Advice please - Multifuel or Wood burning stove instal.

[Gronnuck]

We are considering having a Multifuel or Wood burning stove installed. Our house doesn’t have a chimney so a flue would have to be installed too. We would appreciate any input from any Orger who has been in a similar situation and who recently had a stove installed. Please feel free to PM me. We have loads of questions and there are probably a lot of things we haven't even thought of! We would like to know who did the work, how long it took, what sort of problems should we be aware of, how much prep and cleaning does a daily fire need. All advice would be appreciated.

[david]

We are considering having a Multifuel or Wood burning stove installed. Our house doesn’t have a chimney so a flue would have to be installed too. We would appreciate any input from any Orger who has been in a similar situation and who recently had a stove installed. Please feel free to PM me. We have loads of questions and there are probably a lot of things we haven't even thought of! We would like to know who did the work, how long it took, what sort of problems should we be aware of, how much prep and cleaning does a daily fire need. All advice would be appreciated.

Keep the flue pipe as straight as possible, no 90 degree bends for example.

[John Little]

I agree with David - we did have one with a 90 degree bend which sat in the room so it was very efficient heatwise. However the corner upwards made it difficult to have swept and corrosion took place there.

Now we have a straight flue.

I use anthracite - from a coal merchant who guarantees all coal is from the UK. That means that I can bank the fire up, close the door and close the ventilation which keeps the stove going all night.
In the morning I ratch it and open the ventilation to let the air blow through. When it glows I put coal on and let it catch. I also remove the ash. Then I close it again and that's it until late afternoon.

In the evening I put logs on top of the coal (free you see) and have the stove open with a fireguard in front. I might need to ratch it again and remove more ash.
Then bank up at bedtime.

I have kept ours going for over 6 weeks like this and only let it out because we had to go away from home.


One thing more. If I were doing this again then I would consider a boiler stove feeding into the existing central heating through a Dunsley heat exchange valve. Your multi fuel stove can heat the house and save you a lot of money.

[smithp]

You'll need planning and building warrant. I did the installation myself, except going through the roof, which kept costs down. I think it cost me less than 2k, but only just. You need to have a solid floor made of concrete to support your stove, so if you live in a kit house you need to cut the floor and shutter in concrete or build blocks. The pipe work was the expensive bit: the living room bit can be single skin black pipe, but the stuff just below your ceiling and through the roof needs to be double skin stainless and attached with similar brackets etc. At the time, 3 years ago, this was £100 p/m.
Because I source my own wood I would think that we are very nearly at breakeven point with the stove in relation to the savings in oil.

If you can't install yourself I would suggest the heat centre is the obvious place to go.

[Gronnuck]

Thanks everyone for your input. I'm still doing a bit of research on the internet. Can anyone recommend a good, reliable fire fitter?

[Rheghead]

Because I source my own wood I would think that we are very nearly at breakeven point with the stove in relation to the savings in oil.

well done you, but the retail cost of wood has risen by over 60% in the last few years due to people trying to escape the spiralling prices of coal, oil and gas, I'd say the cost of wood is on a par now.

This is a definite consideration for anyone who is thinking of switching fuels to save money, do it if you can cut your own wood or fetch it yourself with a trailer.

[Beat Bug]

We have a multi fuel burner, and we use peat briquettes most of of time. We also use wood, as when we built our house some trees were in the way. The briquettes are easy to store, as they are uniform in size, and stack neatly in the garage. They also burn to almost nothing, so not very mush ash to dispose of.

[david]

What I did here-droped a flexible flue liner down the lum and backfilled (having shuttered round the bottom of the chimney) with a vericulite/cement mix. Voila, one insulated flue at a fraction of the cost of twinwall.

[r.rackstraw]

I reckon wood is still much the cheapest - you can get it at reasonable price from Dunnet Forest log sale each month.
We take out the wood ash about every 2 months. Modern wood stoves are very efficient but woodburning does require a bit of effort.

[Shaggy]

another idea would be for you to register with SEPA as a waste disposal station. Costs £100 or so per year and this allows you to accept waste wood from factories and businesses etc (often by the skip load) and burn it for yourself. The companies will usually have it delivered to you free of charge as otherwise it costs them to landfill it. I know a couple of people who do this at the moment and their heating bill is the cost of the licence fee and a bit of effort in cutting the wood up to fit in the fire. One of them also weighs in the nails and other odd pieces of metal for scrap 3-4 times a year and this literally makes it free of charge heating

[porshiepoo]

The current building regs re log burners are available all over the net and they will give you all the info with regards to depth of concrete floor to sit a burner on and the distances required between the heat output and anything combustible.

Just a word of caution: Use seasoned wood only. Green wood and/or long periods of low heat burning can produce a buildup of tar creosote on the liner. When that stuff hits a certain temp - poof, you have a chimney fire. The main cause of that stuff though is, like I said, burning green wood and burning at low heat for long periods - such as overnight.

You should also get a metal info plate that you fill in with permanent marker giving the type of liner used and the address etc. This should then be positioned permanently either near the burner or in your electric cupboard or somewhere like that.