Wood Burning Stove

I have one and I love it. I use it in early autumn before the central heating goes off, in spring when the heating has been turned off, on the odd cold day.
I winter, it's used if I'm home during the day, as my heating is timed for morning and evening.
It sounds expensive - could you ask another place for a quote?
Finally, if you have room, you will find you can receive gifts of wood from friends who have done tree work, etc, which are fine for burning after storage ( probably two years)
You will become a Hawkeye on finding things for kindling ( pine cones, old reeds from reed diffusers,) and find your self hoarding newspaper for fire lighting and ash clearing.

I had one in my previous home. The house was old and we didn't have the 'featherings' checked before it was installed. This meant the bricks inside the chimney collapsed and we had a terrible mess in the lounge when it all caved in due to the intense heat.
We then had to pay for insulation to be done so the bricks didn't overheat again, although we didn't pay nearly that amount of money.
Lovely though the fire looked I wouldn't have another installed. The smoke from wood fires, if you don't buy the expensive environmentally friendly wood, is highly polluting for the neighbourhood.
Just get a nice looking fake gas fire if all you want is a cosy look.

Funnily enough, there was a long thread on this yesterday, but for some reason I can’t find it.

Lots of comments - very mixed opinions.

*. It’s just popped up - under House and Home, under ‘Woodburners’.

We had a quote earlier this year, the actual burner was £1,500, the associated works, plus VAT bought it up to £5,410.
We declined.

That cost would seem about right, however it could be brought down by choosing a cheaper stove. The big names such as Charnwood and Morso will cost more than some of the less well known ones which will be all built to the same safety standards. But do get a DEFRA approved one.
It is essential that a wood burning stove is fitted by an approved HETAS Engineer.
Fitting the chimney liner could involve a scaffolding tower, so that makes it cost a bit more.

Wowsers! Thats expensive...ours was bought and fitted for 1.5k in 2017

Mine is a wide one with a big door. Big mistake!
It looks lovely and gives out a huge amount of heat, but its impossible to refuel it without a massive amount of smoke being released into the room, so if you haven't already bought your stove do avoid the long, wide, oblong ones.
I'd say your quote sounds at the top end of average but it does depend on the amount of work that needs doing.
(the photo was taken of the cat but is the only one I can find that has the stove on it)

Ex dancer, have you tried opening it via a tiny crack first so that the pressures equalise, then slowly open wider to re-fuel

I have learnt a lot about my modern stove esp about top-down lighting. No more ingress of smoke, not ever. The flue needs to warm up first to get rid of the plug of cold air

I have a stovax multi-fuel stove and only burn properly seasoned logs or smokeless ovals, depending if I want the stove to `simmer` all night as in a heavy freeze. Never both together. To light the ovals, I use a grenadier fire starter. The logs, I only need 3 eco lighters, made from waxed straw

The flue needs to be really sound, my sweep told me that mine was not metal, I was thankful for that as metal can corrode. Mine is a pre-cast balanced flue, a new build house, built by a very good builder

I think the cost is reasonable but care is needed. My ds had his chimney lined and three years later, it leaks so they never use their morso log stove

Ex dancer, have you tried opening it via a tiny crack first so that the pressures equalise, then slowly open wider to re-fuel

Ours didn't have such a wide door as in your photo, but I definitely found this tip worked.
I could never convince my son though 🙄

beautybumble check with your council's Environmental Health department if they have any restrictions in place regarding what stove you can have fitted.

karmalady thank you, but the installer went through all that with me, and specifically instructed me to slowly and gently open the door a crack to equalise the pressure. He also said to open the draught control wide at the same time. This was before he'd actually lit the fire though.
I have tried this and it doesn't work.
I have tried it with the draught closed too.
(it works with my son's normal-sized wood burner.)
I had the installer back twice, and even he had to admit defeat, making excuses like our house being "under a hill" and "in a wind tunnel", - we are rural.
I've found if I light a small fire at one end of the box and pile another unlit fire at the other, leaving a gap in between, that after a few hours the heat from the lit fire ignites the unlit fire at the other side and lasts most of the evening. (unless we stay up late, by which time the room is well warm anyway)
But I'm not happy about it.

Louisa1523 you were very lucky to buy and install your stove for that price. The 4,000 quoted by beautybumble is about right I would have thought.
We replaced our woodburner with a pellet stove. Much more manageable and no wood to chop.

We had a pellet stove in our last house, a purpose built eco house. It did not have a big hopper and had to be filled each day in winter, the pellet bags weighed 15 or 20kg so were hard for an older woman to lift. They were delivered in bulk and we had to move them to store on a pallet in our garage

Servicing each year cost a fair bit and some years the pellets were difficult to source. Horse people also bought them and got them vat free so we could not access these pellets, hence the bulk buying early in the year for winter

The stove generated enough heat because of the house super insulation but the flame window was quite small and did not have the attraction of a log fire.

During my last year there as a widow, I just used electric heaters, which saved me sourcing the pellets plus the weekly cleaning. The specific pellets for stoves are not cheap

Pellets are easy to source here and we buy smaller bags karmalady my husband picks up a few bags when he shops at the supermarche. We have found it efficient, maybe not as attractive as a woodburner but easier to clean etc. It's a lot easier for us to manage as we reach our 80s. No central heating here.

sodapop

Louisa1523 you were very lucky to buy and install your stove for that price. The 4,000 quoted by beautybumble is about right I would have thought.
We replaced our woodburner with a pellet stove. Much more manageable and no wood to chop.

I don’t know if the Louisa1523 was lucky, or whether it was the fact that it was installed in 2017 that made it seem cheap. It was probably classed as expensive in those days too.

They are going to be banned in council houses in Scotland .