[Closed] Stove/log burner users..advice for a newbie please because I’m disillusioned.

I've a similar sized burner and tbh am finding the same. I use half a basket in an average evening, so that'd be two baskets over a full day.

they way I do it is to get a the fire *raging* at the start, then once burning I close the top vent to half or even a quarter, and top up with new logs occasionally. However it does get to a point where it's mad hot in the room (it's only small) and it's hard getting the balance right between the output and the fire dying.

A larger stove is much easier to manage - I have tried using a bed of coals on mine and while I can do that and top up wqith logs during the daya, couldn't keep a fire in overnight. Growing up with a coal fire, I had no problems keeping the fire going all week, but it was a much larger fire.

if your buying them from bnq then it will seem expensive of course.

ours uses maybe 6-8 logs on a winters night from 6pm-10 - but then we need no other heating on to heat the house.

the trick is to get a good bed of embers glowing on the ash bed then load it up.

if you load it up too early then it youll get as you describe- no flame and sooting and no heat.

you wont keep a normal sub 5kw household log fire going overnight.

youll be needing to use coal for that.

it took me a long time to get my head round that having grown up with coal fires (open and stove)

Wouldnt go near b&q wood personally. Tried once IMO hardly seasoned at all and very expensive. Tried peat or recycled wood (called hotties!) bricks? We use to get going then add wood of varying qualities afterward. 1 'hottie' plus some wood or maybe 2 gives enough heat for 3-4 hrs each evening. And ours is an old poorly insulated house. these bricks take up less space than wood are more consistent and IMO cheaper than buying good seasoned wood.

FWIW I had similar disillusionment to start when we bought b&q or garage forecourt wood. Just need to get some decent fuel sourced.

thanks so far for the words...I am toying with trying the coal route as a comparison.

As above = B&Q / any sort of forecourt bought 'kiln dried' wood has, in my experience been far from dry.

As a (very expensive) rule we use logs supplied by [url= http://www.certainlywood.co.uk ]there guys[/url]
(had a log store built this summer with a plan to source our own but, we're moving / downsizing = store stays here...anyways....) logs linked too are very dry indeed + burn well = a starter for 10.

It took me a good while to get used to controlling the air on ours but now it's top + bottom open to get a good start. Slowly close them down, top air closed about half way, bottom air closed 3/4 of the way. Good bed of embers is key, topped off with the occasional log which last I don't know how long - never monitored it tbh. Have never tried to run it overnight - we generally just let it burn out the last our before we hit they hay...

I use probably 8-10 logs a night.. Once it's going well with sticks I fill it choca then leave it till it burns right down to a few embers. Then I fill it again.

This two or three times will usually see us through the whole evening.

Two or three buckets of logs a night here. I get a delivery at about £150 a tonne. I wouldn't like to think what you'd pay by the bag.

Just had ours (finally!) installed the weekend before last. It's a Morso 5kw. Still experimenting, initially we had the issue of it raging away, then put logs on and it would die right down and then try to go out. These were garden centre logs. Now I've had a small delivery of seasoned logs and they are much better, but there's clearly still a delicate control technique to it in the opening rounds. Once settled in it's fantastic, chucks the heat out. I reckon from say 6pm (I was home early last night!) to say 10pm we'll get through 5 or 6 small logs.

Does that help?

We have a Morso Badger 5Kw. By controlling the ventilation we can moderate the burn times. A half open vent keeps the give enough flame and heat to keep the room warm & glass clean.

We buy 1 cubic metre of seasoned logs for £55. Its has lasted 8 months, supplemented by random offcuts. Occasionally, we add coal if we want have a warm fire in the morning.

My opinion dry(20% humidity) logs and practice. You'll get it wired.

We removed the radiator thinking stove would make up for it, but we have now got he rad back on. Its just handy to have.

eGn

I don't know where you're based... FWIW - if you in West York we get logs here http://www.anchorlogs.co.uk/

Try Opening the bottom vent just a little and open up the top vent all the way once the kindling is going well close the bottom vent off

Add logs which are well seasoned once the stove is good and hot and the kinderling has peaked close down the top vent to control the burn of the log/logs

I get through 12 small split logs a night, tend to burn one at a time on a good bed of owing embers

Still experimenting here too.

I had my stove installed in the summer and only really started using it in the last few weeks (5kW Yeoman multifuel).

With properly seasoned wood and coal it will produce a ferocious amount of heat (think of me in my underpants with the windows open, if it pleases you to do so...) but I'm not supposed to burn coal in it (smoke-control zone) so I have to use smokeless fuel which is a bit dour - takes a while to get a good glowing bed - but will burn steadily all night with a moderate heat.

