I am about to pick up the keys to my new house later on this week. It’s a Victorian terrace house.

I have a hankering for a wood burning stove and I have potential access to free unseasoned firewood, provided I cut and collect myself.

I have called a local installer and have been advised that I’m looking at around £2.5k or the installation work, excl the stove.

At this price, the payback period is around 7 years (at current tariff rates) over a gas inset fire so unlikely to be a goer.

However on looking around, their are many who advocate a DIY install and getting signed off by Building Control.

Firstly, does the £2.5k seem reasonable? It is for expanding the fireplace, plaster work and stove install.

Secondly, has anyone experience of the DIY route? I am pretty handy and on the face of it, it requires feeding the flexible liner down the chimney, bolting a granny to the top and then the liner to the stove after going through a register plate.

Seems pretty straight forward to me and I’m unsure if worth the money to install..

Should be finishing my install in the next few weeks. I’ve spent in the region of £1.5k, £600 on stove (Charnwood Country 4 multifuel), £350 for the liner, £159 for building control and the rest on all the other odds and sods needed. It’s been a lot of work to remove the old back boiler, rebuild the fireplace and hearth, rebuild stack and fit new pots.

It is pretty straight forward, but it’s the horrors you uncover when you start work, fortunately I was already gutting the room anyway.

Prob the worst time of year to get a quote 😉

Yes £2.5k could be figure you could reach, with a decent stove and quality liner, plus fireplace bashing.

I would be wary of anyone quoting less than £2k, loads of builder/cowboys about fitting with little regard to safety or regs.

My building and contents insurance (M&S) wanted a HETAS approved builders fitting the stove to offer cover, something people overlook sometimes when fitting.

Saying that, my neighbour who lives in a similar property to me, fitted his, bought a reasonably priced stove (£400) did not bother with a liner, did all the work himself for close to £700 all-in, excluding the insurance questions, his build works fine, but he does know his way round building regs.

The choice is yours..

You can get a Firefox 5 fitted fore £1500 off eBay, not sure if that’s including the price to sign it off as well.

I should point out, the £2.5k is without the Stove and ex VAT. so will be well north of £3k once fully done.

Hmmm. Our stove install next week is £500 including parts (but plus stove obviously). And yes it’s HETAS..

Fire place ok as it is, so it’s a simple job, but two grand more for a bit of building work?

My advice is (as you are mid terrace and have an ‘internal’ flue) don’t even think about not having a liner and don’t buy the cheapest – the ‘warranty’ means nothing. Go for the best liner you can afford.
I’ve installed one stove myself with no liner (external chimney 1960s detached property) which was easy and had another done professionally as it is an inset stove with an internal flue which I had lined. Paid £500 for the liner and 450 installation (did involve knocking around the existing stone fireplace).
Try and do as much of the fireplace work yourself – shouldn’t be tricky unless your messing with lintels.

Doing it myself – nothing too difficult so far. Having the chimney rebuilt and roof retiled so easy to pop up with the liner and cowl.
300 ss liner/ cowl etc, 650 charnwood c5, and 50 for some slate tiles.
Got somebody out to quote but he suggested we do it ourselves or else we’d feel ripped off.

re the insurance, I rang Aviva and they couldn’t have cared less. Not bothered that I was fitting it myself, in fact told me I didn’t need to inform them at all :D.

Worth contacting your own insurers though judging by the response ski received.

Mine was about £2500 with the stove. It included ripping out gas fire, removing gas pipework, capping off the pipe and a drop test on the pipe. Then opening up the fire place, fitting liner and new pot on the chimney. Also rebuilding half the stack. Then fitting a stone hearth, lintel, and plastering the chimney opening. Finally fitting the stove, taking away all the rubbish and supplying all the required certificates and sorting building regs. It took two men two days of real hard work. I think your quote is probably about right once you think about all the materials and man time.

Great stuff, I was planning on lining the chimney. The house is ~130 years old so not going to risk that one.

I will do some more research and speak to my insurers and wee what can be done.

Good not to have the DIY blown out of the water as a terrible idea.

