Woodburner

[warrenl]

Hi, Anyone out there who has a woodburner and could tell us how efficient they find it and also the cost of running one for the whole year. We are looking at one as a supplement to our current heating for one large room.

[david]

The modern ones are very efficient and hardly produce much ash, so you only need to clean it out once a month, however they do burn a lot of wood. Ours is 8kw and during the cold winter we were burning a load every 2 months @ £125. You need good seasoned wood and somwhere to stack it and keep it dry with air flowing through and around your stack. We find that peat is a lot cheaper at £160 a load which lasted 6 months, and the peat stays in the whole night, the downside is the amount of ash it produces and you need to clean it out every day. Hope this helps

[essex boy]

A 'good' modern stove would be 80-90% efficient with dry logs. As for running costs, 1 tonne of DRY wood has the same energy content as 400lt of oil so if burnt efficiently wood is much cheaper than oil heating! So please get a good stove and not some cheap Chinese thing! It won't be cheap but it will last or years and you will get more heat for your log money. One other thing, don't burn treated waste wood in you new stove as the chemicals will destroy it.

[binnes]

We have one as well and they are very good but to be honest, I am not sure they are the most cost effective way of heating your house. In addition to this, the one which we have is fairly labour intensive in terms of keeping it going and there is a definate art to keeping it alight over night. Unfortunately though, when they do go our overnight the next morning the stove is still very hot indeed and this of course makes the task of cleaning it out and getting it ready for the next day harder that if you had managed to keep it alight. Assuming that you want to keep it alight overnight, you need to make sure you have one suitable for 'overnight burn'. Ours uses coal btw.

[Beat Bug]

We have a Stanley Oisin, which we bought in Ireland and brought back with us. It was cheaper than the Aga Little Wenlock (both identical). At first we used logs, which burned very quickly, but now we mainly burn peat briquettes, which are easy to store. We also had several trees on our land which had fallen down over the years, and they're all now cut to size, and will keep us in fuel for a few years! The secret is not to fill it to capacity and keep it full all evening. You'll get to know how to regulate the amount of fuel you put on at any one time. We generally don't put any more briquettes or logs on after about 10pm, and occasionally it's still warm in the morning!

[Errogie]

Beware of buying a wood stove with too big a water jacket for domestic hot water and radiators. I have seen an example where so much heat was bled out of the fire by the wrap around water jacket that that it couldn't acheive a hot enough combustion to burn the wood efficiemtly. If you don't get an high enough tempreature all the oils and tars don't burn properly and you have one trendy pollutant!

[Rheghead]

There are no end of negatives with burning wood. You need to dry out your wood and have the space and shelter to do it. Damp wood burns colder and will rot the cast iron liners which cost a fortune. It is not as convenient as gas and oil, you have to go and carry it in which may be difficult for someone who find it difficult to carry heavy loads. The ash needs to be regularly cleaned out but it does provide a good source of nutrients for strawberries and other fruit. It doesn't burn as hot as coal, gas and oil so has a lower energy to weight ratio. The price of wood has shot up considerably in the last 12 months as people are moving over to wood in a desperate attempt to escape rising fossil fuel costs and trying to be 'green'. It will get to the point where burning wood for fuel will be unsustainable like with other fuels.

On the plus side, there is nothing like the smell of a lovely log fire.

[Errogie]

Just one more bit of information. It is predicted that UK timber will be in short supply in 10 years time as demand for wood fuel increases. The new Balcas pellet fuel plant at Invergordon is competing with Norboard at Dalcross for small roundwood and there is a race to thin and fell plantations while the money is good. I see a lot of timber lorries heading south from northern and far west plantations and wonder at the fuel being burnt to deliver the raw wood for processing.

I remember the rush for propane gas and then it ended up as expensive as oil. Wood fuel management requires a big management committment and if you don't have the storage space and have reasonable fitness and are practical re ash, bins and chimmney maintenance it may not be for you.

[northener]

The modern ones are very efficient and hardly produce much ash, so you only need to clean it out once a month, however they do burn a lot of wood. Ours is 8kw and during the cold winter we were burning a load every 2 months @ £125. You need good seasoned wood and somwhere to stack it and keep it dry with air flowing through and around your stack. We find that peat is a lot cheaper at £160 a load which lasted 6 months, and the peat stays in the whole night, the downside is the amount of ash it produces and you need to clean it out every day. Hope this helps

That (the wood) is about on par with our coal fired central heating.

We get through two bags of Ecobrite a week during the winter at £16 per bag.

[Birons]

We have just taken delivery of four different types of multi fuel burners.

I think with the onset of fuel price rises more people are looking at an alternative.