On top of this, properly seasoned softwood (pine) is a good combination: the wood burns quite quickly but gives off lots of heat. I got a cubic metre of hard/softwood mix delivered which cost £75 but I'm not too impressed. The hardwood isn't all that well seasoned so it needs further drying beside the fire before I can burn it. £75 for a cubic M seems too pricey to me as well so my plan is to build another 3 or 4 cubic Ms of wood storage over the winter and source cheap/free wood to lay down for next winter. Bit of a long term plan which inevitably means buying a chainsaw...

Oh, and if you want to get it REALLY hot, burn compressed sawdust logs. Very expensive and not very long-lasting but underpants time again! Might explore a DIY source of these in the next wee while.

That's an idea of how much my 5kw will be burning tonight 😉

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I should have said that I paid £53 for a cubic metre of nice seasoned wood (delivered). The chap turned out to be our builder's brother!

Ecologs (the giant kitty litter stuff) is fantastic. It isn't the cheapest per burn, but the heat they give out is astonishing! I tend to use 1 - 2 sticks (of the 5 in a bag type) over a night in my 5kW stove. Split each stick into 3 pieces. Also good to mix with less good wood to make it burn longer and better.

Whatever you use - make sure you leave a good bed of ash in the bottom of the stove. Don't empty it all out every time (about 1" deep). Helps control the burn.

Also - get a log store, and fill it. The wood this year is pretty rubbish in general, so look at it more as seasoning for winter 2013 😉 I have some of last years and some of the year before still to work through which should see me well through this winter!

I would recommend the 'upside down' method of fire building. Put two or three big logs on the bottom (you should still have at least an inch of ah in there), then put half a firefighter or screwed up paper on top of these followed by sticks and maybe a small log/couple of big sticks on the top.
Open all the vents, light the firefighter/paper and almost, but not quite, close the door. Within a minute or two you should have a raging fire at which point you close the door but leave the vents open. The red hot bits of burning sticks will drop down and light the big logs on the bottom, so you don't have to open the door at a less than ideal time - I.e. when the fire is still getting going.
This method is preferred by Morso and I've found it to be pretty much infallible.
Once the thermometer (if you havent got one you really should) gets to about 100 degs start closing the bottom vent until its fully closed at 300 degs. Keep the upper vent open until 400 degs then close it until you get nice lazy flames.
Add more logs/ coal once the temp is over 300.
Wood needs air from above to burn, not below (unless you want all your wood gone in minutes), so try keeping the bottom vent shut tight once the fire is going properly.
You really need to plan ahead with wood as the 'seasoned' wood you buy in now will in reality still be damp and should be kept for next winter. So buy lots of wood in your first year and let it dry properly.

skis about right for a full evenings 'burn'
Frankly seasoned logs ie a year old kept indoors/ dry are expensive to the point where i cant afford to keep them .
Firewood is our no 1 best seller, natural logs kept indoors. we do budget firewood ( the square blocks from pallets that we get as seconds from a pallet manufacturer) and kindling tonnes of kindling.. got a lad spending two days a week splitting the stuff at the mo.
we sell door to door/ delivered by the builders bag, wheelie bin and bag for life..
most folks use the stuff to supplement thier own road kill style firewood, but tonne for tonne kindling is no.1

Try using oak once the fire is going not as much heat but burn slower

Ski - do you rate the EcoFan? Keep wanting one but can't justify the cost if it isn't effective.
Free wood here. Burn 10-12 logs a night but it never stays in over night.

RE Kindling:
Get yourself a saw and a hand axe.
Drive down to your local industrial estate and speak to the owners who have stuff delivered, they will have spare pallets that they have to pay to get them taken away.

Pull the planks off.
The square/cube blocks of wood are great for general burning.
Use the hand axe/saw to chop the planks up into kindling size sticks.
= free wood.

For Logs phone up any local tree surgeon's / gardeners. In the winter their second business is often selling the wood from the trees they have chopped down in the summer.

timbur - Member

Ski - do you rate the EcoFan? Keep wanting one but can't justify the cost if it isn't effective.
Free wood here. Burn 10-12 logs a night but it never stays in over night.

Yes, they are expensive!

I had one for a demo for a week, I think this was a good sales ploy looking back 😉 as I found they help give your room a far more even spread of heat, tend to get less of a hot spot in front of the burner and with my build less heat going straight up, they are also silent and after a while you forget you have one going on top of your stove.

