The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Renewables => Topic started by: Goldcraig on January 24, 2012, 07:19:52 am
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Hi..we have a coal fire in our cottage at present but are due to renovate, therfore I was wondering what is considered the best source of heat?
I like the coal fire but fear we may be losing most of the heat up the lum, a friend prefers wood burners any day...
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i installed a woodburner in autumn, in anticipation of a cold winter, it makes so much difference, you lose 80%of the heat up the chimney with a coal fire.
there are sites where you can work out what heat output you need for the size room you have.
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WOODBURNER! it's so much nicer to deal with and altho I love open fires you will really relish the extra heat and the ease of leaving it lit all safe.
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We put a log burning stove in last March. It runs 8 radiators over 3 floors with some of the circuit going out into the barn and returning into the house upstairs. The pump is behind the stove/wall in our utility room and we have an expansion tank in the loft ( vented to outside).The stove has a thermostat that you can adjust- this controls the flow of air into the back of the burner. This is OK but if you have no fuel (wood) then despite lots of oxygen it will not heat up.
Essentially - don't expect the instant heat or temperature regulation with wood that you get with gas or oil and keep the stove on all day for the building to soak up the heat. We are very pleased with the system and the heat output is great.
Key point - have you got space near the house to store all the seasoned logs and can you stack about a cubic meter of wood next to the fire to keep it going all day.
There is lot to consider when buying a stove but others on this site have previously discussed this too. Size of stove vs room size and space to heat. some have backboilers for hotwater with other fuel used in the summer months. Key is the need for a header/expansion tank if the stove is running rads.
Hope you have a good supply of wood and it is not too expensive there.
Cheers Martin
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I do love the romantic idea of an open fire. We have a woodburner which throws out the heat, especially if you use some coal on it too. And from a safety point of view it's good to know you can go out and not worry about it.
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it mines 14kw and i can run all day on about a third of a m3
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yes I ex agerated about the space needed ( woodt burned a day) for an indoor wood store but it is worth considering.
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Both! We have recently replaced both our stoves and found its a struggle to buy dedicated woodburners - most are multifuel so you will have that flexibilty if you choose. Saying that we made sure that we chose ones that were more suited to woodburning (large firebox, fine low great to allow accumulation of ash if needed). We have one clearview (Fab, highly adjustable, VERY meagre on log demands, Very expensive at £1050) and one Prity boiler stove (huge, not very adjustable, bit industrial loking, but absolutely fabulous as a main cental heating boiler stove and a real bargain at £400). I have a couple of bags of coal ready which I will use if we ever get a winter here and I need to keep the fires in overnight, but both been running lovely on wood all 'winter'. Fitting was a fortune though - to have our chimneys redone and central heating plumbed to the stove (plus new tanks radiators etc)was ove £5K. ouch.
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This is what I love about this forum...quick, worthwhile points of view...fantastic..
We have oil heating for radiators and water, coal fire is not essential and more "cosmetic" than anything, but still want it to be efficient...like the idea of wood burners and coal...
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half a scuttle of coal in mine lasts about 8hours with it shutdown. so nice to get up to a warm house.
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Certainly a stove will give you much more warmth than an open fire.
I burn both wood and coal in mine. I like wood in that I like the flame, I like the ash and I like the fact that I have a great heap of it from chopping down an old rotten tree.
But. If I really need to be warm, I need to put coal in the stove, at least for some of the evening - it puts out way more heat than wood.
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Wood
We've got two, and they don't cool down overnight and do make the place cosy which the radiators don't. When it's cold we get through 20kg of wood a day, recently about 8kg. I buy compressed sawdust logs for stock and then scour the area for stuff to cut.
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please ... recommend me an affordable place to look at woodburners :)
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its not the burner that costs its the fitting of the flue, you can get a good 14kw burner for 400. doubt you could get the flue done for less than 1k, unless you did it yourself of course.
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we would perhaps be fitting it where there is currently a gas fire, but used to be an open fire. the chimmney is just capped I think..
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We have 2 open fires and heaps and heaps of wood, the chimney pot from our Inglenook fire fell off and as we also need repairs, we may consider a wood burner but not sure it would spoil the look of the room...I do think we would find it more economical but then again, we only light the fire when we have the heating on low or its very cold!!!!!!!
