[Closed] Finally, we can get a log burner. Should we still get a log burner?

If you have an open fire then it is a no brainer to replace it with a stove. Modern stoves are about 90% efficient versus less than 20% efficient for an open fire. As you already have a chimney your installation costs will be minimal.

What do you burn on the fire? Do you already have central heating?

For me (personally) the main question is are you in a town or village with many around you or are you rural located?

I get that it's nice to sit in front of a fire, but log burners really are appallingly bad for local air quality.

are you on mains gas

I don't like ours, and we've not used it the last couple of winters. It'll go when we redo that room. Previous owners fitted it, it's way too much heat output for the size of room (so it's like a sauna in there with it going), I can't be arsed with keeping dry wood to hand or getting the chimney swept. Plus we live inside the M25 so air quality is bad enough as it is.

Might consider a fakey electric one, or just get rid altogether. I think they're fine in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere but the fad for putting them in suburban houses needs to stop.

Burn wood*, not gas (or oil, or coal).

[ *does not apply to urban dwellers ]

[ *only use properly dried wood ]

[ *not all wood burners are as clean burning as they could be... don't go cheap ]

[ *we'll all be switching to electric heating, just as soon as the national grid is decarbonised ]

If you require the heat output on a regular basis, a good stove is wonderful. Special occasions only, keep with the open fire. A great atmosphere creator.

We have just gone through this and decided it didn't make sense much as I wanted one. So we have just had one of these installed https://www.stovax.com/stove-fire/riva2-500-gas-fires/riva2-500verve-xs/

We have central heating and mains gas here and it seemed crazy for us to burn wood and pollute the local air more.

(Have a house in Scotland as well where the Morso stove is the only heating, no gas there, in fact we only got electricity about 15 years ago!)

I get that it’s nice to sit in front of a fire, but log burners really are appallingly bad for local air quality.

We have one, its lovely, but the air pollution is very noticeable, I can taste log burner pollution in the air in our street as soon as someone fires one up. We're in a low emission area so they'll all be DEFRA approved stoves, but still quite noticeable.

Live on the edge of a town in a smokeless zone.

Yes we have mains gas ("we have gas combi").

On the open fire we burn smokeless coal.

I wanted one, I got one, I wouldn't if I could choose again...

Too much PITA and not nice for neighbours. We were the first in our street, now its like a pea souper on a winter's night!

We went

https://www.stovax.com/stove-fire/vogue-gas-stoves/vogue-midi-gas-stoves/

Sure it’s not quite as pretty/warm as a log burner but it is remote control and i don’t have to deal with ashes and logs.

I also remember my non mains, non gas rural years , gas is a lot Quicker/easier.

We installed one in each of our last two houses. Have just renovated our current house, and would have liked one just because they're nice, but we're on the edge of Oxford, where the air quality is pretty crappy, so we decided on a gas fire instead. It doesn't look as nice, but it warms the room up, and isn't pumping so much nasty stuff into the local air.

(We got a high output inset thingummy that wasn't dirty cheap - about £1500 including surround and oak mantelpiece, from these people: https://www.casttec.co.uk/ )

I have a gas fake log burners - its great. supplemental heating and looks the part. In an attic flat its the only answer

if you are have an open fire and do not need the log burner for heating i would not bother. an open fire is so much nicer

Things to note

- if you're not getting wood from a local tree surgeon (or similar) then firewood is expensive. As in, you'll get through a few quid's worth per evening of use
- you'll also need your chimney swept once a year
- Until the tidal wave of news swept 2020 away, stove emissions were creeping up the environmental agenda. I wouldn't be surprised if they get stricter in the next 5 years, possibly with a ban or requiring some kind of chimney filter (which aren't cheap)
- emissions from stoves do seem to be really quite bad, much worse than people thought until fairly recently (but personally i love the smell in the air when everyone has a stove going)
- you may eventually discover, once the novelty has worn off, that you only really fire it up twice a week

Have to say, no, because the environment etc etc.

We have no alternate source of heat. But I'd take gas in a flash if it were possible.

– you may eventually discover, once the novelty has worn off, that you only really fire it up twice a week year

fixed...

Had one in the old place as there was no mains gas (only oil)
Ran it to feed a thermal store for water and CH
I spent way too much time and money on keeping it fed with 'free' wood (pickup truck, chainsaws, PPE).
They are messy polluting things.
They look lovely.
We now have a fake one that runs off mains gas.

On the open fire we burn smokeless coal.

