wood burning stoves

Horrible polluting and I have heard they are soon to be banned.

My daughter has one and swears by it. It warms the chimney breast keeping the chill off the bedroom above. She leaves the doors open and the heat rises as well. She lives in a 30s style house. She buys large sacks of wood off-cuts which would otherwise go to landfill and the ashes go onto the garden.

My granny had one in her room in my grandfather’s house and the room was very toasty and warm.

After the debacle of storm Arwen in the NE, I suspect more people may install alternative heating if they can. If I had a working chimney I’d certainly think about installing one. At least one room in the house would be warm.

Not sure about the environmental though.

No, they aren’t going to be banned, but the regulations are being tightened up to reduce pollution, here’s a summary.
www.countrylife.co.uk/interiors/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-rules-on-log-burners-wood-burning-stoves-and-open-fires-236496
I live in the country, we aren’t on mains gas, and I love mine, - it’s easy to get wood where I am, so it’s cheap to run compared with oil fired, and it’s very efficient. Mine’s a Clearview, and I’ve got one of those fans for the top which blows the heat out into the room. You do need plenty of storage for wood, I’ve got two stores, because you need to season it before burning if you buy it from a farmer, it’s much more expensive if you buy your wood in small packs from the garage or wherever.
It does save on the heating bills, I don’t have the central heating on in Spring or Autumn, the log burner warms my bedroom as well, as it’s immediately above the lounge.

We have a wood burning stove which saves us putting the gas central heating on so we do save and it’s warmer.We also have lots of trees dropping branches we can burn. The one important thing however is to make sure the wood is dried properly. I believe sellers are only permitted to sell kiln dried wood. We have electric underfloor heating in one room and I dry the wood there. I use a moisture metre to make sure the wood is below 20, but invariably it is O. This means there will be no polluting smoke. We keep the stove door shut and the chimney lined so no fumes.

I loved the one I had in the bungalow - cosy to sit round. But I am glad that I now live in a new-build where I do not have to be bothered with it: emptying the ash, cleaning it out, keeping the window clean, lugging wood into the wood store, lugging wood from the store into the house, making sure the flue was swept each year etc. etc.

I have a broken foot and a slipped disc now, so it is great to be able to just turn a radiator up.

Bear in mind the state of health that you might be in in a few years time when anno domini begins to catch up on you. Sorry to be the voice of doom.

We have one in the living room that we use to supplement the CH on days like yesterday, when it is very cold during the day when we do not usually have the heating on.

We have a very old house where we have a huge brick chimney going up through the centre of the house and if we have the fire lit for several consecutive days, the whole chimney breast warms up like a storage heater and keeps the house cosy and warm day and night. When we had no gas supply for over a week a few Novembers ago, we was very effective for keeping the house warm - and we even cooked on it and boiled kettles

The downside is that you have to check it every half hour or so to see if it needs more logs, which is fine on a Sunday afternoon when you are curled up in a chair in the living room, but yesterday, we had to revive it from embers, because we were both busy doing other things and kept forgetting about it.

Can’t you put the damper on it Monica? I can leave mine on with the damper on overnight and revive it in the morning without relighting it?

We moved recently and inherited one, I don't like them, never did, quite honestly I'd have it taken out but for the mess that might entail. The previous owners left the paperwork as to the installation and it wasn't cheap, so maybe another reason as to why we feel we should keep it. We did buy some of the right kind of wood for it during a cold snap, but my husband finds it a fag preparing the groundwork to get it going and I certainly can't be arsed. Sometimes my step daughter who lives nearby drops round and gets it going because she enjoys farting about with things like wood burning stoves. It kind of reminds me of my early childhood and my parents grovelling about in the grate of the open fire in our dining room when ever they got a fire going, just messy, but good for crumpets, although not so good when my brother chucked a load of conkers on it and they exploded round the room which left my mother in a shrieky state I just feel, given they are polluters they aren't worth the money, time and effort, the woody smell, not altogether unpleasant hangs in the air next day. The few times we were successful in getting a roaring fire going, the effects of that presented on my face, thus focusing my mind on the fact that I still haven't fully passed through the menopause,

We got one installed a couple of years ago and absolutely love it! We live in an old Victorian, hard-to-heat house and it keeps the living room lovely and toasty. And my husband goes out and collects wood for it, so it doesn't cost us anything to use.

