Just moved into a house and there is presently a gas fire that needs replacing. We were thinking of just replacing it with a gas fire and new surrounds but then thought about a wood burning stove. The wood burning stove would cost a fair bit more than the gas fire and I guess its more hassle. Just be interested in peoples opinion who have had both etc. We are fairly busy so in and out of the house all week and at weekends. Has anybody regretted installing one? Not use it much? The house is only about 18 years old so fairly modern so wondered if they look ok in new houses etc. We have central heating in the house and there is a large double radiator in the lounge already. Will the wood burning stove heat other rooms? The sales team say it will but we are looking for real life pros and cons. It would have to be a fairly small wood burning for the size of the chimney. Any opinions or advice most welcome.

Where are you located? (urban, rural?) Where is your wood fuel source?

Likely you would be better insulating and draft proofing more, rather than chucking more heat at the problem.

That said, a woodburner is more a lifestyle thing than practical heat source, unless you have woodfuel to spare (mcmoonter, I am looking at you).

We’ve just moved out of a house where the wood burner could run the heating and provide hot water in the winter to mains gas CH and a gas fire.
TBH I’m looking forward to the lack of work/ash/creepie crawlies from not running the stove from October to April. It was a lifestyle choice though – I used to work from home and used to process all my own firewood too.
My close friends have asked if I’ll miss the stove, but I don’t think I will, at least in the short term.
It’s a bit like when I got rid of my old Landrover 110 – I liked it, but it was an itch that needed to be scratched but was slowly turning into a sore that wouldn’t heal.
If you’ve never had one and you can source logs and you don’t mind the mess / work, then go for it, but don’t think it will save you any money unless you have the time/skills/tools/storage/supply of wood to process your own fuel.

Yes it’s worth it, a wood-burner sucks huge volumes of air up the flue meaning the room will always be comfortably warm yet well-ventilated. A gas fire makes the room steamy and humid and gives me a headache.

If you go for a wood-burner and there’s a choice of sizes, err on the smaller size as you will have to burn it hotter, which means cleaner. Nothing looks worse than a big stove shut down and all smoked up.

Your double rad should have a TRV fitted, which your wife will crank fully open in the belief that it will warm the room quicker when the CH comes on. Then when the stove is lit you will see the temperature hit 28c in the room and you’ll be sweating while she curls up complaining about being cold.

The stove will warm the room and the upstairs too if you open the door as the warm air will rush upstairs to be replaced by a blast of cooler air coming in at the bottom, which your wife will tell you is a freezing draft.

If it’s a newish house it should have a flue made from stacked clay cylinders and you shouldn’t need to be conned into having an expensive liner fitted.

Its a bit more hassle than a gas stove but so much nicer especially in winter. Your biggest priority must be a log store where you can season your wood. You should already have bought the wood for this winter really, unless you buy fully seasoned.

We moved into a house with a horrible old gas fire/fireplace which we took out. We very, very nearly had a woodburner fitted, but in the end decided against it and now just have a (big) radiator in the room (we were getting the heating replaced anyway). It’s fine, and gives you much more options for how you arrange furniture etc in the room

We used to live in G2* listed building so no double glazing allowed but we were allowed to punch a hole through the wall and attach a large silver chimney to the outside for a wood stove.
We had a Clearview stove which was brilliant and I still miss.
Loved the smell of wood smoke and the dry heat it produced. Loved the patterns of the flames reflecting inside the room.
Hated filling the room with smoke trying to light it. The whoosh of ash in your face when you took the pan outside. Spending between £450-600 depending on availability to buy hardwood and stack it for seasoning then hauling into the house.
Given the choice would probably still have another. Probably one of those gas effect ones.

Get a multifuel. You can run it on smokeless coal when you get bored of the complete and utter ballache that is burning wood, orwhen you realise you have ballsed up on how much wood you really needed, run out, and need something that works out the bag in January.

Otherwise, everything globalti said. Especially the bits about TRVs, draughts, and 28deg lounge temperatures.

They work best in large open plan downstairs arrangements. Not so great if you have a few small rooms; the heat won’t magically spread everywhere.

Regulations on gas fires can be quite restrictive e.g. ventilation, so make sure you get a survey done first – in our house they wanted to put permanent vents through the walls. Have 2x woodburners at either end of the house – one with a stove-top fan keeps it all toasty.

My stove never managed to heat the dining room to a comfortable level without having the lounge hotter than the sun (no door between the two rooms). It certainly made no impression on the temperature upstairs.

You’ll burn far more wood than you think (and can store).

If you burn smokeless then you’ll get a fine layer of dust over the whole house each time you empty the stove out (which you will have to do each time its used).

I loved mine though 🙂

If you burn smokeless then you’ll get a fine layer of dust over the whole house each time you empty the stove out (which you will have to do each time its used).

Empty it while it’s still burning. The dust you get while disturbing the pan goes up the chimney.

Better yet learn how to run on anthracite and get almost no dust when doing the reload/clean out.

What’s all this about getting a faceful of dust?

Just use a tipper box:

I’ve just done the transition from many years of a gas fire. The advantages of a gas fire are as you’d expect, haven’t yet experienced any downsides to a woodburner other than those you expect. You fairly quickly get your lighting routine dialled. Only thing I wish I’d done was fit a slightly deeper hearth stone for catching the mess. My stove is steal and convecting so you feel the heat fairly quickly.
Agree with Globalti on fitting an appropriate stove size for the room so you can efficiently burn yet not have to move the sofa far back and/or sit in your undies.