Far worse, in every way, than using a wood burner properly. Well, not every way… smells and looks lovely, but none of us should be burning the stuff if we can use an alternative, really.

I understand why people are loving the open flame look gas centre pieces… but if you’re going to burn gas, do so as efficiently as possible… you might as well use your boiler (assuming you have one).

Got to say I'm well impressed by the posters above who wanted one, could have got one but didn't due to polution.

Genuine respect.

thegeneralist /\

+1

One of those things that's nice but no good when everyone has one. When I lived in Hebden Bridge the air quality was horrific on a cold day.

Looking for a house online at the mo and it's quite shocking just how many houses have them these days.

The problem with wood burners is 90% of people haven't a ****ing clue how to use them, the hour I spent after fitting one instructing on how to use it was wasted on most people.
Not in the business any longer, but some customers were just born stupid.
After initial firing up a stove all you should see from the chimney is a heat haze, any smoke YOU'RE NOT DOING IT CORRECTLY.

Exactly. I'm stunned by an the users saying there's smells. I run mine all winter and it's very rare to be able to tell from outside the house. No visible smoke or smell if wood is dry and fire burning hot.

Was like you, and went for it. I have to admit I 'wanted' one. We had a huge extension and it's great for heating that new area and the old part of the house.
We went for quality, meets all new and planned regs, nice simple single lever control/choke. We also have a temp gauge fitted, and a moisture tester.
I initially had to buy logs, but now I use a local tree surgeon. He tips me off if he has Ash or Oak. He can get rid of chipping, but not logs. So I collect those and I have my own chainsaw.

I've been on the roof when its going, deffo no smoke or smell. Just haze?

We have no mains gas and, at times during the winter, can struggle with local electricity outages. We have electric central heating.

So, we got a log burner installed about 4 years ago. Hwam 2630, nominally 4.5kw. Ensuring we use only well seasoned low moisture (<15%) quality firewood, the only visible smoke is during first ignition, then no sign at all.

It is great for those days when you want a quick heat of the house (just leave the internal doors in the house open) or if power fails.

Just plan ahead for the following year or year after when it comes to buying and storing logs unless you want to use kiln dried or take a risk with unseasoned logs (which will cause issues).

The sweep was here last week for the annual sweep. £80 included check of the log burner, flue, smoke test, etc. Money well spent.

We have a gas stove.

It is AMAZING

Push the remote, woosh on full whack all 4.2kW and 82% efficient

Remote has a thermostat so the place doesn't get too hot

No faff with wood, no mess, nothing to clean.

Its a thing of beauty, best thing I've ever bought for the house apart from the insulation I put under the floor.

[img] [/img]

Portway 1 gas stove

https://www.portwaystoves.com/portway-1-gas-stove

Really need to get that picture hung 😉

The sweep was here last week for the annual sweep. £80 included check of the log burner, flue, smoke test, etc. Money well spent.

How much! I pay £30 for that (don’t think he checks the flue particularly).

Horses for courses innit.

In the middle of nowhere in the depths of the Highlands at 250m altitude on lpg. The hulking big stove will warm the whole house with doors left open etc. But it is hotter than the sun next to it.

£400 buys me 10 cubic metres of logs which is a shed load of money for about 2 shed loads of logs. But That will mean the LPG is only used minimally beyond hot water. I reckon without it the LPG bill would make me cry - multiple times more than £400 of logs. I think for us £3 of logs = £10-12 of lpg in terms of heat generation, maybe better. But that is reliant on a cheapish source of good wood and ability to store in bulk and compared to relatively expensive LPG.

My only advice - if you go for it buy a stove small enough that it can be run properly and not throttled back - that's a one way street to a blocked chimney.

If it's just for show....maybe not worth the expense. And if in an area where the local emissions are a factor then again, maybe not.

As you already have a chimney your installation costs will be minimal.

Whist this *may* be the case, it is not always the case. For a stove to burn efficiently the draw needs to be right and that may mean a liner is required.

@wzzzz How much was that, if you don't mind me asking?

just going through the same decision.

we had a lovely baxi open fire. the mrs didnt like it. it smelled when you burnt stuff on it (properly seasoned wood) so i suggested a wood burning stove. No smoke. less smells. she decided she didnt like that either. So we compromised and she got an electric fire 🙁

in a word - no.

Our house had one when we moved in and whilst it's great for heat and ambiance, I feel very self conscious when using it and as such rarely do. I ride home through 4 villages and in winter with the wind in your face, the smell is utterly dreadful thanks to woodburners.

