[Womble]

Hi Folks,

Our house heating is currently provided by a coal fired Esse stove (Rayburn type thingy). However, seeing as it's hideously inefficient, we're looking at adding a multi-fuel boiler stove to the circuit, such as the Dunsley Highlander 10:



The trouble is, whilst  I can buy this stove online for £1600, including VAT I've now had two prices back from local installers which each come to around £8,000 including VAT.

This is made up of:

Stove: £1900
Chimney Lining: £1200
Chimwrap insulation £550
Stove installation (unboxing it and connecting up the flue pipe! ) £1200
Plumbing, basic controls and heat leak radiator £3250
Hearth - Not included

Grand total £8,100 including VAT  , which is totally out of the question.

So, given that all the bits can be bought for a fraction of this price, I'm trying to work out if I can do a DIY install of one of these beasties.  Of course all of the installer's websites say that this is a terrible, dangerous idea, etc etc, but they would say that, wouldn't they!!

So, I wondered if any TAS folks had undertaken this work themselves in the past. I'm fairly handy, have a good knowledge of the plumbing and control side of things, and a friend who isn't scared of heights  . In particular, if you have done this before, how did it go with building control?  (note, we're in Scotland, which I believe has different requirements to England with respect to installers).

Thanks in advance for your help!

Womble.

[Mammyshaz]

The work is very easy if you are not afraid of heights ( unlike OH ).  The quality of lining is what determines the price.  The lining is dropped into place down the chimney. There is a good website who can help with measurements etc. which I will try to link for you. We bought our stove and a few bits through them but have held off the install. Mainly due to OH understanding air flow for extractors being a gas engineer but in England unless installed by a HETAS engineer you now need planning consent   

If you don't get PP or install by a HETAS engineer then your house insurance is void!

[Mammyshaz]

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/Firefox-8-stoves.html

Hope this woke. This is the web site that heed me. Their response to my questions were prompt and the help with regulations is great.

[spandit]

You need building regs approval, section J. You can download this from several stove websites

[henchard]

You need building regs approval, section J. You can download this from several stove websites

Technically yes, but if you don't tell them how are they going to know and as far as I know they cannot enforce anything retrospectively after 6 months.


Have you considered a stove with a room sealed air inlet to avoid having to have cold air entering the room for ventilation? We installed one and it's very good.

[spandit]

Above a certain kW output you need a dedicated room vent - you'd jeopardise your home insurance, saleability and health if you skipped this step

[colliewobbles]

We have a 10KW one not connected to our heating - and wouldn't go near self-install having seen what our engineer/plumber had to do for the installation.  Our flue liner cost £800 for a straight run up to the roof as it's very important 'stuff'!!  All the comments about HETAS are correct and we have a certificate of installation should we wish to sell or rent.

Looking at the possibility of self-install - my brother-in -law did exactly what you are suggesting.  They now have to run off the hot water if it gets too hot otherwise risk some kind of catastrophic event with the system!  Also - their vent pipe is on view as they had no chimney -one night my sister woke to see it glowing red.  The other end had caught fire slightly and the fire brigade had to be called who said it was a very close call, another half hour and the whole lot would have gone up.

Our installation cost £4000 about 4 years ago, the burner was £1900, flue liner £800 and the rest was labour including knocking our a chimney area and making good so I don't think your quote is out of the way to be honest.

[colliewobbles]

Oh yeah - the installation does seem rather high at £1200 but they do weigh an absolute ton, took 4 men to get ours into position.  If yours is also connection to heating system I guess that why it's high.

[henchard]

Above a certain kW output you need a dedicated room vent - you'd jeopardise your home insurance, saleability and health if you skipped this step

I think you missed the point of my post; there are stoves where the air is fed directly into the stove rather than the room.





Personally i think the prices quoted are astronomic. At my last house I got a guy to drop some  flue liner down the chimney and put a cowl on top for around £400 and I installed the stove myself. It ain't rocket science.


As for Building Control they are complete waste of space; they came round to inspect our recent refurbishment and didn't even look at the wood burner (which is a room sealed air inlet as above).

[lachlanandmarcus]

Womble we found the quotes from stove places ridiculous,  and it was a lot cheaper to get our stonemason to fit the flue etc and our plumber/heating engineer (heats reg) to do the other stuff. still probably several thousand but nothing like your quote. We did have PP tho as it was part of a renovation, tbh getting PP sounds a lot cheaper, and it's not like it'll be refused.

[Womble]

Some really helpful comments there folks - thankyou all very much!

Henchard - I had already decided on an external air intake  . My neighbour has a stove installed with a separate air vent into the room which nobody will sit near due to the draughts. She also paid an absolute fortune to have it plumbed into her central heating system, but there are a couple of fundamental design flaws which mean it's never going to work properly.

In fact, having seen a couple of bodged 'professional' installations now, I'm far from confident in what I'm likely to get for the price of a small car, hence my feelings of if you want a job done properly, do it yourself!

Still pondering whether this is possible though, or whether I'm going to get strangled by all the red tape.......

[colliewobbles]

? we didn't have planning permission - and both burner supplier and plumber are reputable people who would have told us if we did need it.  Flue liner for a multi-fuel burner was £70/metre 4 years ago when I priced it up and that is particularly something you should not scrimp on.

At the very least I think you should get your installation signed off by a HETAS engineer if you do go down the self-install route.

[shygirl]

did i misunderstand something here - you have to get permission for a new woodburner? or to connect it to your heating? 

[henchard]

did i misunderstand something here - you have to get permission for a new woodburner? or to connect it to your heating? 

I think there is a bit of confusion between planning permission and building regs. As far as i know you don't need PP unless you were installing a new chimney or flue on a listed building or in a conservation area.


A new wood burning installation is subject to Building Regs or as an alternative needs to be installed by a HETAS registered installer.


That's my understanding anyway!

[lachlanandmarcus]

I think you are right Henchard. Building regs will give all the tech specification so that it will all be installed safely and also will meet the latest (ever increasing) standards.


We had to have both for ours as we were making alterations to the buildings fabric, but it was the building regs that addressed all the requirements in details.