woodburners

Thank you Merlot not seen one of those before - think I may well get one.

Ooh, thank you all - that certainly gives food for thought! I'm sure hubby will be thrilled when I suggest a spot of "research" this bank holiday!!

coal totally illegal where we live

We live in an older cottage on top of a hill and need to light the wood burner even on most summer evenings. OH has two outside in his workshops to keep him warm in winter. A log burner is a lot cleaner than an open fire I find, and with a good draft up the chimney we do not get fumes or smoke in the room.

We can supplement our logs with coal in winter, it puts out more warmth, and getting one with a flat top is great back up if there is a power cut so at least we can heat water, put a casserole on etc.

same with us- everyone who comes to our house just loves our wood burner. Can't afford a new kitchen due to poor exchange rate and fears about Brexit- but the woodburner makes up for it all and gives great warmth in more ways than one.

We have two, one multi fuel and another, small wood burner. The multi fuel allows you to build a layer of anthracite to start off and add wood during the evening, then we add more anthracite to keep it in over night.

They are great for heating the whole house, we have spent NYE in Scotland with central heating off and windows open, but the wood burning stove on!

DH would not have a house without one.

x

perhaps different types- ours is all ash and beech from our local woods- 10 year old would be far too dry and burn much too fast- we used some 5 year old this winter- and it was very quick burning.

Welshwife

One of these

Merlot does it just sit on the top surface or do you need a stove with an enclosed shelf.

A 12Kw stove whacks out a lot of heat, jingl so it multi-tasks. Saves a lot of electricity. Next winter I'm going to buy one of those cast iron thingies for doing jacket potatoes. You stick it on the stove top first thing in the morning (providing you've lit it) and you've got baked spuds in time for lunch!

Ging, Gang, Goolie

We have a wood burner too -a Godin - and when I light it in Oct it rarely goes out till March. I prefer burning oak as I find that burns the best. You do need to make sure it is solid cast iron and not steel as the iron retains the heat better than the steel. We buy a few stere of wood from a local farmer and usually have some from our garden from pruning or storm damage and dry that out for a couple of years.
We are in fact considering changing ours for a pellet burning stove as it is easier to load etc and the prices of the stoves and pellets have come down quite a lot. They are also prettier now than when they originally came out.

No it burns very slowly. Depends what it is though - ours is ash, beech, oak, apple etc

Jingl- yes perhaps slower to blast heat from walls- but then it retains heat for a long time after burning has stopped.

10 year- isn't that too dry and burns too quickly? We thought 2 years was the best.

Ours is 11kw and also has a flat top so we can cook on it if necessary. We have the central heating on for half an hour in the morning, then light the woodburner and it heats lounge, kitchen, three bedrooms and two bathrooms for the rest of the day and night even in the coldest weather. We buy ten-year seasoned wood from our neighbour and use about eight cubic metres a year. The stacking, chopping and carrying of logs is a chore, but keeps you fit!
We also have a pellet burner in our little house in the garden. That is far less work, very energy efficient, but needs electricity (cost of a light bulb but doesn't work in power cuts) and is noisy.

!!!

merlot that's camping! I think you may be a frustrated Boy Scout.

I've heard of those granite clad ones, but doesn't the granite stop the heat getting out into the room?

How long is a piece of string? Wood burners come in all sizes and types - ours is 8 kw, and is in the kitchen- it heats downstairs then we open doors and it heats upstairs- it is granit clad, so acts as a storage heater too, and it looks great (from Hase) - and we live in a rural area where beech and ash logs are very reasonable in price. Do you have a chimney- or will you need an outside flue?

This is ours.....Boiling a kettle, cooking a casserole and making a pan of leek and potato soup on a very cold and frosty Saturday last winter.

You mustn't burn any 'green' wood. It must all be well seasoned.

And they send out harmful particles into the surrounding neighbourhood. Might be alright in an isolated bit of countryside, but they are not good in residential places.

They eat the logs at a rapid pace too. I like to be able to switch my electric 'wood burner' on for a few minutes, to have a quick warm up in front of in the winter.

There is a lot being said these days about how not very healthy they are. Not even the clean burn ones. My DD has a clean burn, and her living room often smells smokey. That's what put me off getting one installed.

I love ours but OH wanted it so he has to do the cleaning, laying, logging etc. It isnt much bother and is easy to clean. I wish we'd got one you could put a coffee pot on. We've also got a little fan thing that sits on top and circulatesvthe heat round the room.

We've had them in 2 different houses, one old and one new-build, and they suit us very well. You have to set the stove every time you use it, of course, so that's more time-consuming than a gas fire, and you need to clean the glass front with ash on a wet bit of newspaper (how often depends on the type you have) and of course the chimney needs to be swept, annually in our case.

They give out more heat than an open fire, we find, and are also safer; you can go out or go to bed with the stove closed down and it should stay on until you come back (our current chimney draws better than to old one and so the stove is more likely to go out at night, but it's a modern house so not a problem) and there is no danger of sparks.

If you get one which sits on the hearth rather than being set right back in the chimney, not only do you get more of the heat into the room, but if the power goes of you can boil a kettle or cook something like pasta (we have done both successfully), which is reassuring to know in a cold winter.

In summary, I would say that that a woodturner would be less convenient but warmer than your old gas fire, and how cheap to run depends on whether you have access to cheap wood. I pick up sticks as I come through the park and never buy or chop kindling. You'll gather that this is a recommendation!