Ours combusts very well, and we have no soot formation on the bricks, glass etc when using properly dried hardwood, but still, I have to close our windows in autumn as many of the neighbors will run woodburners as soon as the temperature is below 18.

I'd replace it with gas in a heartbeat if I could, but there's no gas in the village and and nowhere to safely store a cylinder in the garden without demolishing the greenhouse. .

We had the same discussion, i struggled with the air quality issues.

We considered gas but as we have central heating already it would be for show and most of the time it would be switched off.

In the end we went for a fancy electric one. We can have it on in the summer evenings without the heat but over a grand for for a fan heater is a lot to stomach.

– you may eventually discover, once the novelty has worn off, that you only really fire it up twice a week

We use ours pretty much every day throughout autumn / winter. We do have gas CH, but just use the fire instead as it's much nicer and only heats the downstairs, which is where we are most of the time.

We had two Dovre 250s in our house. Great multi-fuel stoves.

One thing nobody has mentioned is the huge volumes of air stoves suck up the flue, meaning the room is always fresh and well ventilated.

We use ours pretty much every day throughout autumn / winter.

So do we - it normally uses about two standard 1 tonne bags (plus any random offcuts I end up with) in a single season (so about £200 over four or five months) so not that bad on costs (our gas usage doesn't go up very much in the winter as the radiators don't kick in much).

@Cougar stove was £1000 I think a few years back, googling they are £1200 or so now https://www.fireworld.co.uk/gas-stoves/portway-1-gas-stove

Fitting is similar cost to a wood burner, but the fitter needs a gas ticket and the intelligence to understand its neither a log burner nor a gas fire, it's a gas stove. You'd be surprised to hear I struggled to relay the concept to lots of installers who ere mostly only interested in fitting gas fires or log burners.

I ended up dropping a log burner spec stainless liner down (that was also rated for gas), but this is way over-specced for a gas flue.

the hour I spent after fitting one instructing on how to use it was wasted on most people.

Got some pallets and old decking here, ideal for firewood.

We got one several years ago because I wanted one. To be honest I'd not bother again, I've even advised mates who were thinking about it against them. We don't actually need it and whilst it's nice to look at, it's unnecessary. We haven't had it going in the last two years and I doubt we'll use it this year.

I'd get another one in a heart beat.

I love the phaff of collecting/chopping/storing the wood. Can't beat getting it on on a chilly morning/evening (ours is in a large open plan room with floor tiles) to take the edge off the cold. I actually wish i'd got one with a back boiler so we could have heated the hot water off it whilst it is on!

We've got one and use it once or twice a year.

Don't buy a wood burner, they're pure evil man.

Instead, import an incredibly innefficient far Eastern uglybus, no worries 😆

I actually wish i’d got one with a back boiler so we could have heated the hot water off it whilst it is on!

There's a whole new money pit of pointlessness when you get it installed.

Cougar - I have a very basic gas fake stove that cost half of that - firefox No remote just an old fashioned push and turn control

https://www.stovesareus.co.uk/brands/brands-a-to-f/firefox-stoves/firefox-5-gas-stove.html

I did the installation apart from doing the gas connection. Very simple

If you're out in the sticks and you've a good local free supply of dead wood then yeah, go for it. Otherwise, stick to gas, oil or electric.

When I was a kid my mum used to just go round the neighbourhood asking people who were getting windows / doors etc replaced if we could have the old wood. My dad did a fair bit of skip diving too (yes we did burn quite a bit of painted wood). I think at one point they managed several years without having to buy firewood...

We’re going through this decision process right now. We are in the country, have no mains gas and for 25 years have heated the house with a Stanley solid fuel stove which runs runs on smokeless ovals and stays in all the time outside of summer to power the central heating and hot water. In the living room, which is at the end of the central heating circuit, it is rarely warm enough in winter and we have an open fire which we feed on smokeless fuel and logs. We want to replace this with a log burner, probably the Clearview Pioneer. This will make the room far more comfortable in winter, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and increase the efficiency of our log fires.

I think at one point they managed several years without having to buy firewood…

It's a slippy slope. Woodburner....chain saw . Pick up - Trailer .....

Then folk start calling when there are trees to dispose....

I have more wood than I know what to do with currently ...but still beats burning oil (most of the time.......but currently oil is cheap sosaving my wood. )

Stoves do no not suck up huge volumes of air, that's why you can have up to 5kw without a vent.

How times change on STW!

