Reply With QuoteOh..and if you dont mind sharing, what sort of cost was it, I have budgeted £3k for this alone.
Ok guys, we are planning on gutting out our front living room out this year. The house is circa 1880 ish and the front room is where we normally sit during the winter as it has a living flame fire (gas) at the moment. I see the wood burners are becoming more and more popular and we have discussed one to be fitted during our works this year as it seems to be the sensible way to go.
I know I am going to need the liner, insert and the fire of course and during the winter we can keep it going most of the time. So we can see the positives with it, plus with the new floor board etc. the room wont be as draughty.
Has anyone had any regrets about these or you more than happy that you have had it installed.
Can you share your thoughts/experiences with me please?
Last edited by Walesy; 14th January 2017 at 17:24.
Oh..and if you dont mind sharing, what sort of cost was it, I have budgeted £3k for this alone.
You and your modern houses... ours was built in 1875 predating yours by a massive 5 years!
We have an open fire in the front room and a multifuel stove in the back room. We don't need either as the central heating is OK on all but the very coldest days but we use both of them quite a bit, particularly at weekends. I know heat is heat but there's something about the quality of the heat we get from them that just makes the house that bit cosier. I think it's because heating the two chimneys that run up through the house heats the house from the core. That's before mentioning the smell and the look of them. I find with the stove that filling it with smokeless briquettes and choking the air inlet last thing means it will still be lit in the morning so I can bung a bit of fuel on, open up the air and it fires up again. The open fire has to be remade every day.
There's no getting round the fact that they're messy though. With practice you can keep the mess to a minimum but there will always be some.
I can't help with costs as ours were in the house when we moved in.
Haha...they are better houses though, lets face it. Need a bit more TLC...but certainly well built.Originally Posted by MakeColdplayHistory
Yeah, your thoughts echo a few I have spoken with, I was advised that best thing to do is buy a cheap hoover for the cleaning to make life easier.
I think its the quality of heat, smell and the fact it can be left on without little expense is the thing that attracts me, my gran had a coal fire and it was excellent, especially after a hearty meal when you fall asleep. I just love flames.
Thanks for your thoughts and experience on this!
hi op. if you are in a smoke controlled area(smokeless zone) you will need a smoke exempt multi fuel stove.
Not sure if I am or not, how do you find out...council?
I am very happy that we got ours.
Costs.
Wood stove. Make: Esse £500
Chimney sweep £85 (had lots of bird nests)
Fitting including lining £1400.
So it wasn't exorbitant.
The wood can be quite dear unless you buy in bulk. The best prices I can find are from the wood fuel cooperative in Scotland.
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do a search for your area on google.
Thats not bad, I plan on doing the strip out etc. of the fire already in place myself and opening it up as much as possible.
But thats a good price bud, thanks for sharing.
We were less than £3k for ours installed, with a new hearth and the chimney lined (3 Storey house)
We love it, multifuel is the way to go, this time of year we burn wood during day and put coal on before bed and it lights itself the next morning.
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Last edited by Gordon76; 14th January 2017 at 17:54.
will your stove be in the wall or out in the room?
Thats good! Do you have any details on the installer you can PM me please?
It will be recessed in the original fire place opening bud as much as possible, I am going to open it up as much as I can.
ok. I think that depending on the output you might require separate ventilation.
hi. I've been looking at the esse ironheart to use as a fire in the kitchen.
from what I have read bud, below 5kw, I dont need vent (I think). However, the most efficient one I can find has a vent to the outside aswell.
I think you are correct with that. are you having a back boiler on your stove?
I'm getting one put in shortly, with a full, twin wall flue. £4,600 including stove, flue, hearth and fitting.
No mate...Just going to run with the combi for heating and hot water.
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same here. any particular stove/manufacturer in mind?
http://www.lung.org/about-us/media/t....google.co.uk/
There seems to be a lot of health issues surrounding wood burners, same can be said about most things but I'm just putting it out there :-)
Any Google search will throw up lots of warnings, especially for men !!
metal things that sit in a room, and once wood is put in you light it to generate heat, and possibly hot water depending on model.
What chimney breast is it? stone or brick? Does it need to be opened up? If its open then all stoves have Mfr's dims to adear to. Obviously who ever fits it should sort all this out for you but will effect the price. Pics would be good.
He wants thoughts on, not a definition of a wood burner
Our house is the same sort of age, and we have recently had a Scan Andersen 5kw stove fitted in our living room. We didn't need a liner, and cost was c£1500 fitted. We have modern double glazing and almost new heating, but still use the stove a lot. Scan are Danish (a Jotul brand, I think) cast iron and wood burning only - excellent value, I think.