We have one in the lounge. Makes it lovely and warm and saves on heating bills. Relaxing to sit and watch a fire too!

Terrible things. I await another burning session close by when the smoke blows in my direction and burns the lining of my nostrils and makes my eyes stream. I've never had that happen in all my life and it means that I can't have any windows open.

We have one in our living room. We have had our current wood supply drying outside for two years, and when that's gone we have identified a supplier who meets the new requirements. It's not our major source of heat in the house but it's so cosy on a dreary cold day and we wouldn't be without it.

We have two, both Charnwood clearview. One is multifuel, burns wood and non polluting coal type fuel.
When we have them on the CH is off.

Love ours, 5 kw heats our chilly single brick Edwardian house so much so we open the doors to allow the warmth to drift upstairs,
We have never paid fir wood, people know we use it so they let us know if they have any and we season it before using it the following winter.

Please don't buy one if you live in a mid terraced house. It will affect your neighbours.

I have recently moved to a bungalow with gas central heating and I really miss the 'hygge' effect of the woodburner but I don't miss the mess!

We used to buy our wood from a local supplier (friend) who delivered the logs cut to our requested size. Our stove was large so we didn't want them too small. DH would do the splitting and stacking them in the store but when he became too ill that task fell to me - on top of cleaning it out etc.

It's important to get a 'cleanburn' stove which circulates air and keeps the glass clean. The wood must also be seasoned. I loved the fact I could boil a kettle and cook stews and casseroles on the top. Very useful in the event of a power cut!

They are no longer a cheap option though. Wood was already increasing in price before I left and that was before the recent fuel hikes. We gained by hardly ever needing back up heating from oil filled radiators though.
Would I have another one? My heart says YES! My head says, 'Don't be daft!'

I worked in the industry for many years and would be happy to help you if you PM me.

I grew up with an open coal fire and a rayburn in the kitchen. Living on a farm, my father would burn anything burnable, like binder twine and rubbish. Even though it warmed the kitchen it would stink! We had a clothes aired on a pulley so clothes would stink too. The dust these fires created was obvious and it added to the never ending cleaning required.
I do love an open fire and appreciate our friends’ log burners but would not have one myself and it would put me off buying a house that had one. Friend’s husband works on a building site so has access to off cuts of wood but these are getting less as more people have log burners.
As others have said, so much easier to simply flip a switch to get heat, especially if you have been away and I think you would need to be home a lot to keep the fire going. Easy to waste fuel if heat is only needed now and again.

Years ago, I lived in 2 houses with them, and I loved them. We had no mains gas in either home. We used to use the smokeless logs from the local garage a lot. However I dread to think of the environmental aspect.

merlotgran They are no longer a cheap option though. Wood was already increasing in price before I left and that was before the recent fuel hikes.

Ours is cheap as we live in the countryside and just collect free wood.

We had one in our previous house, but despite extensive renovations in the current one, we decided against a wood burner. Yes they are really cosy on a Sunday afternoon, and sometimes I wish we had installed one, but then I remember the fuss and faff of lighting it, the huge amounts of outside storage to store logs at various stages of drying out, cleaning the glass, emptying the ashes....and I am glad we didn't. Oh, and the enormous spiders which would live in the log basket!!

My daughter had one installed when she moved into her 4 bedroom house. She leaves the lounge door open and its heats the whole house. She loves hers and would never part with it.

The new ones are very environmentally friendly. Even with older wood burners you have to be careful to burn only kiln dried wood.
Love all the cleaning and setting a new fire. Ours is very efficient and we have often heated soup on the top.

I love them, we have always had them in every house we have ever lived in, and not to be able to have one would be a real dealbreaker for me.
We have three in this house, one we light every day, it’s a clear view and very controllable, it will stay going while I’m at work all day, one we light at the weekends, and the one in the dining room probably only at Christmas.
Every morning before I go to work I bring in a basket of logs, and yes, sometimes it’s wet and cold, but definitely worth it.