Reply With QuoteMy tried and trusted choice and they also give advice.
https://www.hunterstoves.co.uk/
Looking for any recommendations of stoves and stove fitters in the North West. We've moved to an old cottage that the previous owners had an open fire in even though we're in a smoke control area, so we're looking to get the fireplace opened up a little and a stove installed.
After looking through some brochures, we like the following:
Burley Bradgate
Chilli Penguin 'The Short'
Contura i4FS
Jotul F105
Has anyone got any experience of these or opinions? Any installers we should take a look at/avoid?
Also, what are peoples thoughts on room seal kits for stoves? I like the idea that it's not using air that's been previously warmed up but I don't really know if there are any downsides or if it's worth doing?
Paul.
My tried and trusted choice and they also give advice.
https://www.hunterstoves.co.uk/
Hi Paul
We have just done the same , had an open Fireplace and had a log burner fitted we went for Charnwood C-Four, which is modern looking Log Burner and 5w top heat not sure how big your room is ours is 15ft x 12ft and it is just right for the area, we have only had it on a couple of times just to bed it in but i chucks out lots of heat and only has one air vent control to make it much easier to control and it is a push pull lever so no so no gloves needed also has a Wooden handle so again no gloves needed !
has a large picture window so you can see all the action inside , Charnwood has a big range and came highly reccommended by the fitter
http://www.charnwood.com/range/stove/cfour.aspx
Has anyone opened up there chimney opening themselves? I'm going to be giving this a go soon. Will be taking out the old gas fire/marble surround, then opening up the hole to around a 1m square.
Would love to put a wood burner in but funds do not allow. For now we will either put a couple of shelves in or a electric lookalike. At least it will be ready for a wood burner if we decide to put one in some time ahead.
IMHO I don't think you can beat a Morso.
I've had two (different places) excellent.
K.
Another Morso fan here!Originally Posted by krusty
Morso Squirrel is what we chose, great stove. Charnwood did come recommended too.
A lot of cheap Chinese rubbish about, so do your home work
No... got the stove people to do it. It took two blokes a day to do it. Depending upon the increase required there's a lot of work. Ours had to be widened a good couple of feet. Ditto the height. Also you need an RSJ. Then there's dropping the chimney liner in (you should ALWAYS fit a proper SS liner). Our stove shop charged a few hundred quid on top so I reckoned it was worth the peace of mind... what with HETAS certification and all that. Our next door neighbor did it themselves but, IMHO, the opening isn't large enough and they didn't go for the liner.
Hi Mate
I did watch the guy who fitted ours take the old fireplace apart, the fireblock that sits in the fireplace was smashed out and to be honest it was in his words "pot luck" how the bricks behind ( that hold up the chimney look like!), as they were never seen they could be a very rough finish luckily ours were"nt to bad a good square shape and just needed re pointing and painting , luckily didnt need to be made larger and height was fine (more work if needed !)
Mind you i have to say if you not savvy with Brickwork /structures etc.. would"nt fancy trying myself , the guy said he had seen a lot of Brickwork that was missing had to be totally replaced !!, the whole job from star knocking out old Fireplace , fitting new Fire surround, lining Chimney , installing new hearth and Log burner..
£2.5k
NB As Steve says i would get a pro team in and the Hetas certificate is Gold Dust to Have , they also gave me a certificate to say they had lined the chimney and packed the outside of the liner with Vermiculite, which as it was an outside Chimney stack kept the heat in, there are certanily a lot of work that you would"nt think would be needed !
Cheers
Wayne
Last edited by arthurDALEY; 26th October 2016 at 09:08.
I have a Contura 51l which is now in its third year with us, it has been faultless, burns well, is easily controllable, the finish still looks great, feels robust, nothing has broken, it has been a perfect stove for us. On that basis I'd suggest going for the Contura even though I do not have first hand experience of that specific model.
