Evening folks, looking to replace our old enclosed gas fire with a wood burning stove. Missis in law is adamant that they are a lot of work and mess (thats the stove BTW) and would recommend a boring old gas fire that you can walk in from work and turn straight on, opinions please? (also open to fuel advice)

Depends where you live. Dense urban area? The sticks? I wouldn’t run a wood fired stove in the first.

Stoves are not hard work either. A few minutes clearing old ash and lighting, then a log or so every hour.

Sticks surrounded by woodland too, my main concern would be the extra time it takes collecting/begging/storing/drying/chopping wood and that i’d probably end up buying it.

My parents have both a log burner and a calor gas fired flueless stove. The wood burner is lovely and they have enough of their own wood from garden but the convenience of the gas is huge !

If you have access to free wood, you won’t mind the odd half a day now and then to saw and split it. You’ll need a wood store though first. Make it much bigger than you think you need, especially if you think you will get free wood.

Wood = heart (more ‘atmosphere’)
Gas = head (cheaper to run, convenient but lacking in soul)

I have 2 x wood burning stoves but no gas, so that’s my excuse

Cheers i’ll add your comments to my campaign!

Gas = death of the soul.

If you’re not going to have a real fire in your house, just turn the heat up. Otherwise, you might as well have one of these:

Can’t really add much, except I find using a chainsaw and splitting maul or axe good fun, and the maul and axe are good exercise. It does take time and effort though.

The burning bit isn’t instant like gas but isn’t hard and takes little effort.

Look at balance flue gas fires by Dru. Very impressive and efficient.

Are you me OP? Your MIL sounds just like mine….

We’ve got a stove. And bloody good it is too, even if I have to buy the wood in (which is far cheaper than the bottled LPG my central heating runs on).

this

I have one of each

Basically light and keep it lit for months = stove/burner better for warming the house

Get in for three hours at night = gas fire as the burner takes about that to stop the room being freezing never mind warming it

Burner is slightly less p per hour to run than fire but it is also never our so they sort of balance each other out

Flueless gas fires produce a fair amount of water vapour so you need to vent them and still open a window overnight IME

As above really.

My heating is LPG, so I mostly use 2x wood burners in the main living rooms.

Looking at installing another fire in the existing empty fire place between the kitchen and dining room, but this time it will be gas.

Wood in the living rooms, where I tend to ‘settle down’ for the evening. Gas in the dining room where I just want some quick easy heat early morning or for an hour after work.

A place for both.

Have you central heating, if so learn how to use the timer and use that instead.

Otherwise gas is easy, just switch on.

Wood stove isn’t and does require organisation, local supplies, cleaning (not just it but the room also).

And I’d reckon based that gas would be cheaper (based on you having to buy wood anyway).

FWIW we have a big wood stove but no gas (rural) nor central heating.

I’m more comfortable being seen in public when I have gas.