Another one jumping on the woodburner bandwagon…

Had the local (and highly thought of) stove folk out last week to do some measuring and make some recommendations.

They recommended 4.5kw, and shortlisted 7 stoves. Based on features and looks I’ve narrowed it down to a Woodwarm Fireview (5kw) or a Charnwood Cove (4kw). These are about as small as they get.

Now, I’m aware that if you get a stove too big for your room you are likely to end up running it ‘low’ whereas a smaller one can run ‘higher’ and be more efficient/cleaner (I think?).

What I really want is to be able to let the warm air from the stove waft about the house (3 bed semi) so I don’t have to have the CH on much, and I’ve just got a nagging doubt that these little ones won’t be strong enough to do that. On the other hand, I’m a warm chap at the best of times and I don’t want to never be able to go in my lounge again.

What’s you experience of how much heat the smaller stoves give out? I’ve put my lounge dimensions in to a few of the stove makers calculators and the general consensus is that I need 2-2.5kw. Would one of those fans help with what I want? It’ll be in a steel convector box if that makes a difference.

Common sense tells me to go with what the suppliers have recommended, just want to put my mind at rest that I’m not making a mistake!

Thanks

I’ve got a Jotul 602 rated at 7kw which I run pretty much flat out for a couple of hours at the start of the evening. The house then stays warm enough until the next night unless it’s really cold. Running at a lower rate requires refilling and messing around with the air control. I prefer fill-light-forget then close the air I go to bed.

The smaller the stove the smaller you need to cut the logs…, ours I’ll take at least 18″ 🙂

We have a Morso Squirrel, which from memory’s about 4.5kw in our 3 bed semi. If it’s running on smokeless cakes it’ll stay in all night (just riddle & add more coal to keep it going the following day). It warms the house enough to avoid running the heating, plus you can run it on wood too. It’s about 20 years old, and whilst we don’t use it, my mate (original owner) used the boiler in it for all their hot water/heating.

If you rev it up the living room is almost too warm – though I’m still wearing shorts / tee shirt for work at the moment so YMMV.

I’d go with something a little bigger,esp if your using it to heat the whole house, as its easier to run at a lower output, than it is to overrun a smaller stove.

Dunsley Highlander 5 here, in a thirties three-bed semi. Heat flows through open doors, front room – back room – hall where it can be felt going up the stairs. I wouldn’t say it heats the whole house, but it keeps one bedroom comfortable if the other doors are shut, and mostly prevents the CH thermostat on the landing kicking in. TRVs help too.

The front room can get unpleasantly hot, so the door is permanently open.

I’ve got a Merlin Midline in a 1909 semi. Similar in layout to a typical 30s semi. Rated up to 8kw on coal, 4.8kw on wood. Too much for the room it’s in but it does heat most of the house with the doors open. Whilst it’s not balmy upstairs we haven’t got the central heating on yet.

The stove top fan makes a big difference in moving warm air about the house. Highly recommended.

FWIW I received conflicting advice about the size of stove and how to run it. Some say to have a smaller stove and run it flat out. Others say to go bigger so you have more control. My thoughts are to go bigger. I run mine on about 1/3 after it’s warmed up. I can always turn it up if it gets too cold. Plus I can let it almost die down to nothing, throw some softwood logs on, turn it up to 2/3 for 5 minutes to ignite them and away it goes. Smaller stoves require you to feed it constantly.

One analogy was you wouldn’t run a 1 litre Fiesta down the motorway at 90 in first.

A couple of things to think about.
Anything over 5 kw will need a vent of some sort.
Smaller stoves have small fire boxes which can mean that they take a lot of refuelling. We had a hunter a hawk which was a ball ache until we took the multifuel grate out to increase the size.
It is very easy to over fire a small stove, especially with softwood- I’d go for a slightly larger one and run it at a lower rate. A flue thermometer is essential for getting the burn at the right level.
The fans work well, but better in large open plan spaces.
Have fun – stoves are brilliant!

Edit: what BBS said 🙂

We have an AGA Ludlow 6.5kw burning wood. This is in a 1900 three storey victorian semi. It’s in quite a big living room, even so, with the door open it will warm the house enough for the heating to switch off.

This is my preference of the ones suggested

Cove 1

but it’s only 4kw. However the next one up in that range is 8kw. That’ll be too much won’t it?

How big is the room?

4.06 x 4.23 x 2.40

One outside wall. Double glazed window. No cavity wall insulation.