I had a builder do my chimney opening for me. To be honest I was being lazy but it all looked rather easy. My house is modern so has a clay pot flu and precast concrete flu collector which was the limiting factor to height attainable, but this meant I did not need the chimney lined. I guess you'll need a flu liner. The opening was just a case of knocking out bricks and inserting a precast lintel to support the opening. Then rendering up the inside of the fire place (plaster will crack if in close proximity to the stove), the chimney breast was plastered externally.
We've had Morso in the past and they've been excellent. Just about to have a Scan fitted in our new place, but like most Scandinavian stoves it's a woodburner only - but we're going to use these new eco fuels, made of wood by-products, which look interesting. I've heard good things about Charnwood too, incidentally.
Remember to get the chimney swept first, and I agree that the liner issue is an interesting one. Our house was built in 1902, it's a tall (just) Edwardian terrace, and it will be interesting to see if it needs a liner or not - a proper smoke test (with the top capped off for a few minutes) is how they check the integrity, I understand. Makes a fair difference to the fitted cost, so we've just assumed the worst.
Tried the brickets made from sawdust... wouldn't use them ever again! Okay nice a clean to handle BUT first off they tend to collapse once they start burning. So the bottom of the stove ends up a thick layer of sawdust which doesn't burn very well and chokes the air flow. The other issue is when you open the stove door to recharge then you run the risk of the brickets in there already collapsing with a whoosh of burning sawdust which can easily fall out of the stove and also get wafted into the air! In the end getting proper seasoned logs was better and cheaper!
The liner is there for two reasons. Number one, as you say if your chimney lining is poor but, number two, it's there to help the stove quickly warm up the exhaust flow. Good air flow means the chimney route out has to be hot. If the stove is having to make the brick/clay of the chimney hot then it takes much longer before the stove starts to work properly and heat the room. With a liner, heat up and operation is much quicker. Getting a liner added two or three hundred quid to our overall bill.
100% agree Solwisesteve - If you don't get your fire off to a good start with the kindling to pre-heat the flu, the flu wont 'draw' properly and you'll end up with a house full of smoke when you open the door to throw your first log in and black glass. If you have an old brick chimney it's a lot to heat up. You can test the natural draw on the chimney with a smoke capsule test. Most stoves will also say the optimum cross sectional area/size of flu for best combustion which will likely be 6"/150mm dia at a guess.
Thanks for the replies everyone, I'll look into some of the others that have been mentioned.
Has anyone got their stove 'room sealed' - taking the air from outside?
Paul.
- - - Updated - - -
Looking back at the brochures I think it was actually the 51l we were looking at - I got mixed up as the i4FS is very similar in style but is actually an insert stove not a stand alone one.
Can't help with you room sealing question I'm afraid but another vote for the Charnwood C4 here. This will be our fourth winter since we had it fitted and we love it. Very easy to run & maintain.
In our trials and errors with different types of fuel I've settled on using hardwood offcuts which have come from local joinery firms, which I buy from a local wood recycling initiative. Less attractive than using real logs, but I found with bulk ordering of logs in our first year (a few different local sources; all supposedly well-seasoned wood) that the moisture levels were so variable that we were constantly up & down adjusting the choke. Your typical string bag of logs from the garden centre are generally pretty good (ie: dry), but not very cost effective.
No but I've wondered myself at the pros and cons. I think one of the arguments to go for this is depends upon how well air-tight/sealed your room is and also if you've fitted the legal air vent (ISTR if the stove is more than 5KW then HETAS says you should have an air vent). The air to fuel the stove has to come from somewhere. If the room is well sealed then it'll tend to reduce the O2 in the room - just a guess. And, even if the room isn't well sealed then the stove will be tending to draw in cold air from the outside via the various gaps/ill fitting doors/windows/etc.. That can't be good. I'm thinking pulling the air direct from outside is a good thing and it's something I'll probably do the next time I fit a stove.
