My eco solution to rat problems

[Ygerna]

I want to get one installed here. At the moment we have Gas central heating but, I would like to either replace with or run a woodburner along side it. We are using over £200 of gas a month

 

But, would the woodburner cost less to run? Thats my main question. If it does then the initial outlay costs wouldnt matter as much.

 

Logs, do you buy them in weekly/monthly quantities and how much would a months worth cost. I appreciate that this may vary depending on area but I am looking for ball park figures here.

 

I'd like a woodburner that also runs radiators.

 

What are the pro's and con's please? Do you, or would you recomend this form of heating?

 

TIA.

[Charlottechicken]

I can't answer your questions about woodburners unfortunately, as I am hoping to get a cleanburn multifuel one myself this year, so will be following this thread with interest. I am opting for multifuel as I have access to some free wood, I've been storing some large bits from the garden for years but have traditionally burnt solid fuel on an open fire, which at the moment is still available to purchase. I'm guessing that with everyone wanting a woodburner, the prices of wood may go up If you are in a city you will need to buy a cleanburn one, check here for areas and a list of woodburners which comply; http://www.uksmokecontrolareas.co.uk

 

First things first though. If I were you I'd be finding out why it was costing £200 per month to heat my home Is it the size of your property, or do you need insulation? If you are spending that much on gas now you may need to burn huge quantities of wood to get the same level of heat. Just over 12 months ago I had a much larger radiator installed in my living room, which previously had been incredibly cold. Coupled with a new boiler at the same time, my house is now warmer but costs much less, I'm paying £48 per month on direct debit for gas and electric for a small Victorian terrace of around 1200 square feet, with 9 foot high ceilings. So you may want to consider if your radiators are big enough for the job as well as checking your insulation It also depends on how warm you like to be. No rooms in my house are ever warmer than 20 degrees centigrade.

 

I'm sure someone will be along with woodburner tips shortly, and everyone has their favourite brands too. Personally, I'm looking at what I think is a dry system, (I think this means a standalone woodburner) and am interested in a Morso Squirrel

[debbier]

I have two woodburners, in both main rooms downstairs, neither of which runs hot water, so can't answer that bit, I'm afraid.

 

I've never regretted having them installed as they are so easy to run and clean. The biggest expense for us was the chimney lining which was needed.

 

If you do get one installed, then there are building regs to consider. If you go for a HETAS registered engineer, then they can self certify the installation, and you don't need to sort out the building regs yourself. Make sure you get a certificate from the installation engineer to confirm this!

 

The hetas web site is informative and lists some registered engineers.

http://www.hetas.co.uk/

 

We opted for Scan fires in both rooms: one is a flush cassette, in a more modern room, the other a more traditional stand alone fire. They are both very efficient, and easy to use and clean. The stand alone can be used as a multifuel option, but we never have. I have too many bad memories of emptying out coal fires as a youngster! Wood fires need emptying far less often.

 

We get our wood from a local tree surgeon. You do need space to store the wood, and if you can season it yourself it will be cheaper, but you'll need even more space as you have to be store more. We buy a pickup truck loads worth at around £80-£90, for around 2 cubic metres seasoned wood. You'll pay around twice that for more "commercial" wood offerings.

 

I haven't costed up the savings, but our gas bill has noticeably reduced.

 

I have some links to wood burning discussions: I'll try and dig them out for you.

[carrie]

We had a woodburner installed 14 months ago.

At the moment being so cold and off work for 2 weeks, we have had the heating on very low continuously (this doesn't usually happen) and the woodburner in the lounge (that rad off), I buy my wood locally and have it delivered, costs £50 a tonne mixed hardwoods.

 

My gas usage has more than halved and all the wood bought over the year has cost me less than £220. My combined gas and wood is still less than I was paying for my gas in 2007/2008 and the gas prices have gone up a lot since then.

 

We payed about £1200 for the stove and fitting by a HETAS engineer, (we only bought a cheep stove, cos I happened to like it the best). It fits into the chimney breast so less heat heats the room and more heat heats the brickwork on the chimney breast and so acts like a storage heater (chimney is in centre of house, not against an outside wall).

