just fitted a new woodburner stove

[al]

I got the new woodburner on friday. A cheapy £275 job off the net but it seems pretty good. We have a little house and I wanted to cut down the gas bill a bit. Collected some logs out the field where I walk the dog and then warmed myself by the flames in the evening. How satisfying is that?:)

al

[Livesley165710]

There is a saying wood heats three times, once when you cut it, once when you stack it and finaly when you burn it. If you burn soft wood it will be gone in no time so make sure of what you collect.
Steve

[cr*pshot]

Make that four times if you burn wood that hasn't been seasoned properly - the fourth is when your chimney catches fire :D

[Ray J]

All those poor trees, you orrid beesty.:rolleyes:

Ray:cool:

[SteveR]

its ok Ray, sounds like they were free range logs :D

[starrysmoothhound]

i'm looking at them in earnest, i have to get a flue fitted and am waiting for the best quote, not the best time to buy though, with gas panic etc, a bit of a sellers market, interested in burning peat bricks.

[starrysmoothhound]

al, can i ask you where you got the stove from?, 5thanks simon.

[Bowyer]

i'm looking at them in earnest, i have to get a flue fitted and am waiting for the best quote, not the best time to buy though, with gas panic etc, a bit of a sellers market, interested in burning peat bricks.

Getting the best quote will get you a cowboy fitter. You're dealing with fire in the home. Get it done RIGHT - and that means finding a firm with the best reputation and sod the cost. The alternative can easily be a serious chimney fire, and they can cause very expensive structural damage.

The liner needs to be insulated so it doesn't act as a condensation tube, the correct connectors top and bottom must be used, and the correct anchor at the top.

The number of times I've been to sweep a wood stove only to have to tell the customer they've been ripped off and it's unsweepable and/or hopelessly tarred up is frightening.

Yes - I'm a chimney sweep, and in this I DO know what I'm on about.

[Peter Dunkley]

We go most years to a friends shack out in the wilds of eastern Canada and there is a wood burning stove which is ancient but which burns clean with no smoke, we can keep the temp at what we like in the shack, cook, and have water on the boil all day. the secret I am told is that the wood we burn has been cut and stacked for at least a year. Where you would buy such wood in the UK I know not.
Peter

[12" phut]

The secret I am told is that the wood we burn has been cut and stacked for at least a year. Where you would buy such wood in the UK I know not.
PeterThere are people around who sell seasoned wood.

The small-ads in the local rag are one place to start. We've been getting a pick-up full of nicely seasoned logs for the past few years. It'd probably be worth asking at local stove/fireplace shops too, as they're bound to have been asked before, and try asking at timber yards as well - they will probably know someone.

HTH

Pete

[al]

sorry forgot to mention, got the stove from www.naturalheating.co.uk
aspect stove £249 multifuel. I fitted it myself and don't have a liner cos its in a good (just swept) chimney..
al

[RAGNAR BENSON]

sorry forgot to mention, got the stove from www.naturalheating.co.uk
aspect stove £249 multifuel. I fitted it myself and don't have a liner cos its in a good (just swept) chimney..
al

I envy you there. They look excellent. I'll bet your woodburner will be a treat on the cold dark nights. One day I would like to get me one of those.

[Bowyer]

sorry forgot to mention, got the stove from www.naturalheating.co.uk
aspect stove £249 multifuel. I fitted it myself and don't have a liner cos its in a good (just swept) chimney..
al

And....? What access for sweeping is provided? What's the register plate made out of? Is it sealed all round? What's it fixed in place by? Are the access hatches covered by screwed plates (fatal mistake)? Is there access both sides of the flue pipe? Does it comply with Building Regulations (insurance almost certainly invalid if it doesn't)?

[Taz]

i miss my old stove we burned all sorts in it inc a lot of rubbish
bread dough burns well but peat coke solid fuel of all descriptions and i bought a chainsaw:D
we have/had a yard near us where the tree gangs used to dump all the felled timber it was massive and they didn't mind me going down with the van now and then and filling it
i found out through trial and error how different woods burned and smelled
i also found out a heavy duty fireproof rug came in handy after numerous holes in the carpet:o

[kingstonandy]

Bowyer, your advice would be appreciated.

We have a wood burner, DIY fitted nearly 10 yrs ago. There's about 3 ft of stainless flue connecting it to the Victorian, unlined chimney which was designed for a kitchen range. The stove is not fixed, the flue is not fixed except by gravity. The chimney is not sealed except by a sheet of fireboard resting loosely on some angle iron supports.
The chimney has was swept once before installation and once since. I plan to do it myself in the spring with a Screwfix brush on the end of some drain rods.

How likely are we to start the great fire of Stafford?

