[zoe_emma]

We live in a rented house, but the landlord is fine with us doing this.

We have oil fired heating and hot water, and electric fire things in two rooms. With the price of filling the oil tank and electric bills going through the roof we have decided a wood burner would be a good investment. The landlord says the chimney is still there it was just covered up.

How big a job are we looking at, and does anyone have experience of buying online? There is a shop in the local town but it seems very expensive.

[john and helen]

personally i think, unless you have a long term lease, it could work out expensive
you will need to get it fitted by a professional (i would imagine) or else the landlords insurance may become void

[zoe_emma]

I expect to pay a professional fitter.

We intend to live here for many years to come, the landlord and his family have become friends and want us to stay. We pay the rent on time and they want the house let.

Even if we only stay 5 years the money saved on oil and electric would probably balance out the cost.

[doganjo]

The price of stoves varies a lot; go into your nearest stove centre and seek advice on size, type, materials it's made of (mine is cast iron), chimney flue linings required etc.  You can Google as well to give you an idea of price.

My fire cost almost £1000, but there are loads of cheaper ones.(Morso Squirrel
http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/Morso-Squirrel-Stove.html), and as I have no chimney (house built 1984 ish) I had to have a fire proof wall plate on the fire, and on the actual wall, plus a concrete plinth, and steel twin walled piping from the fire to outside above the roofline)  Total cost  was £3500 including the fire.  Get a quote for installation - again your local showroom shoudl have ball park figures.  And remember to get it all signed off

I don't use mine for whole house heating but it's fantastic when it turns cold - has my lounge, hall, kitchen very warm in under half an hour from being lit.

[MAK]

If you plan on just heating the one room then the cost of fitting and buying a stove is not great. Running radiators off the log burner is more expensive and more of a challenge to fit.
If you are just heating the one room then I would have thought that your main consideration is cost or supply of wood and storrage. Buying in wood can be quite expensive but then again even if you have access to lots of wood -cutting, splitting and moving wood around will keep you very very busy ( and fit !  ).

[doganjo]

I bought a huge ton bag two years ago of kiln dried wood for £110 from my stove supplier - still a third of it left, but I also have branches and logs left over from tree fall last year.  If you have free wood, all the better! 
I love mine, wouldn't ever go back to the stupid electric thing that was here when i moved in, and certainly not an open fire - all the heat goes up the chimney!

Only problem is you need to leave teh door open on Christmas Eve so Santa can gt in 

[happygolucky]

Depending on the house we move to, we are going to put in some sort of open fire...all the houses that we could buy are old but have had the fires taken away, they are all insulated very well and will probably far too hot for us but we intend not to have the heating on much of the time. I am confused as I love multi fuel burners but then also love an open fire.......I did fancy a red multi fuel  burner!  THis time next week we should know and if so, then we will order ASAP.......

[doganjo]

They're not all black.  I thought about a green one for here, and looked at red ones for the house I built up north.  Just happened to decide on black for both.  I would never go back to an open fire - such a waste of fuel and most of the heat goes up the chimney. The automatic cleaning system mean you can see the flames, and they are so much safer than an open fire.

 

[happygolucky]

We have a fire every night and with no heat on, get far too hot within mins, all three houses we are interested in are very small.......I know that log burners tend to throw the heat out more but Steve is adamant on an open fire, we may put a burner in at a later date as the chimney on one house is still fine, just needs some liner and re pointing! I love this sort of look :-

[ballingall]

Some stove shops seem to be hidiously expensive. I spoke to one company in Edinburgh who wanted £200 to look at our existing chimney- before we even discussed stoves and installment.

So I used a small company in ayrshire, bought our stove for around £400. Asked them who they recommended to fit it, they put the fitters in touch with us, and it cost £1800 to fit. So £2200 in total.

Stove was something to this one http://www.woodburningstoveslimited.com/product/country-kiln-37

I agree with Annie, an open fire is no use. When the fire isn't lit you just get a draft down the chimney! With the woodburner, if it isn't on, just close all the vents and no drafts into the room.

We did already have a open fire, and the chimney was in great condition, so we only needed a really small flue- just to connect the woodburner into the chimney.

Beth

[Mammyshaz]

We put a very basic log burner in the dining room 20 yrs ago. It was warm but not very economical on wood. Just replaced it with a new multifuel firefox 8 from stoves online.co.uk and a local HETAS engineer installed the flue and fire. It's the best investment we have made. Been in almost 2months. The dining room is centre of the house with stairs going to bedrooms. The stove heats the whole house. Haven't had heating on yet despite frost the last few nights. The house is still warm the next morning. it barely uses any wood and the heat  output is fantastic. The stove is half the size of the last one but certainly gives out more heat  think it cost £1200 all in all but the hearth was in place and we put the air vent through the wall.
We have a van full of free pallets dropped off by a kitchen installer who had to pay to have them taken away so is over the moon with us taking them. Free wood = free heating. What more could you want 

Stovesonline.co.uk have great pages of information about what is needed and regulations. They are very
helpful if you query anything by email or phone and phoned us a few times to check we were ordering the correct items. the only thing was not being able to view the fires so we chose the ones we liked then went to
local showrooms to see what they were actually like.

Certainly no regrets here with the results 

[happygolucky]

That looks nice, I thought around £2,000 for the lot, depending on the house!!

[doganjo]

Might not even be that much Sandy.  As I say my Squirrel is top of the range multifuel cast iron and cost around £1000.  If you have a chimney already you may not need much pipework, and installation shouldn't be expensive.  HERAS engineers aren't required in Scotland.
 David Womble is the expert on here  - where is he?
Anyone got any views on what the stove is made of affecting output or length of life?

[happygolucky]

Womble is a treasure, He knows so much about Log burners etc.....we hope    to have a log  burner in our dinning room and an open fire in our sitting room, both chimneys are still there

[Victorian Farmer]

i do a bit with the engineer its 200 pound and should be done before dinner .wev also had some good second hand ones .The chimneys linings can be bought from plan it stoves e bay fastest supplier to Scotland .Double flue is only 60 pound 3 ft length .The chimney has to be right iv made mustakes with this putting bends in and it do sent get hot enough most burn wet wood and that do sent help .creosoting up .The cheap stoves crack as in Scotland they over burn with the wind and because there cast you Carnot weld them .Even the stoves iv made they have over burns time to time ,