 

We would have had to replace the old hideous gas fire anyway as it was dangerous and couldn't use it.

 

Above all it is lovely, a nice feature to the room, gives out a nicer heat than rads do, makes the room cosy etc.

 

I thought I would get fed up with having to light it all the time but I still love doing it.

 

Downsides are- I'm always having to dust the lounge, not having instant heat and coming home to a colder house (shame you can't put it on timer).

 

goodluck

[Olly]

OK, there's this recent topic here, and this one. If you scroll just a little way through that second link, you'll find I've mentioned the Newhouse Farm website - that link no longer works, as it's been renamed The Green Living Index, here's a new link *click* to that.

 

I can't answer the question about wood, because so far I have not paid a penny for mine - s"Ooops, word censored!" building timber, old pallets, dead wood from the tree surgeon, etc. are stacked in my garage. I have just invested in an electric chainsaw to cut it up with, and bear in mind that it's cheaper to get logs delivered and split them yourself but you'll need to be prepared to put the work in. If, like me, you scavenge free wood then it will need sawing/splitting to the right size. It's great exercise!

 

Charlottechicken's advice is very good though - find out whether you could improve insulation and so on first. I love my woodburner, as it brings the kitchen to life, but I suspect it will be some years before I actually recoup the cost of the stove and installation; on the other hand, it has undoubtedly added value to the house. Do get a HETAS installation, and get your chimney lined - expensive but it can save a lot of problems.

[Lesley]

Loads of good advice above so I'll just add what we did.

 

We have new build house, well insulated, underfloor heating and LPG gas boiler. The LPG was costing us a fortune. We had a Scan multifuel installed in the lounge and up until the very cold weather we were putting on the heating on alternate days and keeping it turned low. We lit the woodburner in the evenings and saved a lot of gas.

 

We have some of our own wood seasoning but have bought some - similar prices to those above.

 

We had an enormous fireplace to fill and had to find a big fire - but I would say to anyone to go for the biggest glass area you can, it's well worth it.

 

We swapped this gas fire fitted by the previous occupants...

 

For this Scan

[Ygerna]

Another reason for wanting to get one is that I've read (scaremongering ) stories of anticipated power shortages in a few years due to old power stations going out of production faster than alternatives can be built/found. Its my thinking that buying the right woodburner/multifuel burner now will mean that we save money and if the worst comes to the worst we can heat a room and, heat water and cook basic meals (casseroles).

 

All your input is very much appreaciated. Thank you.

[Lesley]

I meant to add that we're looking at a wood pellet burning boiler to replace the LPG boiler that supplied hot water and the underfloor heating. There's so much to read though.....I'm still plodding through research.

[debbier]

I saw some pellet burners at 2008 (not 2009) Grand Designs. They are quite amazing. A friend of mine apparently specs them up these days for schools and the like.

[debbier]

 

For this Scan

 

Oooh, I know which one I prefer!!!!

 

Mine are both Scan: very solidly built and easy to clean and control. We picked them as they had a very easy to fix cassette version. I liked the Clearview stoves I saw in Ludlow, but have never regretted buying the Scans.

 

(edit: must get some pics of mine...)

[Charlottechicken]

Another reason for wanting to get one is that I've read (scaremongering ) stories of anticipated power shortages in a few years due to old power stations going out of production faster than alternatives can be built/found. Its my thinking that buying the right woodburner/multifuel burner now will mean that we save money and if the worst comes to the worst we can heat a room and, heat water and cook basic meals (casseroles).

 

All your input is very much appreaciated. Thank you.

 

Good idea, one reason I want one It does make sense to have access to as many fuel types as possible for heating, lighting and cooking, that way you aren't beholden to any particular company. To a certain degree I am growing my own wood too, probably a good idea to think along those lines as well.