Would be great if I had the money's but we just can't afford that. Like I say at the moment all I'm going to do is open up the cavity in the fireplace, cap the chimney for now with a vented piece of wood and line the opening with tiles.
I take it the HETA certification is just for log burner installation and for widening the cavity.
Hey putting a log burner in isn't a cheap heating solution - not unless you have a great source of super cheap/free wood! I spend about £400 on wood and that's just for the winter and that's on top of the oil bill. If you have gas then that's the MUCH cheaper heating option.
That is true Steve, we have a 2 bed ground floor flat and it has storage heating , to have radiators fitted would cost a least 4k , hence why we went for the Logburner as it has already shown the heat can reach all the rooms so it works for us in that way 1.2sm of Kiln dried Logs cost me £140.00 so hopefully the log Burner will need less of these as the old open Fire used "Burn through them at a shocking rate"!
The Hetas certificate is to show the installation has been carried out professionally and will help in any insurance claims . the burner is then registered by Hetas
Cheers
Wayne
1.2sm... so that's like a pallet load? Wow is that all? We go through 4 times that in a winter. We get a flat bed delivery and the thing is full from end-to-end side-to-side. :-(
Next year I'm going for sections of trees and I'm going to see if I can split them all my self using a log splitter. Not sure of the cost saving though, I mean if it only saves a hundred quid then I won't bother.... doing a whole truck load of wood is a LOT of wood.
Yes thats right Steve or 2 large builders bags worth ...seems to be just enough to see us through , with the open Fire spent more money on Kindling than anything else used to take ages to get going , but with the Logburner 4 pieces and she is away, and with the Kiln dried Logs , they burn hotter so in theory should use less..., the guy we get ours from is currently doing a Triple load of Kiln dried Logs 4.5 cubic SM for £360.00
Cheers
Wayne
Yes opened up my own fireplace 7 years ago, got a gas fitter to remove the fire and cap the gas supply and then I went to work. It wasn't too much of a drama, but a lot of rubble. Fitted my own stove, then got it signed off by a Heatas approved fitter.
We have had a Charnwood for 7 - 8 years now, been a great multi fuel stove, and parts are readily available from Charnwood, who are on the Isle of Wight. I stopped used logs 5 years ago as I couldn't get a decent supply of seasoned wood, and if you use unseasoned, the chimney gets tarred up and it can lead to chimney fires. I had to have my chimney reamed, that removed all the tar and restored the clay linear to nearly new. I now burn Homefire ovals, they burn really hot and leave the chimney clean. A winter supply costs me around £300 as I buy in bulk.
I get through a flat bed full of wood also per season, costs me £60! But, it's unseasoned and trunk rounds, so the proviso is I have to store them a season and split them myself. I bought a cheap damp meter online to test the moisture content (£9 on Amazon and checked it against my works Protimeter professional meter and its good enough for testing logs). I find the logs are fine as I get them delivered 'green' at the end of the winter heating period and by the next heating period they burn very well. Luckily I know a local tree surgeon so he'll do a job, chop the trees into rounds and dump the lot on my drive, plus he'll only give me good burning hardwood. I bought a foot operated splitter online a splitting Axe and kindling axe. I'm now into my 3rd year with my fire and in all that time haven't paid more than £400 on logs, kindling, axes and splitter. I reckon that's good value.
I've even raided skips for free wood, plus had my father-in-laws fence, a neighbours shed for kindling. I built my log store from old pallets, although bought some wood and feather edge to make a roof.
But taking cost out of it altogether, you can't beat a nice toasty real fire/log burner - I call mine the sleep machine as it's so homely and comforting it never fails to send me to sleep (It's not Carbon Monoxide doing it either as I have an alarm!)
But taking cost out of it altogether, you can't beat a nice toasty real fire/log burner - I call mine the sleep machine as it's so homely and comforting it never fails to send me to sleep (It's not Carbon Monoxide doing it either as I have an alarm!)[/QUOTE]
Haha isnt that the truth... it is the best thing about the Winter to be honest
Didnt realize the wood was so expensive. £400 for one winterWe spend £600 a year for all our gas/electricity. As mentioned above i think a high efficiency gas fire might be the best bet.