Small inset 4.5kw jobbie here. Splitting the logs small enough is a bit of a pita. That said making a living room excessively hot and leaking it out into other rooms randomly via opening doors would not be my route. If I was to put another one in and I owned the house and had the cash I’d either go the back boiler route and find a way to plumb into the existing heating system (can be done but quite pricey for modern closed systems) or go the Scandinavian way and put in the venting to move the warm air around the house to where its needed not to the immediate spaces next to the room with the stove. A mate has put a vent in the ceiling on his living room that allows heat to easily rise into the bedroom above – works really well.

I am of the opinion that bigger is better. Ask the wife!
My Jotul 12 gives between 10,500 and 30,000 btu. Bloody wonderful and keeps 100 year old stone semi with not a scrap of double glazing warm. Must admit to maybe have not bought this model if it was real money rather than the nominal sum I paid.

The problem with leaving the door open is that the hot air from your room goes out of the top of the doorway and cool air from the rest of the house flows in the bottom and you get a hell of a draft. When Mrs Gti has got the stove cranked right up and I’m sweltering, opening the door provides a nice blast of fresh air although of course she starts whingeing about it.

A big stove burned low will soot up and the glass will need a lot of cleaning.

whereabouts are you tga?

Would it help to see one or more working?

And I regards gti’s air circulation comment as part of the benefit, the house seems drier overall.

West Highlands

I’ve got a few friends with them so I’ll see what they have and how they find them.

Drying out the house is one of the main reasons for getting it – which is why I’m keen to get warm air throughout, but not at the expense of comfort. Maybe it’s a case of one or the other!

The highest rated one of those that the suppliers suggested is 4.9kw, so maybe that or a 5kw is the best compromise?

Does anyone have any experience of either of these?

Woodwarm Fireview

Charnwood C-Five

A third one is the Clearview Pioneer which if I remember correctly has been recommended on here before?

I’ve fitted afew Burley stoves recently and they are stunningly effective. The hollywell rated at 5kw certainly punches above its weight, there is a 4kw one too. I put an 8kw Brampton into a huge Georgian dining room on Wednesday and when it was loaded up with beech and oak and cranked up I could hardly get near the thing!
They are very controllable though so you don,t have to roast. The vortex stuff sounds a bit gimmicky but it really does work. Lovely flame pattern too.
I,m a big fan of Aarrow too. They have just introduced a new ecoburn + range which are lovely. Quality is up there with Charnwood IMO but much cheaper.

Friend of ours has blown-air ducts coming off his to carry the heat around the house. Really impressive, incredible amount of heat off each duct. Like giant hairdryers!

The highest rated one of those that the suppliers suggested is 4.9kw, so maybe that or a 5kw is the best compromise?

Tha’ll be ‘cos at 5kw you need to add an air duct. But tbh it took the guy who installed our stove all of 15 minutes to add the vent.

Take a look at Stovax, ours is very impressive, but at 8kw it should be 🙂

We have a charnwood island 2.
Very impressed with it. Recommend any of the charnwood stoves, as for size go a wee bit bigger but dont over do it, the heat these things kick out is amazing!

If you want to heat more than one room with it, stove top fan required.

We were thinking about the fans, seems like a good idea.

My mate who’ll put it in has installed a couple of dozen over the last few years. He reckons a 6kw would be ok but no bigger.

Choices, choices…!

Mines a small clearview 4.5 kw pioneer I think. Heats our bottom floor but doesn’t really get to the far extremes of our house. It is a 4 bed mind with lots of funny levels. With a combo of CH we keep it pretty warm.

If we run our stove low there is lots of soot and creosote (dry wood helps however!), hence it’s always on full wack and lovely. Clearviews keep the glass lovely and clean anyway but we don’t fancy a chimney fire.

Since there are people here who seem to know what they are talking about…

I live in a modern semi, built 2003. There is a coal effect gas fire in the living room. Is it likely to be possible to fit a solid fuel stove? Or would it not be a ‘proper’ chimney?

bedmaker – Member
I’ve fitted afew Burley stoves recently and they are stunningly effective. The hollywell rated at 5kw certainly punches above its weight, there is a 4kw one too.

Hi Bedmaker Are the Burley stoves well made? Is it just the top that is 5mm steel? Maybe i was just used to a slightly thicker top on the clearview vision. Are there any downsides to these stoves?

Just had a yeoman CL3 fitted, 3.75 kW and lovely.

Any websites recommended that go into detail about ducting the hot air around the house rather than relying on opening doors?