If you’re confident climbing up 2 ladders and standing on the chimney stack wrestling to get the flue down the chimney then fine, go ahead!!
Ours is mid-terrace and the guy was struggling to get the flue down but won in the end. I might have tried it with scaffolding….maybe!
Paid around £1100 for for fitting the flue, cowl, insulation, register plate & the hetas cert.
Saved some dosh by taking out old fireplace and putting in the new hearth.
I think buying the parts would have cost around £400-450 so you do end up paying a fair bit more.

4.5 kw supplied and fitted for cash by fully heats certified fitter. Wasn’t worth me getting the ladders out for that! And that’s rubbish about anything below 2k!
Straight forward job tho done and lit by 3pm.

Wrightyson, how much did you pay?

It’s not rocket science, even I manage to make a living from it 😉

It can go horribly wrong though…

Most common bodges I see:

– Long horizontal pipe off the back of the stove (as it has been sat in front of the old fire) and sharp 90 deg bends.
– Stove shoehorned into too small a hole. Give it space to breathe! The more the merrier.

– Wood surrounds/beams way too close to the stove or single sking flue pipe. Don’t do this. Read the regs and obey them.

– Liner in upside down

Plumbers who have jumped on the stove bandwagon tend to be among the worst. The worst stuff I’ve come acrross is from ‘professional’ fitters, not DIY.
Being too macho to ask advice is a major problem in the building trade in general imo.

Get educated, use good quality liner, get the chimney swept by a proper sweep first would be my advice if you go DIY.

I fitted one small stove with liner and associated metal work cost £450 .I took out an open fire and lined a concrete chimney the fire is now safer contained in a metal box .Quotes to do this were north of £1500 .Took about an 1 1/2 hours .Dont see why its not a DIY job as itsnot difficult or dangerous .I was helped by having roof access through a Velux window

I found this very helpfull, http://www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk.

The actual stove install isn’t that tricky ime. The worst bit for our job was clearing up the old fireplace, lots of very messy / tarry rubble to dispose of, plus all the plastering to tidy up. Plus we needed to build a hearth, etc.

Dropping the liner was simple enough and connecting it too the stove, no problem.

Building control were quite helpful with us, too. I imagine they could make things difficult if they wanted…

Didn’t realise I hadn’t put the price up 🙄
It was £1100 all in. No tiles broke etc etc. he came recommended tho and I did hammer him for a cash deal. He was buying the stoves himself so will have made a bit there but I reckon he made between 3/400 quid to cover his and a another’s labour. As I say I don’t think that’s bad when working at height.

I’m still not convinced with this perceived need to automatically line a chimney before installing a stove. Yes, the old chimney might leak; yes, if you are installing in a massive old chimney the lower heat output up the chimney from a stove might need the smaller aperture a liner gives to improve draw – but it might not.

I guess as a victorian house it is by no means certain it won’t need it but if the chimney has been in use with an open fireplace has been in active use without issue it’s worth making sure I would have thought.

I’m still not convinced with this perceived need to automatically line a chimney before installing a stove

For us the liner was the simple route to BC approval. It was either that or get it professionally smoke tested. The liner was cheaper and quicker.

I fitted a liner last weekend – what’s all this nonsense about getting the liner on the roof? I just dropped a line down the chimney and pulled it through, very easy, was done by lunch time – re-building and re-pointing the chimney stack was a much bigger job.

@ bokonon

Yup, did exactly the same, 30 mins and the liner was in.

For the last 2 years I had a £250 stove and flue pipe shoved up the existing chimney, worked fine.

However I’ve just paid 3k for a professional installation, lining my chimney was the second worst job my team yesterday had ever undertaken.

I even had to don coveralls and help feed the liner through.

My chimney on a 1930s semi-detached involved a S bend from the lounge into the bedroom, and a dog leg from bedroom to the loft.
We had to expose the chimney breast in the loft so I could help feed it through.
In total 2 blokes on the roof, me in the loft, and a chap in the lounge pulling on a rope, and every swear word imaginable was needed to feed the liner.

I was almost tempted to line the chimney myself with a mate earlier on this year, after seeing what was involved yesterday so glad I didn’t .
Although I reckon if a chimney was pretty much straight up then it wouldnt be to much of a difficult job for a couple of capable people.