That does seem a lot of money ! as said earlier my load cost £140 and it will see me through the Winter…Didnt realize the wood was so expensive. £400 for one winter
Cheers
Wayne
We have two stoves, a Contura 51L and a higher rated Dovre 425. The Contura is fabulous, chucks out much more heat and the glass keeps clean, it's in a different league
I'm just going to say, that make sure you know what you're burning. Fences, pallets, sheds, roofing off cuts, etc are more often then not nowadays, "treated wood". Burning treated wood can lead to health problems. Any wood that has been painted, stained, chemically dipped, etc is classed as treated. Never ever burn that chip board stuff inside a home.
http://www.environmentalhealth.ca/s05burn.html
Just some general comments here as I'm not in the UK so I can not advise any British brands of stove.
We have a woodburner that acts as the additional/backup heat source in our principal home (Massif Central, France, 650 metres above sea level, so sometimes in winter temperatures did get as low as minus 20 Celsius at night). Ours has an oilstone cladding (it's a special very dense and smooth rock from Finland), and this amasses heat to spread it slowly after the fire has gone out. Makes the stove far more efficient as a gentle space heater, and most of the exterior does not get so hot that you would instantly burn yourself if you touch it (it's also less of a fire risk that way). This thing is about 85% efficient which is way above average and possibly as high as a woodstove can get.
Getting the air direct from outside (through the wall or floor) is a very good solution. That way, not only does it not use already heated air but it also does not use any oxygen from the room, which is a good thing for your health to say the least... Especially if the place is well insulated and weatherstripped - if it's leaky and drafty as hell it does not matter oxygen-wise, but the stove would still be drawing in cold air even faster.
If you intend to use is a backup heating system that can work in the absence of electricity, avoid the modern wood chip burning ones that use powered fans and endless screws to feed small wood pellets into the chamber. You may even look at models that have a small oven space in the top and/or a top plate suitable for cooking. Just sayin'. ;-)
Slight tangent - has anyone had any insurance problems related to wood burners? I was just speaking with an insurance broker and one of the questions I was asked was 'do you have a wood burner/ open fire'. I wonder if you're supposed to inform your insurance company once you've put one in - and if your premiums go up?
In all the years I have never been asked if I have a log burner. Know you have to declare if you have a thatched roof though
Yes, but I was lucky enough that there were already lintels in place
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
I'm hoping there are some lintels in place and maybe the opening is large enough to not have to widen further. I'll probably start it next week so I'll see what's there when I take the fireplace out.
^ you can always get an insert stove. small insert stoves like the esse don't even need a flue liner.
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Pretty much what I want to start doing... so 'trunk rounds' is the term then? Wondered what you called them. So these are c. 8-10" thick then i.e. 'normal' log size?
That is a stonking deal though... tbh I'm amazed sixty quid even pays for the delivery charge! If I can get anything like that price for a flat bed full then I'll be very happy.
Here's a handy guide to what wood burns best: -
http://www.flamingfires.co.uk/which-wood-burns-best.htm
If you can get on good terms with a tree surgeon and buy freshly felled rounds you'll be on to a good thing. Some logs split easier than others too which is something to be mindful of and when they are unseasoned you can't split them at all. I have a foot operated splitter which is fine for rounds, but any knotty timber will need a heavy splitting axe and some brute force; it's a damn good workout! Just mind your fingers, legs and eyes!
Anyone looking for nice axe the Greenman Bushcraft sale is on. Got some cracking knives as well.
http://www.greenmanbushcraft.co.uk/c...xes/?0_0=0&p=1
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Yeah, the important thing is to have them cut to approx 8" lengths, the rounds can then be split down to suit, I get everything from 3" (no splitting required) to 14" diameter (probably split to 1/4's).
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