alan – thanks for the cost breakdown, very handy. You seem to have got everything a lot cheaper than I have found – the 316 liner is £20/m, and the fitting kit (cowl, brackets, adapters, vitreous pipe) all adds up to just over £200. The stove we like is £600 but comes with a £150 ‘voucher’ which can offset some of the cost of the flue liner.
I did think about a back boiler, but it’s hard to find a smallish stove (5kW) DEFRA approved with a boiler. The boiler sucks too much heat out and makes the combustion less efficient so Defra don’t approve them (we’re in a smoke control zone). The boiler itself adds about £200 at least, reduces the range of available stoves, and the plumbing hassle would be another few hundred £. We don’t have a hot water tank, and the stove isn’t going to be our primary source of heat. In the end just not worth it, but I do see the appeal.
The plastering won’t be done till after Christmas, so I was going to roll the wallpaper back down to cover some of the mess in the short term.