We live in a tenanted farm house, it is stupidly big (three stories, 10 bedrooms, most of which we never even go in) and it has no central heating and is just about impossible to insulate well. We have an oil Aga in the kitchen, it heats the kitchen and does the hot water, but is an old style one which can't run radiators and can't be turned up or down, it is either on or off. We also have an open fire in the living room, but the fireplace is collapsing, so we are using the money my husband's dad left us when he died in August to put in a woodburner with a multifuel grate. The total cost is £4020, but there is a lot of building work to be done to remove the fireplace that is in, the chimney which is huge needs to be lined, and they also are hiring a cherry picker because of the height of the house, so I didn't think it was too bad. We will also be able to keep it running all night, so I won't be faced with trying to light a fire with two toddlers helping me every morning. We have eight years left on our farm tenancy, which is a full repairing tenancy, so we are responsible for fixing the fireplace anyway, even though it was wrecked when we took it on, so we thought we may as well have something nice, we reckon by the time we have deducted what it would have cost us to repair the exisiting fireplace, which is now dangerous, the stove will cost us about £250/year over the remaining years of our tenancy, and will be much better than an open fire. And if they renew our tenancy for another 15 years, then we have a lovely stove for that time too. Building work starts on Tuesday 19th, with the stove going in on the Friday - very excited!