Also, as others say, I’ve not seen any benefit radiate into other rooms (small terraced/cottage) and that’s from monitoring fancy Honeywell TRV’s on all radiators which show the temp in every room. I presume that’s because my stove is appropriate for the room (ie fairly small). I guess if I had the stove going at ramming speed for 24hrs+ then it would, but on the layout of my downstairs, heat would probably go up the stairs rather than into my kitchen. If you also have central heating then you’re probably just going to light it on an evening for a few hours anyhow.

Agree with Globalti on the feel, heat from the wood burner is dry and pleasant, heat from the gas fire was always slightly nauseous (yes it was serviced).

My last load of logs was from a tree surgeon @£36 for a builders bag (he claims they are seasoned and mostly hardwood, but I’ll store them for a few more months) and kindling was a builders bag of off cuts @£15 from the local timber co. So, you can do it fairly cheaply (and a degree of eco) if you do some local research on sources.

I guess the litmus test is how your partner will/would take to the whole woodburner thing rather than simple gas (lighting, cleaning, managing etc versus looks and enjoying etc), only you can judge that.

Possibly better if you are in more as it hasn’t the convenience of gas. Either are of dubious need in a newer centrally heated place anyway.

We pulled out a gas fire and installed a logburner, however, wife often works from home and I have access to a free supply of firewood greater than I could ever need. Ours is a 60’s built place, so fairly well insulated compared to where we’ve been before.

You may already have ventilation due to the gas fire (we did anyway) which opens up stove options. As mentioned already, go small to run nearer capacity, half burning is no good for anyone, but be aware that too small may limit your log supply options.

Wouldn’t be without ours. Halved our gas bill. But……been lucky enough to get wood for free last 3 years. If you had to pay for logs you’d save bugger all I’d say.

Agree with comments about it being a lifestyle. If you have Ch as well then you don’t have a lot of the pita though, as it doesn’t matter if the stove goes out or isn’t lit, but if it is then with trvs and a decent thermostat the stove adds nicely on top. If you are buying and it’s more expensive heat than gas though, but if you like the scrounging and cutting and splitting (I do) then it can save money. Although given the cost to buy and install it takes a while to pay off. I absolutely caned a 5kw stove for about 1200 hours last winter, burnt 6.5m³ of wood, had the house warmer then normal and knocked about £250 off the gas bill.

I would never willingly live in a house without a woodburner, open fire would do but the dust gives me the hump.
We’ve spent the last 25yrs in uninsulated rural cottages with woodburners as our heat supply. Now we’re in a 60’s terrace with a bit of insulation and an oil boiler, but the woodburner is what we use. I suppose the heating would be more convenient but it doesn’t really occur to me, if I get cold I reach for the kindlers.

Very comprehensive replies thus far. I concur: it’s basically a nice ‘lifestyle accessory’ (can’t believe I just said that): the notion that you will save money or indeed the planet is incorrect. I would add re installation, there are a lot of over inflated prices around from ‘lifestyley’ companies. YOu can get a perfectly decent new cast iron stove off ebay for about £400 and get someone HETAS registered to install it, probably £500 to £800 depending on the work. Personally I would recommend a chimney liner, they’re not that expensive and they mean there is no risk of seepage through cracks in the chimney which may or may not develop. A decent engineer will advise. Don’t forget annual chimney sweeping costs. They will give you official certificate which you will need to a)be sure you’re not given yourself or your neighbours Carbon monoxide poisoning. b) re-selling your house. I think its analagous to double glazing sometimes: Safestyle etc. will charge £5k, when you can buy the window frames from a local manufacturer/merchant and get your local builder to fit them for £2k.

if you expect a zombie apocalypse it’s nice to have an alternate heat source for the house. otherwise i don’t think i lit mine once last year.

I love mine, actually looking forward to the cooler weather so we can get it back on. If you leave all the doors open you can comfortably heat downstairs but it only has a negligible effect upstairs.

Like other have said it probably won’t save you money if you have to buy fire wood but there’s nothing better than having it on in the winter. The only draw back with me is that it tends to send me to sleep once it’s on haha. As for cleaning, I just wait till it’s cold and the hoover everything out with a Henry Hoover and you don’t get any dust 🙂

What Geoffj says.

We had two log burners in our old house (~1900 mid town house) and we’ve fitted one into our new place (newish build). Compared to a gas fire log burners are/can be messy, can be a faff to light, can be a pain to control the heat of, can be a pain going outside to get logs/coal, you have to remember to order logs/coal, pain having to stack logs in the log store, faff having to empty the ashes etc etc etc

Worth getting one? Absolutely.

Modern log-burners are great – we had one installed about 15 years ago (a Morso so a very reputable make) and it was okay but was a bitch to light. We moved house a few years ago and fitted a new stove before Christmas last year – it lights first time every time with barely any kindling needed and happily sits ticking over at a nice heat using no more than a few logs each night. Apparently it is down to how newer stoves are designed to burn more effectively.

But at the end of the day they are inevitably a bit more hassle than a gas fire but for us it is a price very much worth paying.

Finally – do NOT buy a multi-fuel stove unless you are certain you will be using anything other than wood on it – they cost more, are less efficient and more room is taken up with grates etc.

We had a Morso in the old house and when we had the kitchen done got a Westfire fitted. The Westfire was better in every way – easier to light, kicked out more heat etc. So much better that we got the same stove fitted when we moved.

If it’s a newish house it should have a flue made from stacked clay cylinders and you shouldn’t need to be conned into having an expensive liner fitted.

However, fitting a liner means the escaping gases do not cool so quickly on contact with the cold flue (as a steel liner heats much more quickly than clay) so the draw is more efficient on first lighting and the fire lights more easily.

when we had the kitchen done got a Westfire fitted

We got a Parkway Aspect 4 – just one handle to open/close the vent and that’s it – so simple, so easy to use.