So for me, yes, its worth it.

[url= http://www.caframo.com/hearth/hearth_products_woodstove_ecofanairmax812.php ]http://www.caframo.com/hearth/hearth_products_woodstove_ecofanairmax812.php[/url]

It is all trial and error . We have a morso squirrel . Ours seems to use relatively little wood . Kindling and two thickish bits of wood to get going with bottom and top vents open (and door not fully shut if crankgirl is doing the fire). Once the fire has taken close the bottom vent which acts like a choke on a car engine . Then add thicker logs as the embers form as the fire heats up close the top vent bit by bit to slow the burn and produce the Aurora boliaris effect .

Dry wood is key we paid 50 quid per qubic meter delivered last year so far this year we are still burning pallets and family tree prunings saved up over the year .

[i]The hardwood isn't all that well seasoned so it needs further drying beside the fire before I can burn it.[/i]

tbh Why wouldn't you do this anyway?

WIth our last open fire we'd always have tonights and tomorrows logs either side of the fire, and then replace each day.

For the poster, you need to buy in bulk and have somewhere you can dry-ish store them.

wow..thanks all for the advice.
Seems like I need to persist and source some decent wood.
I am in calderdale and there are a few places around but I might check out marsdenman's suggestion as they have a supplier in Shibden, close to me.

I do think this could become a bit of an obsession though. I brought a large branch home from holiday last week in pickering to start off my store and but for the incoming tide, a very chunky piece of driftwood was almost recovered from the sea in whitby!!!

Reading the OP post, he seems to have logs at 2 opposites, the kiln dried burning up fast and the green stuff fobbed off as ready that hisses away. Regular decent wood is all that's needed, takes a while to find a good supplier.

I am my supplier, our loads are mixed, will have been down 1-4 years depending on species and spent a year in a dry shed. Only complaints we get are that the logs are sometimes too big for piddly burners. Our biggest issue is people not keeping the stuff under cover, there is no point us drying it, for you to just leave it out in the corner of the garden.

As mentioned above, close bottom vent, leave top vent ajar for steady hot burning.

For stove rocket fuel, try some dry Lawsons Cypress, nearly took the door off the boss's rayburn.

can you keep wood in a garage or is that not "breezy" enough?

My opinion dry(20% humidity) logs and practice. You'll get it wired.

just realised - forgot to mention (think it's kind of covered above but, to be sure..)
don't clear ash off the grate between fires (unless it is really deep....) that also helps

Depends on your garage.
If you leave wet riding kit in there does it dry/stay the same/go mouldy?

To give air flow all aound the stack in a garage I would probably stack on pallets to get it off the floor, and pallets against the walls to keep it off them.
Some of our big stacks (20 tonne) have had sweat issues in their centres before, now we just stack and vent differently to avoid it.

We're 10 months into owning a Stovax burner, 5kW. Suffered B&Q prices while we sourced a good wood supplier. We have a decent large stove supplier & they recommended our wood supplier, a landscape gardener & nbsp tree surgeon. £75 gets a pickup load,approx 13 wheelbarrow loads, of 2.5yr old barn stored logs.

We get through 4 or 6 logs in an evening depending on what time we start the fire, but ould easily get through a bag of B&Q logs. Expensive!

We forage for kindling in a nearby wood & stash it all in a large shed to keep it dry.
Haven't tried the upside down method yet, tend to start it like a camp fire: paper ball surrounded by kindling & 2 log all standing upright. Gets it going really fast.

Tried the Morso upside down method at the weekend. Seemed better at getting a good fire going quickly.

Not sure if anyone else has said but, get a moisture meter. And only burn stuff that is less than 20%, preferably less than 15%.

hopefully the garage should be dry as there is a new roof going on it soon. Its still breezy because it a sectional conrete construction and the door isnt a tight seal.
I think wet gear would stay wet, might dry a bit but I wouldnt expect it to go mouldy.

Still trying to perfect the perfect burn. But FWIW I have been using some soft wood off cuts from my father-in-law (building trade) split down as kindling, about half a heat log (the compressed saw dust ones, these are made locally, as in 4 miles away, and they offer a deal for collection of a 500kg bag for £100) to generate lots of heat, and then the year old oak for the long burn.

The oak was sweating under a tarp so have now opened the ends and it is dry enough if brought in to the house the day before use. Really need to get the proper log stores built and stacked up with wood now I've found a good supplier.

I've just added a Valiant Stove Fan. Not much difference in the room but it certainly moves the warm air upstairs. We haven't needed the C/H on since using it. Recommended.

