothing? If not it's not free is it:rolleyes:

freecycle etc,
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and they deliver it for free too do they? If not it's not free is it?

my woodstore is half full of ash & birch, plus some conifer gathered this way
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And how big is your woodstore? I suspect it holds 1 or 2 cube max, i.e. next to nowt.

yes you have to season it all apart from the ash
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just because green ash will burn, doesn't mean you don't have to season it. Green Ash will not burn very efficiently, a lot of the energy will be used up driving the water out of it, therefore provide less heat - I know this because when I first installed our first log burner I could not get any seasoned logs for love nor money, so I got part seasoned ash (35% MC) and we froze for the whole winter. Burning green Ash in a smokeless zone will also attract fines if it's reported, regardless weather it is burnt in an approved appliance, wood over 20% MC will not burn efficiently, so you get smoke, whatever wood it is.

but I've only bought a couple of builders bags in the last two years to top it up, and I rarely use the central heating.
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Whatever, gas is still cheaper than chasing round trying to find "free" wood at any meaningful quantity, or buying it in.

So I repeat, unless you have access to a LOT of free wood, gas is cheaper. This has been bashed out in numerous threads on Arbtalk over the last few years, the numbers don't lie.
 
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Pumpy said:
Do you have any idea how many professional tree surgeons are killed and seriously injured each year? If the tree is small enough for an amateur to cut down, there's be next to no wood in it, if it does have enough wood in it to take on the job for the wood, is it worth your life? or the cost of replacing someones greenhouse/conservatory when you feck it up with no PL insurance? Is your time worth nothing? If not it's not free is it:rolleyes:
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i agree with everything else you said apart from that.

more than likely the tree's to be cut up will be windfalls, and yes they do have safety issues, but we aren't talking about climbing or felling large trees; just chopping them on the ground.

you need to be careful, but it's not any worse than being careful when working on/under a vehicle imo. we still use migs, grinders and all the rest.

other comments :p

opening up the doors on a stove seems silly to me, that's the whole point of a stove vs an open fire.

funky, read the other multi fuel stove threads posted recently, you can't just go sticking a cheap stove in. you need to comply with the regs, and a proper install can cost you upto 3.5k depending on what you have already.

also for that price, i'd go secondhand with a good make. not some cheap chinese tat. the difference is night and day and makes a massive difference in fuel consumption.

however, if it's just for show.. go gas. your missus will soon get annoyed with all the ash dust and farting about
 
This I don't agree with at all

Do you have any idea how many professional tree surgeons are killed and seriously injured each year? If the tree is small enough for an amateur to cut down, there'd be next to no wood in it, if it does have enough wood in it to take on the job for the wood, is it worth your life? or the cost of replacing someones greenhouse/conservatory when you feck it up with no PL insurance? Is your time worth nothing? If not it's not free is it


I am not a profession tree surgeon at all . But have cut several thousand trees upto 48" dia for sale as saw logs and sold fire wood, and have used wood as primary heat source since 1980 up until 3 years ago
 
Well, it's all relative isn't it :)

Hmm windfalls, maybe, if there's no tension at all in the wood, and there's absolutely no chance of it pinching, otherwise you risk kickback from the chainsaw, there's been a couple of bad kickback incidents on arbtalk this year, one was pretty bad went up into the chaps collarbone, and these are guys who know what they're doing. There was a barberchair incident that killed a lad, the Ash tree was only 8" dia.

I am not a profession tree surgeon at all . But have cut several thousand trees upto 48" dia for sale as saw logs and sold fire wood, and have used wood as primary heat source since 1980 up until 3 years ago
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so you have a lot of experience = qualified in my book. And if you are selling the wood, that makes you a professional wood cutter :p

Would you lend an inexperienced lady friend of yours a big chainsaw and point her at a 48" dia log, even on the ground, and walk away leaving her to get on with it? Seriously?
 
Pumpy said:
Well, it's all relative isn't it :)

Hmm windfalls, maybe, if there's no tension at all in the wood, and there's absolutely no chance of it pinching, otherwise you risk kickback from the chainsaw, there's been a couple of bad kickback incidents on arbtalk this year, one was pretty bad went up into the chaps collarbone, and these are guys who know what they're doing. There was a barberchair incident that killed a lad, the Ash tree was only 8" dia.



so you have a lot of experience = qualified in my book. And if you are selling the wood, that makes you a professional wood cutter :p



Would you lend an inexperienced lady friend of yours a big chainsaw and point her at a 48" dia log, even on the ground, and walk away leaving her to get on with it? Seriously?
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Hell no but they can pick up the small pieces when mens work is done;) And a 065 sthil has a bit of torque
 
Pumpy said:
Well, it's all relative isn't it :)

Hmm windfalls, maybe, if there's no tension at all in the wood, and there's absolutely no chance of it pinching, otherwise you risk kickback from the chainsaw, there's been a couple of bad kickback incidents on arbtalk this year, one was pretty bad went up into the chaps collarbone, and these are guys who know what they're doing. There was a barberchair incident that killed a lad, the Ash tree was only 8" dia.
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you get kickback with an angle grinder or circ saw as well.. all tools like this have risks. just ask a mate for help, watch youtube, be careful and don't be stupid and don't bite off more than you can chew.

if you are going to stand in the plane and start lobbing branches off above your head, then well.. darwinism.

arborists always seem to be desperate for work, so i take all the scare stories with a pinch of salt. :p
 
I only had the hook for 8 weeks after they sewed it back on, but it went black and started rejecting me:lol: so I had to go back in and have the bloody thing cut off again :rolleyes:

got so out of shape sitting around on my ass for 7 months that my back went out really bad, so bad I had another 10 months recovery once I got off the morphine...

be careful out there :eek:

Hehe, I had to recover that boat for the EA, it wasn't mine ;) The Snake came out of my veg bed, shoulda heard the wife screaming... thinking about it she screams quite a lot around my antics :lol:

True story :lol:
 
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Pumpy said:
I only had the hook for 8 weeks after they sewed it back on, but it went black and started rejecting me:lol: so I had to go back in and have the bloody thing cut off again :rolleyes:

got so out of shape sitting around on my ass for 7 months that my back went out really bad, so bad I had another 10 months recovery once I got off the morphine...

be careful out there :eek:
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bloody hell, all ok now though? how did it happen, just caught up on some branches?
 
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