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[ali-s]

You are all getting me very interestered in a stove with a boiler now

 

 

check with your local council - some councils are giving excellent grants to have a stove boiler fitted

 

 

Thanks Bertie

 

Went to the Moray council website which directed me to this site

www.energysavingtrust.org.uk

 

In Scotland you can apply for a grant of 30% towards a range of "green" energy, including woodburners, solar panels and small wind turbines.

 

Will have to show OH the site

[Snowy]

Well I casually mentioned it to OH last night - he started raving about them and how this that and the other friend had one and how good they are!

 

So that didn't take much persuading - just got to do some serious pricing up, (and some serious saving up) and it's all go!

 

(Mind you, men and fires, why did I think it would be hard to convince him?? )

[..lay a little egg for me]

You are all getting me very interestered in a stove with a boiler now

 

How do you heat water in the summer months when you don't need the stove lit ?

 

Do you get up very early on winter mornings to light the stove to heat the radiators and hot water ? I'm usually up at 5.30am but the house would be empty from 8.30 am until around 3.30pm, would the stove stay lit all day without any attention?

Our previous stove came with a kind of hopper that you could fill with coal and it would let the coal down onto the fire continuously so it would run overnight (or in your case all day) without attention. It was a top-loading stove, so you could put the hopper in and then fill up with coal (I don't think wood could work in this situation). Whether they still do such a thing I don't know (we sold the house with that stove 10 years ago) but it might be worth bearing in mind. With our current stove, even if we turn it down to its lowest setting it can only go a few hours without being 'fed'.

[Lesley]

The gravity feed ones are great if you're running central heating from them. They don't generally have the appeal of the ones with a glass window - unless they do those as well now?

 

Countrywide now have a range of woodburning stoves using the wood pellets - they're similar to what LALEFM was talking about above.

[The Dogmother]

Phil's folks still have the old Rayburn up at the farm, it doesn't work any more, but ued to be burning 24/7 and had a back boiler too. Apparently it was far more efficient than the current oil heating and cheaper too - they live in woodland, so had planty of free wood with that and the farm.

[..lay a little egg for me]

The gravity feed ones are great if you're running central heating from them. They don't generally have the appeal of the ones with a glass window - unless they do those as well now?

 

Countrywide now have a range of woodburning stoves using the wood pellets - they're similar to what LALEFM was talking about above.

 

No, ours had a window, but it was not the clearview type (only Clearview stoves did them at that time).

[Ms Marple]

I have found this a really useful thread. We are definitely considering a wood/coal burning stove. Our house is very big and rambling. The aga is great in the kitchen and I love a real fire in the main rooms at Christmas but I hate setting them and clearing up - tihs could be the answer. can they be connected to your exiating hot water system?

[Snowy]

Yes I think they can. You can certainly get them with the boiler box behind to heat water (not sure how easy it would be to install them though - I never got that far into the planning!)

I am still pining for a woodburner - all the research I did at the time of this post has convinced me that we could save a fortune in fuel bills over the winter. I'd encourage anyone to look into it - especially if you already have a chimney (that's where we fall down )

[Ms Marple]

Well we went looking over the weekend only to find that the sort we have to buy- we live in a smokefree zone, are very expensive - the cheapest starting around £875. Not happy! it was easier to justify when I was looking at Ebay shops!

 

So now I am not sure whether to go for an expensive capped rate,energy plan or spend £2K on buying and installing a defra approved stove

[Olly]

ouch! To be honest, I'm not really expecting to recoup the cost of mine in reduced gas bills, or at least it will take some years to recoup it. Mine is an expensive stove (my choice, could have had a cheaper model) and the cost of installation is more than the stove itself.

 

The factors that decided it for me are that I'm going to be using a renewable source of energy, I can get quite a lot of wood for free, and the stove is going to be a great feature in my kitchen. Of course I'm hoping to reduce my gas bills, but the one I'm having will not heat water so I'll still need to have the gas boiler on for that.

 

It's a difficult decision isn't it. If you can get one that will heat water as well, you'd make even bigger savings (it wasn't practical in my house to try and do this) so you could try and do a bit of a price-comparison.

[Chili]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but we have a Clear View Woodburning stove in our lounge. It is classed as very suitable for smokeless zones and is utterly brilliant. It probably cost around 2K to buy and install as we had the flue done and chimney swept at the same time etc, but I would not be without it. It is very clean burning, makes very little mess and gushes out heat. Fantastic