 

I don't think the stories are scaremongering when you think of where our fuel now comes from. We are beholden to Europe and who will they supply first if they need it, not us that's for sure. Get that woodpile started now

[bigmommasally]

I hope you don't all think I'm scare mongering but a house in our town went up in flames on Christmas Day and according to the local paper was due to a faulty flue in the loft on the woodburner. I've no idea of whether it was due to lack of maintainence or badly fitted but please people make sure yours are safe. These people were lucky that it happened during the day and they all got out safely.

[BERTIE MCSQUIRTY]

we have one too....fuel bills have gone down tremendously. we dont have a boiler attached though, though would consider one when our current boiler packs up. we dont pay anything for wood, as our friend (a tree surgeon) drops a load off for us on a regular basis.

 

coal is variable dependant on the quality that you burn, but i stock up in the summer when the prices are lower.

 

we have a cleanburn, multi fuel burner, heta scanline 6

 

http://www.woodstoves.co.uk/html/scanline_6_woodstoves_and_mult.html

 

i dont know weather this is localised to our region though - but we can get a grant of about £3k to convert with a boiler

[Ygerna]

i dont know weather this is localised to our region though - but we can get a grant of about £3k to convert with a boiler

Now that IS interesting. I don't suppose you could give me an idea of what to google to see if we have anything similar, could you

[Blackrocksrock]

The scanline looks good - I am going to put one in our lounge in the summer for next winter and I have no fireplace at the moment - so it will just go through the roof in the lounge but have any of you got an eco fan to move the air about - they look great but are about £100

[Ygerna]

Just a quick post to let you all know that I am bombarding DH with all the info you are supplying. He is not the most decisive man on earth (ok, he is probably the least decisive man in the universe, but he's ALL mine ) so hopefully I can appeal to his finacially astute nature rather than his eco one, but, its his achillies heel, so wish me luck

[Daphne]

GOOD LUCK

 

We pay £50 a load (about a cubic metre) for seasoned mixed hardwoods, cut to the size we ask for. Two loads last us a winter. We have a woodburner and an open fire in different rooms and the burner is much more efficient.

 

The only thing I would add is that if you do go for a burner to heat rads as well then do get one that is big enough. My SIL has a physically large woodburning stove which she cooks on and it heats the rads. Her house is the coldest in the known universe (its in France) and this is because although the woodburner is big, the 'firebox' (ie the bit where the wood goes) is quite small. This has another drawback in that they are forever loading it up with wood, if you are out all day it goes out, and they often have to chop their bought wood into smaller bits. She has no other heating and it can be seriously unpleasant in the depths of winter.

[Olly]

Good point about the size of the firebox, but also remember that it's better to burn a small fire hot, than to burn a large fire at less than capacity. If you visit a local showroom, they'll advise you about the size of fire you need for the room that you want to put it in - over a certain size and you'll need air vents.

 

The story about the loft catching fire is another reason to get a HETAS installation, because that should mean it's all safe.

 

I'm thinking about an Ecofan - the position of my stove isn't ideal, but there wasn't anywhere else it could really go, I have wondered if an Ecofan would help waft the heat upstairs. There's a thread about them on the Green Living Site, I'm fairly sure.

[Charlottechicken]

This is an interesting thread!

 

I had no idea a woodburner would only burn around 2 cubic metres of wood per winter, thanks for that Daphne, now I know I have enough storage space for a couple of winters at least!

 

Good point about the size too Olly. I am always asking the experts on stands at shows and without exception I have been warned to make sure the burner is not too big for the room, otherwise energy is wasted when the burner is working at its optimum.

[Ygerna]

thought I would add a link the Hetas site..

 

http://www.hetas.co.uk/nearest_member

[Lesley]

There's a lot of information on here as well

http://www.nef.org.uk/logpile/index.htm

[Ms Marple]

I have posted elsewhere on this topic- check outy Olly's links. Our woodburner has been a great asset so far this winter- especially now we have properly learnt how to use it and keep it going as that has taken quite a bit of practice. Although ours is a multifuel burner we have only used wood this winter - none of which cost anything to buy. I think it actually burns hotter using coal type stuff although I may be wrong here.