Drive down to your local industrial estate and speak to the owners who have stuff delivered, they will have spare pallets that they have to pay to get them taken away.

r 70 - if kit wouldn't go mouldy, you've probably got enough ventilation

Also, working out the stack in tonnes was wrong, bad maths and bad buying method, correct maths and measure, the shed that sweated was 42 cubic m. So it has to be very damp or quite a big stack to not dry/mould. Not worked out the big shed as it still isn't full for next year yet.

Don't strangle your wood burner, it's less efficient and more polluting. If you want the most heat out of the wood you put in then fill the thing up with kindling and a couple of logs, light it on max air then turn it down to half or a third air when it's roaring and let it burn out, which will take between an 45 mins and a couple of hours depending on the stove and type of wood. When there's only a bed of red embers left fill it again (if your house is so badly insulated one burn isn't enough 😉 ).

Shock! Our parents generation moved away from open fires because they were hard work, not particularly cheap and didn't provide instant heat.

They were/are are a bunch of eco-terrorists prepared to squander 2K or more a year on gas and electricty rather than insulate the house, Poly. My parent's house is still hot in Summer, cold in Winter and stuffy all year round.

Edukator - insulation is relevant regardless of the fuel unless perhaps you have an unlimited free supply. Interestingly when we've rented holiday houses with solid fuel fires the modern / well-insulated properties have very quickly got too hot. I'm not sure it was eco-terrorism to move from smog producing coal fires to something 'cleaner' but I'm also pretty sure that most of the people I know who claim to be 'eco' with their wood burner are really not.

Tip 1.

Don't uy wood from b&q.

Tip 2 don't get precious that your window gets blackened, it will unless you only burn the perfect wood at full blast all the time and clean the window all the time. Its a fire. It will get blackened.

Wood is eco, coal is not. We can grow more wood.

Coal fired stove / open fires polluted the local area, coal fired power stations pollute somewhere you personally can't see or feel the effects directly. Typical NIMBY reaction. Rather than make a change away from coal, just moved it so I can't see it.

Tip 2 don't get precious that your window gets blackened, it will unless you only burn the perfect wood at full blast all the time and clean the window all the time. Its a fire. It will get blackened.

Not saying all stoves are equal and it sound like have had better performance than I or any other "full time stove users" I personally know (but you do sound you're good with your burning of only well seasoned wood). However its stupid to get too precious over blackening e.t.c on a stove. Its a bit like getting a dog and being surprised even if its very well trained that very occasionally, when ill it might shit on you floor.

As an update, plan e is now in action and I am sat in front of a very impressive flame and heat output from half a "blazer" Eco log. Lasts about 90mins per half log. If your struggling, give a pack a try and see what you're aiming for with wood.
Might just buy a pallet of these........

bigblackshed - Member
Wood is eco, coal is not. We can grow more wood.

Coal fired stove / open fires polluted the local area, coal fired power stations pollute somewhere you personally can't see or feel the effects directly. Typical NIMBY reaction. Rather than make a change away from coal, just moved it so I can't see it.

Wood burners have their place, and might even be one of the "better" solutions in some situations but they are largely ecobling bought as a fashion statement by people with 2 cars in the their driveway, who take multiple foreign holidays (by plane). Still at least when they realise how inconvenient wood is they will probably go back to whatever they used before except when they have a dinner party unless they switch to coal?

'Disillusioned with my wood burner' is a classic STW #firstworldproblems middle-class angst thread. 🙂

Just for balance, I'm not disillusioned with mine. Nor am I suffering any undue anxiety over its unashamed middle-classness.

Now, back to searching for cheap flights for a mountain biking trip to Eritrea.

"Shock! Our parents generation moved away from open fires because they were hard work, not particularly cheap and didn't provide instant heat"

no they didnt Im 25 and grew up with open fires and then a stove and an open fire , my grandparents have a stove and an open fire. - all in the country

I now have a stove and an open fire.....

How ever on my girlfriends side her family have been fireless for 2 generations - living in towns so i have been trying to educate her on the merits of using the stove over pressing the on button has been hard but i think shes worked it out now

I'm up early to get my van out for my neighbour to borrow for the day. He's a gardner and trims/fells trees. I suspect there might be a few logs in the back when he brings it back. The eco-cost will be the difference in emissions between his little car and my foul van over the distance to the site.

Top thread. Lots of experimenting to do tonight on the Morso!