[cr*pshot]

Andy, your setup sounds very similar to mine, except after sweeping we seal the register plate (galvanised steel in ours round the edges and where the flue passes through with fire cement). The chimney (approx 2 foot square) is unlined but in very good nick, and we tend to burn more coal (especially anthracite, which produces no soot or smoke to speak of) than logs, although I can get as many logs as I want for free. To be on the safe side we tend to have it swept twice a year, although our sweep said last time that there was so little soot it only really needs doing once a year. We are lucky in that the (very tall) chimney produces an excellent draught although it has such a large cross section - it's probably helped by being in a very sheltered location. I know that in my last house the previously excellent chimney was completely buggered by somebody putting up a two storey building across the road and changing the wind patterns in the area (half the time we couldn't use the stove because of downdraughts forcing smoke back into the front room - we were about to move so I left it for the new owner to sort out - I did do the decent thing and told him).

[al]

whats a good way to seal the registry board? mine is made of that stuff from stove shops that looks like white plaster board.? I guess the better the seal the better the draw on the stove.
My setup is similar to above, a big well made chimney with good draw on it Made in 1890 when fireplaces were more of a priority:) .
al

[cr*pshot]

I just run a thickish (half inch or so) bead of fire cement round the top of the angle iron support and then pull the plate (ours is steel but it should just as well with fireproof board) firmly down on to it so it beds in. The fire cement is cured by heat so it's a good idea to have a good hot fire straight away after sealing. The angle is sealed to the brickwork with fire cement. You're definitely right about the seal improving the draw - it means that all air going up the chimney HAS to go through the stove, and stops any soot falling into the fireplace round the stove. You can buy smoke cones to see if smoke is being drawn in through any leaks, but as a smoker I find blowing a cloud of rollup smoke at it is jut as effective.

[al]

thanks. a pot of fire cement it is:)
al

[Bowyer]

Right. Pay attention now. Sit up straight at the back there!

The plate across the bottom of the chimney that the stove's flue pipe goes through is called the Register Plate. This must be made of steel. Nothing else will do. No, not fibreboard. No, not that awful white stuff that's got the tensile strength of custard skin. Steel.

This should be at least 2mm thick 'cos you want it to last and not rust through too quickly, and also so that it remains rigid. It should be cut such that it fits snugly in the chimney, resting on, and bolted to, angle iron so that it cannot move. Then it should be sealed with fire cement around the edges, and stove tape around the fluepipe.

On each side of where the flue pipe goes through there must be an access hatch for sweeping so that the sweep can properly clean all parts of the chimney, especially at the bottom where it widens out, and where a chimney fire starts.

These access hatch openings should be square or rectangular, not round, and should be as large as possible up to about 14 inches square, and in any event not less than 8 inches square. This is so that the sweep can easily get it up (Ooer!) and can get at the soot that collects on top of the register plate and at all the corners.

Remember - a chimney fire starts at the bottom where the heat is, so really good access for cleaning is essential.

The access hatch covers should be made like a loft door - I.E. so that they can be lifted, turned diagonally, and removed completely. A piece of steel half an inch bigger all round than the access hatch itself, with another piece just a fraction smaller than the access hatch bolted permanently to it, will fit snugly in place and remain secure under gravity. Make this out of two pieces of eighth inch thick steel to give a total of a quarter inch thick for the hatch covers so that they have enough wieght. Now you see why the register plate needs to remain nice and rigid and not end up bowing or such like.

Why like loft doors?

Because soot is very corrosive stuff and will turn a screw into a rivet so you can't get it out, will rust and jam sliding doors and sieze up hinges so they snap. The loft door type gives excellent very long term reliability so once the job's done, you won't have the bother of having to keep re-doing it.

If the shape of the inside of the chimney at the bottom precludes having two access hatches - like if the gather slopes sharply off to one side rather than being an equal sided funnel, then one access hatch of as large a size as possible is OK, provided that this enables good access to all parts of the top of the register plate when it's fixed in place.

When sweeping, make sure that the brush is the correct size for that flue - too large and the bristles will be bent over too much and will not get the soot off properly, too small and, obviously, it won't touch the sides. If the brush is old and/or sparse in the bristle department, throw it away and buy a new one.

If your wood isn't as well seasoned as you'd like, try mixing it with some coal, as the very acid coal soot helps to stop the wood tar from sticking to the inside of the chimney, and will help to undermine old tar that's already there. But you will need to sweep it every year - don't miss a year because you " haven't used it very much". Cleaning a chimney every year even if it's not very dirty means you have less soot to worry about each time.

And if your wife's likely to throttle you if you make all that mess again, a professional sweep's not actually all that expensive when compared to the cost of getting your carpets, sofas etc cleaned!

[al]

thank you for that good post. I was paying attention:p and will look into getting a better job done.
al
2o years on and still hearing "could do better:rolleyes: "