Re mess: we use eco fuels - in our case compressed hardwood offcuts from a furniture factory in Eastern Europe, from an outfit called Cumbria Green Fuels. Some folks on here don't like this kind of fuel, but apparently the stuff is very variable. The wood we use has a low moisture content, burns for ages, leaves almost no ash, and keeps the stove and glass pretty much spotless. The fuel is easy to store in the utility room - all round very clean and convenient, especially for a city location like ours.
If Johny is in Glasgow and can recommend his fitter , then that's the thread finished !!!
A bit like this forum , I was told "buy the fitter !!!" .......the actual burner you can buy on the web , getting the right fitter is the main thing....I've heard of a few horror stories leading to fires from poorly installed burners.
We were unusual in the fact we wanted to 'house' our burner within a row of wooden cabinets ( which obviously isn't advisable with highly combustible things !! ) , so we asked around . In the end , after " interviewing" 5 fitters , we made our choice.
They were from central belt Scotland and 5 star excellent .
Bought our burner from the web , and then the guys bought the subsequent parts .
Get Johny's fitter !!
Our woodburner cost £5,000 fitted. A lot but our house is properly old (1650) and has a thatched roof so installation was highly complex and had to be to the best possible safety standard.
The installer I used, told me that a few years ago the Esse had a really bad reputation but now he thought they were fantastic. They are made in GB as well I think. I didn't buy from him, bought online.
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Oh and one other thought. Have a look at the fans that sit on top and are powered by the heat. I really rate mine bought from Amazon. It makes a huge difference to the heat that can be redistributed into the room where it is pointed.
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Best friends have got this and love it.
http://www.mendipstoves.co.uk/churchill-5-se
Less than £3k fitted in a 17th century cottage, multi-fuel, lovely build and burns beautifully.
Dirty and stinky. I have asthma and rhinitis so they make me very ill, for all sorts of reasons. We've spent hours trying to find a holiday rental cottage that doesn't have one!
These two sites will give you a huge amount of information regarding installation:
http://www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk/
http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/
I installed mine as I had lots of time and enjoy learning new skills (if you do install it yourself you will need to have it signed off by Building Control). It took me a day and a half against a professional quote of half a day and £400. Don't be tempted to install a stove of large output unless you can truly distribute that heat. If the stove is a 'feature' in addition to a central heating system keep the output low. I have a very large living room with a 5kW stove and this is plenty. I had a 12kW stove in a house in Scotland (installed by previous owners) and in temperatures of -10C couldn't burn it without having windows open after a couple of hours.
They are hypnotic so get one with a nice large viewing window. As previously mentioned, especially if your stove is recessed, get an Ecofan or similar: http://www.ecofan.co.uk/ They do a great job of distributing the heat. If you do get one get it with a matt black blade; mine originally had a nickel blade - it caught the light and was very distracting.
Keep the questions coming as you go through the process.
In order to ensure you don't get a room full of smoke when you light it in cold weather (there will be a natural air flow DOWN the chimney in cold weather - when you want to light it). As shown to me by a ski chalet host in France, get a blow lamp and heat the interior of the stove for around 2 minutes to get air flowing UP the chimney before you light it. You can test it by placing a small piece of newspaper on top of the pre-prepared fire (on a solid piece of wood) and lighting it. If smoke is forced into the room keep going with the blow lamp, if not, you're good to go.
Last edited by Skier; 15th January 2017 at 11:28.
Good to know. I was thinking of having one fitted but suffer from asthma so may leave it
Check my earlier post, they have been linked to cancer, especially in men. Loads of research and it doesn't look good.
I also have asthma and it put me off along with news articles, I also think the BBC featured the risks, could be wrong but it was on televised news.
Hi
not sure if it"s just me , but i do not find them"Dirty, Stinky or Messy !
one of the reasons we got a log Burner installed was it was a lot less hassle than an open fire , the only smell we had was the first couple of fires we lit but that was the paint on the stove curing and settling in , as for the mess take some of the ash bed out twice a week and clean the glass if dirty
Ours is so easy to use as well, it only has one control this controls air input and air wash (this stops the glass Blackening up as a barrier of air is against the Glass window )
http://www.woodburnerwarehouse.co.uk...our-stove.html
this is a 5KW stove so no internal vent needed, we had an existing Fireplace which was knocked out to show the Bricks behind, the chimney was lined and Vermiculite added around the liner as this helps with holding the heat in the Flue which is where the main heat is needed we reused our existing Mantle piece as well all in all 2.4k and took 3 days
Cheers
Wayne
Last edited by arthurDALEY; 15th January 2017 at 11:30.
I've just had a quote of £3900 for the same set up. Includes a 10% discount January promotion. The stove is a Charnwood C4.