Interesting how the air quality was excellent across the UK within days of lockdown, when it was still cold enough for these polluting burners to be on...

A modern stove, used properly, is very clean despite what the tabloids are pushing. It's a joy to have in the house as winter draws in.

Yes Twinwall, but they suck up much more than a gas boiler on a balanced flue.

The humidity in my house drops measurably with the stove on, which is nice. By mid winter I'm doing stuff to add to the humidity like drying clothes on a clothes horse, not the tumble dryer.

We've just been through this (similar scenario. On edge of a town in smokeless zone) and we set out with firm plans for a wood stove but the more we looked into it the more we realised we wanted the convenience of gas.

We like it.

Sorry for the thread hijack but,

How hot does the chimney breast get? Like, would sticking a TV on the wall above it be a non-starter?

There great for drying stuff, we have a rack above one of ours.
The village has gas and we have a combi boiler which we use for heat early morning when getting up and at bedtime for showers. Daytime and evening heat is from log burners. Normally only light one at a time as one room is more day use and the other evening, so let one go out and light the other.

This works for us as I work in forestry, have log storage sheds, house is old so has thermal mass, I grew up with full time ranges and a mate who is an installer. As easy as riding a bike.

Get the smallest stove you can, close to flat out running is more efficient. New decent quality stoves will meet upcoming regs and are just easier to light and use. Having said that, try and find a decent size firebox, if it takes 12" log you'll rarely have trouble with bought firewood fitting in. Sort out a breezy log shed with watertight overhanging roof.

Edit; @Cougar not so much from the chimney breast, but heat directly below it I would imagine.

@bedmaker

Interesting how the air quality was excellent across the UK within days of lockdown, when it was still cold enough for these polluting burners to be on…

Were you in a different country? The weather in March was delightful. We did most of our school lessons in the garden!

As someone who commutes between 150-200km a week by bike during all times of the year, I can tell you that air quality in villages is bloody awful as soon as wood burners are lit. Sure, once most get hot enough, they burn better, but for every one that’s burning efficiently, there’s another that isn’t.

It’s eye wateringly bad and stings the back of your throat. For really cold days I have an anti-pollution mask, not for cars but for wood burners.

Get one. Best luxury we have ever purchased for our house nearly 2 years ago.

Prepare to become obsessed with gathering wood, cutting, chopping and storing wood. I'm building my third log store at the moment from free pallets to store the free wood I've picked up through Facebook Marketplace.

It's ace

We had one for 15 years at the old house. Sure, there's some work involved but they are great, and hot! so get a cold house proper toastie.

But the new house is warmer, so we went for a gas version this time. Looks great and is obviously much easier to use - it even has a remote. Not cheap but glad we went gas.

We have a couple of wood burners which do get used reasonably regularly. We're on oil so it's good to have a back up, and if the fire has been on during the evening chances are the heating doesn't need to come on in the morning.

Imo, if you're on mains had gas then spend the money on more insulation.

If you're off mains gas and have a 'hard to heat' home, then they have their place.

However, insulation comes first.

A modern stove, used properly, is very clean despite what the tabloids are pushing.

No they aren't. There's plenty of research out there for you to ignore.

We have one; use it most Winter nights as supplementary heating. We don't need to, but it's lovely

we're on the outskirts of a small village, in a wood. I think the BBQ gives off more smoke than the stove

so no neighbours, and free wood (a lot of ash are falling this year; die back is really hitting)

I have probably five years worth of wood lined up; it's very dry when I use it. That's before starting on the 10 (?) ash trunks carefully placed just behind the house.

Personally, I'd like a second stove. But we have free wood, and the space to store it for a few years.

I doubt I would have one in a bigger village or town though

How hot does the chimney breast get? Like, would sticking a TV on the wall above it be a non-starter?

Don't do it. Not because of heat, but because it's a terrible place to put a TV.

I've had one for around 8 years, I love it, but dunno if I'd bother again tbh. When I did shifts I used to love liberating and chopping/stacking wood, these days I tend to buy it unless something is freely offered, as my time is more precious on 8-4 hours. No more lovely cold winter midweek mornings to bugger about with the chainsaw and splitting maul!.

If the government are serious about emissions, then some proper legislation is required, ditto the amount of folk around me that have more cars than folk in their homes, and lots of other things I can't be arsed arguing about.

We put one in our house a couple of years ago and love it. The house was built in the early 70's and whilst we've had cavity wall insulation and proper windows fitted, it's still a rather cold house. We had a gas fire that never got used so when we did the house up we replaced it with the log burner.