Our fuel bills are not so dissimilar to yours £198 per month for gas and elec. I assume it is because we live in a large rambling old house?? We are intending to get our windows done this year so we may notice a difference after that. We managed without the heating on for very long pretty much up to the beginning of December and thought that it was quite good on our part. We have an aga in our kitchen which provides good additional warmth and then we were just lighting the woodburner in the evening. However since the cold set in we have been using heating and woodburner. It does allow us to turn off a radiator in the lounge and one in the hall too and also seems to help in my YS bedroom directly above. I am seriously considering another woodburner for our back sittingroom/office which gets a lot of daily use.

 

Ours had to be Defra approved but we did not need to have a chimney liner fitted- that does push the price up significantly. Ours cost approx £1400.

[Willow]

I looked into the stoves which heat radiators as well but decided that since we would also need our newish water cyclinder replaced as well as various bits of plumbing and the particular stove I wanted for the living room was just a multifuel stove it was making the whole thing too complicated My fireplace got done before Christmas and looks great but I wish my stove had been done I'm hoping that will be in by mid Jan but the company fitting have been bad at communicating and they aren't open again until the 9th Jan.

 

Depending on how we get on with the stove I'm thinking of getting an inset wood burner stove with back boiler for the hall sometime as I have a chimney there as well (was originally a coal fired boiler in the hall - we found the cast iron boiler buried at the end of the garden )

[ali-s]

We had a multifuel stove fitted at the end of November which I love. I bought a load of Oak staves at first which didn't last as long as I expected. We are burning old rafters and odd bits of wood at the moment, I haven't tried using a solid fuel yet. A friend burns peat on her multifuel stove and says that the peat burns very hot and lasts for ages. the stove also heats our unheated hall if we leave the living room door open which is a bonus.

 

The heat from the stove is also warming up our loft so will help towards heating the room up there when the loft conversion is finished

 

The stove is so much cleaner than the old coal fire. I had to damp dust every day with the open fire but only dust once a week (if I remember ) with the stove. I empty the stove ashpan about every 9 days or so, with the open fire I had to empty the ashpan every day as it would be full to overflowing.

 

We are already planning to put another stove in the kitchen this year to replace the open fire in there.

[Aunty e]

Brilliant post - I've literally just had my stove delivered and the lovely man is coming on Friday next to fit it. It's cost about 1500 with fitting, as we had to buy a clean burning stove which was significantly more expensive than the non cleanburn ones. Ours is a cream carron, and is going in our main room downstairs. I wanted one anyway, but then got our first gas bill for the new house which was two hundred pounds for a month! We've managed to reduce our gas use by having the boiler serviced and adjusting or use/not having baths (this is why I hate combis sigh) and we'll replace the rubbish boiler in the summer for a worcester bosch as the one the previous owners installed, while condensing, is cheap, nasty and has a leak on the diverter valve as well as the wrong gas pipe inlet (too small). I hate dealing with other people's bad DIY. But we're still on the way to a gas bill of around 120 this month, and most of that is heating for us as the house is so tall. We have got huge radiators, but the loft conversion eats a lot of our heat. We're also looking at cavity wall insulation, but our surveyor thinks we have solid walls, so might not be an option. I've also had some success in fitting heatkeeper panels behind radiators on the outside walls (most of them in this house) and I'm putting space blanket insulation in the tiny loft spaces just in case as the insulation looks a bit pathetic.

 

My cost breakdown is 650 for stove and pipe, 120 for slate hearth (SO BEAUTIFUL), 230 for flue liner and terminal, 130 for insulation for inside the chimney and 500 or so for fitting the whole thing and an airbrick (required by building regs as our stove is over 5kw output). I also ordered some wood, as we won't be able to use any of the unseasoned wood we've been collecting until next year, but it was only 135 for 4 cubic metres of seasoned hardwood. I'd be interested to know where you were getting yours Olly! We have a multifuel stove, so I might look into peat. As a little girl I went peat cutting in shetland, but I suspect taking a pony out to the peat bogs and cutting my own isn't an option in Essex Right, off to look at those links