When I was looking around for log burners and info on installing I went to my local fire place shop. I had a long chat with him about what needs to be done, regs etc and he quoted me £1000 for the stove and everything that needs to go with it, flue, the chimney part to clamp the flue and the bit that blocks the chimney off just above the stove.
The stove he recommended was cast with parts cheaply available if anything breaks.
Good point about cast v steel. All the better makes are cast - Jotul, Charnwood etc. and retain heat much better, hence the weight (and price). A lot of ones on the internet are cheap steel ones, but look thesame.
I have a draughty old house, of a similar vintage as the OP, and they keep the oil bill down! They are definitely not smelly and the only dirt is when cleaning out the ashpan every few days.
For starting the fire I'm lazy and have a Grenadier https://grenadier.co.uk/product/gren...ic-firelighter which you can get with a taller stand especially for wood burners.
Speak to a stockist and discuss your specific room volume to get the correct kw stove, as others have said a 5kw gives a decent output for many normal rooms but a big high ceilinged room may need up to 10kw..
No not as yet mate, been looking through this thread this morning as got some manufacturers noted down, one of my mates I was down the pub with last night just got one fitted and he knows the guy well, so I am going to call him to see what options are available.
Hmmm...the plastic our food come in apparently cause cancer aswell, its something I will look into.
Stone mate. Talking to the guys last night, his installer told him if his house was pre 1963, he wouldnt need a liner but better of installing for efficiency.
I gathered from a google search, your knowledge astounds me hahaha
correct...still gave me a chuckle.
The kinetic fan, I have been told good things about them...so it will be considered.
Thats the style we are looking for, dont want it open and that would be lovely in here.
I have mild asthma, dont really suffer. Something I have never actually thought of to be fair. I thought a sealed rather than open would eradicate this??
Also....try Piperdam in Dundee, their lodges have central heating and no open fire.
Thanks for the links mate and the tips. Especially the blow lamp one, I would never have thought of that!.
I plan on going for the right size, not over sizing this. I had a look through some other forums and a few were saying to up the rating by 0.5kw...but as you have said I was to run this along side central heating and in a stand alone capacity also, so I will size it right.
Thanks very much guys for the info, I have read it all with interest inc the links. I will keep the progress of this project and some picture of install.
Once I look at the health issues concerns (for me and the family) I will make the decision.
I think 5kw will be enough, I could argue 6kw but if I do go that far I would need separate vent. I want a cast one, the steel ones online (as you have said) have reported to have warped in some cases.
Installed mine myself.
Drove upto Rugby and picked up an ex display Rika Tema for half price.
Was a 6hr round trip with all the weight on one side of the van, so I earned the discount.
Fitted the stove, flues and associated installation tocomply with currect regs, cost me about £2000 all in.
TBH might have overdone the output a little, but open all the internal doors and the heat travels up the stairs and provides a comfortable temp up there.
Probably not the stove for an older period house, but shop around there are bargains to be had.
I think I am going to start hunting for a stove myself actually, see if I can get a branded one at a reasonable price.
Just been sent another contact from a builder friend, guy is apparently good and just works alone and full registered. So we will see what he says.
Hi Walesy
Although the link to the Charnwood C4 says £822, the guy who installed it sourced it for £600, so made a good saving there
seems to be a popular model ATM , really easy to use only one Air control, big picture window and a Wooden Door handle so you don't have to use gloves or tongs to open / close the door, been really happy with the heat output, get Kiln Dried Logs if you can though really helps heat wise and leaves less deposits when it comes round to having the Flue swept
cheers
Wayne
I will have a look around, I need to look at what the flue setup is going to be, rear or top exiting. So will get some hunting done and see if I can get a deal. Found a few place on ebay that do ex display (never used) fires. So will see. Going to start ripping it out April/May for install June time.
Got the builder to pull out the open fireplace years ago. Went for a single door traditional Hunter Stove. Choose one to suit your style.
Have a look round the site. The more sites you look at the better.
https://www.hunterstoves.co.uk/
I use http://www.marchona.eu/gr_marchona.s...p_va-cataloges
For the last 10 yrs without any issues
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I actually quite like them, cheers for the link!
Good to know...cant get the site to read in English version though.
I forgot to mention the make of ours. The company that fitted ours have been in the business for a very long time. They fit anything but had a few recommended brands - the usual ones mentioned in this thread but they also highly recommended the Norwegian brand Nordpeis after very good experience with them. We went for a Nordpeis Bergen as we liked the shape and quality feel of it. It is easy to light and burns very cleanly with the glass remaining clear and minimal ash remaining. I think we clean out the ash maybe 5 or 6 times over the winter.
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