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I would urge you to get a wood burner if you have lots of wood. We run it all the time and keep the central hearing down. When it was an open fire it produced a bucket of ash a day and draughts like Siberia. Now it's homely and cosy - and much cheaper to run
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i installed a stove about 20 years ago which is dual fuel. I usually used as a woodburner, but when its really cold and I want to keep the fire in overnight, I burn coal. Just need to move the grates at the bottom which takes seconds and can be done whilst still burning. One of my better purchases.
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I've got a multifuel stove 8.9kw
A Firefox. Great value and it burns wood and coal! Important to have multi options in case you run out of one!
I fitted my stove myself. Technically 'illegal' but I did it properly and fitted a carbon monoxide alarm to be ultra safe. Total cost of installation and stove £1000.
Fuel bill for oil (drafty old farmhouse with poor insulation) went from 2,200l of oil two winters to 500l last winter (coldest winter in 100yrs!!)
Still have an open fire in the other room... Inefficient as hell compared with the stove!
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Yes, they are very economical but can be expensive to install. I had no chimney so needed a special double skinned pipe and fire insulated wall panel as well as a reinforced concrete plinth - total was £4500 for all work, materials and fire (a well made more expensive one as some of the cheaper models just don't last and don't give out the heat.) - a lot of money but definitely well worth it.
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We have decided to fit a multi fuel burner in place of the coal fire....Are they easy to install into an existing chimney opening?...chimney liner, flue and regulator plate?
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Are you thinking of installing yourself??
There were big building regulation changes back in 2000? That mean its got be signed off of you do it yourself, or fitted by an installer at massive cost!
I fitted mine myself in a pre existing fireplace, which made things easier!
http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/ (http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/)
Is a great website for showing you what you need for installation. I sourced my liner and register plate from other places. I also back filled the chimney with vermiculite (micafil) readily available from most builders merchants.
All in all, stove £360 (Firefox 8.5kw multifuel stove) £400 for 10m of liner, £30 for carbon monoxide meter, £100 for vermiculite, £50 for pipes/fittings and fire cement.
So did it all for £1000. If I'd got someone else to do it it would have cost £3000+
It's not 'signed off' but I did it 100% properly and safely! Two years later still going strong and saving me a fortune in heating my drafty old farmhouse!
One tip.... Buy the correct sized stove!! Our room calculator said 4kw was enough for the room size. But allowing for drafts and heating other rooms went for the 8.5kw!
Enjoy
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With regard to signing them off officially, if you don't have them signed off by the relevant authorised body your household insurance is void for any fire related claims even if nothing to do with your wood burner.
We had an AGA one fitted last summer and have had such a lovely cosy winter with the heating barely on. And we've only burnt free wood so far :) the stove and fitting cost us just under £2000.
Would go for our woodburner over our old open fire any day.
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A rule of thumb is that with an open fire 80% of the heat gets wasted up the chimney but with a stove 80% stays in the room.
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You can install yourself and get the installation signed off by a solid fuel heating engineer. Just read all the regs so you don't get caught out when he inspects. Building Control at the council should have them.
Coal is rubbish nowadays. We were advised by a solid fuel heating engineer to burn smokeless to get better heat output and save on the annual chimney sweeping necessary for house insurance if you burn wood or ordinary coal.
Given the choice we would have woodburners without a doubt. Round here there is so much from garden tree clearances they just light a bonfire to get rid. Tons of the stuff wasted so we could heat for the price of cutting and collection. Problem is the 1830 house has a 6 flue chimney stack 45 feet high. Messing about enlarging the builder's aperture could bring the whole lot down! So we are stuck with little coal fires.
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In my opinion, if the size of the house warrants it, a multi-fuel stove is the way to go. Our house is 3500 sq ft, and we fitted the largest stove we could find 29Kw (Hercules). We have not used oil since we installed it. A nice mix of Anthracite, ecobrite, wood and turf goes for hours. Our stove was fitted to a pre-existing chimney and works superbly. We had a back boiler in before that, which was great as we had all the water pipes present.