more advice about woodburning stoves please

[tooties]

moving into a new house next wk and we found this which seems to be remarkably cheap
http://www.speedwellstar.com/product_in ... cts_id=299
The house has central heating etc, so this is just a nicety rather than for heating etc.

It will go in a downstairs room with an outside wall, so am thinking we can buy the pipe thingy and get it fitted to go up the wall and out near the ceiling?

Are there any other considerations I have missed? I realise we still need to pay for the pipe and fitting, but this still seems cheap?

(do I need to get a hearth type base if its not in a fireplace? or will just a nice slab of marble or something do?)

[Aunty e]

You will need a proper base and hearth, so something like a poured concrete base and a slate/marble/granite hearth. I think you can get reconstituted marble slabs which can also sit a stove on. Maybe you could find someone to do a survey for you, most fitters will do it for free or very little money, and they could tell you how much it would cost and what you would need.

[Ygerna]

I dont know how big your room is but 7kw seems quite high, if you have a small/medium room it may be too big, and you could end up not using it efficiently. Its better to have a smaller stove and burn it at the max, rather than a bigger one with a smaller fire.
There are calculators online which will work out the size you need, you just enter your room measurements and it gives you an approximate KW size.

Lovely looking stove though

[Charlottechicken]

Before you buy it you might like to check if you can have it. Are you in a smokeless zone?

Look ***here*** for info.

[tooties]

thankyou!

[chickenanne]

I would be wary in general of cheap stoves, as they can be made out of material which is too flimsy. My Dad had one about 20 years ago which buckled when it got too hot and eventually collapsed in on itself. I'm not suggesting you should therefore go for an expensive one, but just be very careful of a suspisciously cheap one. I've not ehard of this type before so can't say specifically.

In terms of a flue/chimney etc, it's well worth getting a specialist to have a look and quote for what you would need. It would be an expensive thing to get wrong - at best the stove would be unusuable as too much smoke would escape into the room, assuming it would "draw" enough air in to get going in the first place.

You can put stoves on tiles rather than a hearth - still needs to be concrete underneath, but terracota or slate tiles work fine and are much cheaper - they can look great too.

[Ygerna]

ooh slate tiles.... *dashes off to window shop for some*

[chickenanne]

I quite liked the idea of encaustic tiles (y'know the type that folk in big Victorian houses have in their hallway) but realised how busy it would look in our non-Victorian cottage!

[Charlottechicken]

I'm hoping to use some big old Victorian quarry tiles I salvaged from my kitchen, as a hearth!

[sunshine-supernova]

ok - time to dispel a few myths....

I am a HETAS registered engineer myself. However, what people need is facts and guidance - not sales pitches. You are more than capeable of working out what you want for yourself with a little help.

A stove is a bit like a car. If your car has a maximum speed limit of 150mph, are you going to drive it everywhere at 150mph ? Of course not - wouldn't do the engine any good and the fuel consumption wouldn't be very good either.

Likewise, stoves don't want to run flat out. You want to run at 50 > 70% of the maximum achievable heat output. Below 50%, you don't burn off enough carbon - so end up with a dirty chimney and dirty glass. Burning too high, you are wasting fuel and heat as the stove body can't retain this excess heat and it's lost up the chimney. It also causes excessive wear on internal grates and liners.

1kw is the equivalent of a 600 x 900 modern convector rad, single rail. A standard 12 x 12 room normally has about 2.5kw of rads. However, when running a stove, you generally want to sit infront of a fire with more heat than you would have with the rads on (and the rads turned off !). The majority of people aren't that great at shutting all their doors - so you also need to allow a bit more again for extra heat to spread.

5 and 6 kw stoves are fine for burning coal / smokeless fuel - but you may find the internal firebox size of many of these a bind for buring wood. Most 6kw models can take one decent sized log or two teeny weeny ones.

The smaller the log, the faster the burn. The larger the log, the slower the burn and the heat release. I'd recommend even in smaller rooms 7 > 8kw (max achievable) so you aren't chopping up tiddly logs. This size of stove typically takes 2 > 3 mdeium size logs.

[sunshine-supernova]

I think I ran out of type on my last post.

If you CAN go up and out the roof rather than through a wall - this is generally a much cheaper way to fit and keeps all the heat from the pipe inside the property. It is normally about £300 in parts less to go through the roof. Of course, it isn't always feasible - depending on where you plan to fit and house layout

[Olly]

a very good point about the size of firebox, supernova! I was limited by the size of my fireplace opening, I love my Charnwood Cove but it is a pain having to cut everything into 12" lengths, it might not sound significant but a larger size would be a lot easier.

[sunshine-supernova]

10 > 12" is a good size actually - and standard lengths that most log suppliers should cut to to order.

MAny 6kw stoves and smaller can only take one 10" log width ways and you can't feed front to back as they're only about 8" deep internally - so you'd need 6" logs !

[Blackrocksrock]

Only problem is over 5kg you require an air vent and most people would not have this in the room and have to get one put in - more expense for the sake of 1 - 2kw

[Olly]

Gosh - maybe my firebox isn't as small as I think! I can get a 13" log in diagonally, obviously depending on how big it is.

A lot of what I'm using is scrap joinery wood, which I'm cutting up myself, and it's a real pain to have to cut something three times instead of two. I must say in all other respects it's a lovely stove though, and gives off plenty of heat for my kitchen-diner which is about 20' x 12'.