Following on from the recent post on firewood, this prompted me to add this one!
As the price of heating oil grows ever higher and shows no sign of ever decreasing, me and my father have discussed and are now in the early planning stages of fitting a multifuel stove to help heat the house.
I can obtain a virtually limitless amount of smashed pallets and wooden packing blocks for little or nothing from several of the local haulage companies and through the nature of my garden/grounds maintenance works I personally generate a quantity of tree wood/old fence posts etc.
Just wondered if anyone else has a multifuel or wood burning stove and has any experiences to share?
We were thinking multifuel as they be left to burn overnight on a small amount of smokeless fuel and then 'opened up' again the next morning without having to leave them to get cold, clean out and relight.
Aarrow Stoves were the ones that we were particularly looking at (Aarrow Ecoburn 9), which outputs approx 8KW of heat at 'full chat'.
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Your chosen stove will operate most efficiently if you use the best quality well seasoned logs you can obtain. Pallets and old fence posts are not ideal really.
I have a friend who installs high end multi-fuel stoves, the sort of kit that costs a packet.. and he's amazed that the customers will then burn any old rubbish in them. Think engines and low quality oil etc, false economy.
I think the biggest mistake you can make is to get a stove with too much output for the room and so you are trying to run it on low = crap up the flue. Are you connecting it to radiators etc? That can be a very expensive job if you dont have the necessary water tanks already there (replacing a combi for example)
Hi Adam,
8 KW sounds very big (unless you have a massive room) we have a 4.5kw which is big enough to heat our downstairs. we put a log burner in last year and it is the best thing I have ever done to our house. I burn seasoned logs that I collect through out the year,I also burn the hardwood crates that natural stone comes in. I do burn soft wood but in small amounts.
Do some more research first before buying, www.stovesonline.co.uk
We still havent turned on the heating yet,result!!
we have a morso like this one http://www.whatstove.co.uk/morso-stoves/morso-04-stove.html it heats up the house ,we only use the central heating when its very cold up stairs ,it bloody ace ,shop about and you can make big savings ,also its well worth having the flue lined by a proper fitter so the stove draws well .
the what stove site is useful for reviews ,lots of sellers on the internet we found the best price and went too our local stove shop and he matched the deal
I picked up a secondhand wood burner 10 years ago for £75, hardly used as the previous owner used in as a feature! She's still going strong and has saved us many £££'s. I am always on the lookout for good wood but have to resort to pallets on occasions and as the other Colin says, the hard wood crates from Natural stone burn well - you have to concentrate tho with the chain saw, far too many metal fixings! We have also had our chimney lined.
Very satisfying form of heating!
Hi,
We've got a Clearview stove which is fantastic. It's the second one we've owned, in the previous house we had a Morso because our local stove shop didn't stock Clearview. When we moved here we got a Clearview again. They are British made, from steel not cast iron and are a bit pricey, but we think it's worth it to pay the extra. We haven't had our heating on yet and yes the glass stays clean. 100% recommend.
Its been a while since i added to this, but the project has been completed now! In the end, we installed an Aarrow Ecoburn 11 (11KW) output from this supplier http://www.stovesareus.co.uk/catalog/aarrow-ecoburn-11-multifuel-wo... This is NOT a cheap stove, but is British made and fully welded steel, not cast iron - it also carries a lifetime guarantee on the casing and welds. Its also a more modern looking stove than many of the other models that are available.
Installing this stove meant also installing a twin wall insulated chimney (as the whole house was oil heated and had no chimney. Recommendation were sought from a qualified HETAS engineer (a friend of a neighbour) as to the size of flue required etc, distance from roof height and all necessary regulations were dealt with.
Some may say, why such a big stove - and it IS big, not only in output but also in size. The reasons were this - smaller stoves are on 5" flue, this then needs upsizing with all kinds of connectors to get it to the right size for a 6" chimney . Some of these flue pipes and connectors can be a eye watering £250 EACH!
Looking around locally, I managed to obtain a secondhand entire 6" twin wall flue complete chimney system, consisting of 3.75 metres of twin wall flue, top hat cap and an angled connector for only £300 all in, admittedly it does have minor cosmetic damage but it is barely noticeable.
Another reason is for the larger stove is it permits larger logs sizes to be placed into the firebox and is actually more thermally efficent. This stove will a maximum log size of 18" which means less time spent on the chainsaw and less time refuelling.
Also it has a higher output to the back boiler, which is available as an optional extra and may eventually get fitted.
Using the stove carefully and working a system of opening and closing various doors throughout the house has enabled us to cut use of the oil boiler down to 1.5 hours per day (on hot water only)
Over the last two and a half weeks since installing the stove, to heat the house has cost two bags of 'stove nuts' from the local coal merchant - £14......plus lots of wood....
Some photos of our eventual installation are attached - nothing quite like warming your feet in front of the fire!!