We live right next to a wood, but very few limbs / trees seem to come down. I also don't have a chainsaw so anything will have to be manually cut (at the risk of the Council's ire) and dragged back to the house, but worth doing I suppose (once the logstore is built).

Whoever mentioned the thermometer, where does it go / where did you get it from? More gadgets!

Just for balance, I'm not disillusioned with mine. Nor am I suffering any undue anxiety over its unashamed middle-classness.

Hehe, obviously I have one too, and my mother owns a bit of woodland so I get my wood from there. 😉

Just found disillusioned an amusing choice of word - kind of implies having bought wholesale into the STW woodburner 'lifestyle', then slowly realising all his hopes and dreams are built on sand.

Rather than having just bought a woodburner then found it's not perfect, and that logs from B+Q are quite expensive.

I know I'm reading too much into it!

[i] I also don't have a chainsaw so anything will have to be manually cut [/i]

Just buy a chainsaw - Aldi have them in for £60 and they work reasonably well plus 3 yr warranty.

but with the caveat please get some safety gear aye br ?

Shock! Our parents generation moved away from open fires because they were hard work, not particularly cheap and didn't provide instant heat.

Discussing this in the boozer last night actually. We just ordered up a gas fire. It turns on. it heats us up etc and there is no traipsing around trying the fuel it.

I love the look and stuff of these burners but i prefer instant heat more and no faffing.

we have a boiler for those days mark 😀

tbh once you find a good wood supplier (which i did via this forum) and have somewhere dry to store it. I find it to be quite theraputic to stick the fire on.it needs tending to maybe twice during the night.but then i spent 15 years lighting the fire if i was home first at my parents.

we only just got central heating and water installed in our house in september (moved in in february) and tbh the heatings hardly ever on other than at 4am in the morning to ensure its warm when i get up for work.

Chainsaw - I'm quite nervous of them tbh. If I ever did take the plunge I would probably be wearing a suit of armour!

Thanks

Not a bad thing, being nervous about a chainsaw, same for any machinery like that, respect required. Had the first reasonable windy night in a while last night, Chainsaw will be going in the boot of the car soon, for those impromptu limbs and big branches that get blown down!.

Also, if you're looking for logs, contact your local authority as well. I got a load last year for 47 quid, which was hardwood, reasonably dry and filled 2.5 cubic metres worth of woodshed space. I'm burning it this year, and its good stuff. I think it came from the area they cleared building the new uni campus in Ayr. Deal is, I call them, they put me on the waiting list, and call me a day or so in advance, and it gets delivered in a converted landie with a big tipping hydraulic hopper on the back.

That's the only wood I'd buy, The rest I get from riding my bike on the local trails and keeping an eye out for the stuff that is close to car access. I've also considered a wee ad in the paper shop window, small - medium trees removed, for free, then I could pick n choose. Not got round to it yet.

There might be a excess of felled Ash soon, if the news it to be belived, wonder what they will do with all the wood!

Whoever mentioned the thermometer, where does it go / where did you get it from? More gadgets!

Most people use the magnetic type that stick on the flue pipe and monitor the flu tempreture.

They normally have three section low, normal, too frigging hot!

Burning too low, can causes creosote deposits in your flue, not good.

Buring too hot, can dammage a cast iron stove over time.

Our local paper this week, said, the local fire service, have dealt with 7 stove chimney fires in the last 7 days! 😯

sweep often , burn right

i must admit to using the stove like the old coal stove where youd load it up and get it glowing then shut it in.

you cant do that to the same extent with wood as youll get cresoting.

to the OP

properly dry/seasoned wood is your #1 priority, burning unseasoned wood uses nearly all the fires energy just drying out = no heat given off

there's quite a lot of mileage in maintaining a small stack right next to the stove

Thermometer ordered.

there's quite a lot of mileage in maintaining a small stack right next to the stove

You are probably right in practical terms. Putting wet wood on the fire will mean it won't burn well. Putting dry wood on the fire means it will burn hot enough to dry tomorrow night's wood. But I can't help thinking that the laws of thermodynamics should be treated with a little more respect 🙂 If your fire is being used to evaporate water from wood you aren't seeing the benefit of it and it doesn't matter whether the wood is in the stove or next to it.

You should use the sun to dry your wood.

Can we all acknowledge Polys rant please.
Top draw!

timbur - I thought it a little disapointing as a rant as it was reasoned, made sense (whether you agree with it or not), was spelt properly and was on-topic and had no random capitals. Could do much better. 2/10. (And punctuation! Whatever next?)

I liked the poke in the eye to Middle England at the end of it. Intelligent all the way through and then slipped at the end.