I get the comments about most people not knowing how to use one. To use properly it really isn't just a case of literally burning wood. Our neighbours have one and that's what they tend to do, it stinks. We don't live in a smokeless zone but I've kept the plate on the log burner so you can't shut it down completely, so any smoke is minimal if at all.

For ours, I only get wood from a reputable source that is well seasoned and it gets stored properly, to further dry it out. I buy in bulk so it's pretty cheap and one delivery tends to last at least a year.

I'd get another one in a house like this but not for a newer, warmer home.

I’ve got one and use it everyday over winter. Wood is £70 for a builders bag of seasoned logs and I get lots of surplus wood from work. Problem with fake ones is that their fake and a bit naff but horses for courses. Helps if you have space to store wood. If I had an open fire I’d replace immeadiately with a stove as far warmer.

High wood quality and low moisture content is vital. I never burn anything higher than 20% RH. Getting a moisture metre is an essential purchase as is a magnetic temp guage for the flue. There will be a bit of smoke on lighting up, I use a wood wool firelighter and very dry kindling and small logs to get going. The flue will be up to temp within 15 minutes, after that virtually no smoke. A good indicator is if the glass on your stove stays clean, you're burning wood properly.

Getting a moisture metre is an essential purchase as is a magnetic temp guage for the flue

In 8 years I've never used either of these, possibly handy at first, but once you know your stove, understand your draw, and store wood properly, neither is needed.

They are cheap, they are a guide. They are clean, they are dirty, pick your research papers. They are low carbon... They aren't... Pick your fuel carefully.

If you care enough to seek views you care enough to get good fuel and run it well, it will still pollute a bit but use a sustainable fuel. Balance pollution Vs carbon

If you care enough to seek views you care enough to get good fuel and run it well, it will still pollute a bit but use a sustainable fuel. Balance pollution Vs carbon

Yes, and then again, no. The question is what would happen to the wood if it wasn't burned.

The question is what would happen to the wood if it wasn’t burned.

I would sell it to someone else to burn, at the very least it can be sold into biomass for electric or wood chip boilers. It is generally the lowest grade stuff and helps recoup some of the cost of managing woodlands to improve there structure. Felled to waste on the floor creates more issues with no return. No work leads to stagnant woodland systems.

what would happen? pick your fuel! kiln dried and shipped from unsustainably felled eastern european old growth forest? shipped from sustainably grown scandi forest? local garden waste?

mine is all local garden waste, if i didn't process it, most likely it would go to the local recycling, from there to Drax, from there 30% up in cooling tower steam and 5% transmission losses, rest to tv's lights and cookers. I turn it to heat, bar about 15% up the chimney, for less transport and processing energy.

Felled to waste on the floor creates more issues with no return

What issues?

I would sell it to someone else to burn, at the very least it can be sold into biomass for electric or wood chip boilers. It is generally the lowest grade stuff and helps recoup some of the cost of managing woodlands to improve there structure. Felled to waste on the floor creates more issues with no return. No work leads to stagnant woodland systems.

Work feasability study a few years back for a biomass turbine had it as carbon neutral, despite having 24 timber lorries a day going from Galloway forest to our place, as if the trees are felled left to rot the CO2 is greater than burning.

Madness I thought, but I've since done a fair bit of walking in the Galloways, and there is a shit load of piles of cut timber that have been lying rotting for years, can't get my head round that, what a waste of energy.

neilnevill
Free Member

Balance pollution Vs carbon

What? There's no balance with a Woodburner. You're releasing carbon stored in the wood back into the atmosphere and are creating nasty pollution particulates at the same time. There's no balance.

You’re releasing carbon stored in the wood back into the atmosphere

Yes that's the carbon cycle. Problem is the carbon cycle is out of sync with carbon that was stored over millions of years being released in a 100 years. Wood burners do cause issues with local particale level pollution so you have to be mindful of what you burn and where you live but locally sourced and dried wood has a low carbon foot print as the carbon realised is within the short term carbon cycle.

locally sourced and dried wood has a low carbon foot print as the carbon realised is within the short term carbon cycle.

By burning wood, the only thing you're guaranteeing is the instantaneous release of a quantity of CO2 to atmosphere, at the precise time we need to reduce emissions as fast as possible. Who can guarantee that the same quantity is re-grown, and re-grown quickly enough?

So fiddle me this. In utopia do I burn wood or oil ?