[Closed] stove help

I have a Charnwood C7. It burns things. No fuss, not sure what else to say.

That is 99% of it I guess, if it's good it just does its thing.

Quite like the dovre 250, but it's at least 100 quid more and I'll take the Aga or charnwood unless there is a good reason not to.

A friend had a couple of Fireline stoves fitted the other winter. Around £580 each. Look and burn great. They're metal boxes with holes in at the end of the day so buy the one you like the look and price of.

I've had a fireline stove for the last three years, check the flue size as mine is 5 inches which is smaller than what is recommended by HETAS and BR

Also the pins holding the door work lose on mine over time, not a massive issue 😉

We have a Clearview made in this country and its made of steel instead of being cast only casting on it is the door, in a word its fantastic. Place where we bought it from has one running all year round (old railway warehouse type place) in that time they have replaced a door seal and thats it. If you want a decent british made stove look no further

Got a Firefox here (5kw, multi or wood only conversion kit) and its great. Pretty sure its Defra but its definitely a cleanburn version.

I also liked the Carron enamelled stoves, and they have the advantage of being wider than average so you can get longer logs in.

My GF picked up a morso squirrel refurbished on ebay for £365. Perfect condition and there were multiple options for decent money. Its wroth a look.

Hadn't considered eBay, with a good brand I guess there is little to worry about unless it's years and years old..... Hmmm, ta.

Anybody know anything about ekol ? Where are they made? The crystal 5 is £500

Why on Earth does it have to be DEFRA approved? All that means is that the manufacturers have paid the bribe to DEFRA to stick their seal of approval on the stove. As somebody else writes above, stoves are just metal boxes in which you burn stuff; the amount of pollution depends on what you burn and how - that's all.

Yes, but living in London's smoke free zone, using wood on one that hadn't been certificated could result in a fine of £1000. So I'll get a DEFRA one.

Looks to me like ekol aren't made anywhere they want to advertise........

The Aga little wenlock is looking tempting but I'll watch Ebay for a bit.

Fireline and fox are Chinese made aren't they?

Aga Wenlock is one which would be waaaay down my list.
Rubbish airwash, not very efficient and horrible (expensive to replace) internals which warp and lock together making your sweep sad.

If you can do top outlet then Burleys are great. Dunsley Highlander Enviro burn 5 is a good solid stove. Aarrow range are generally good bang for buck.
Can't really go wrong with the C4 though.

Charnwood c4

Love ours, pretty controllable air flow, better than a Firefox according to our fitter.

Great, thanks bedmaker, that seems really good advice. Wenlock off the list, shame, SWMBO liked its look too.
I'll look at your suggestions.

Regarding £1000 fine, how would this work?

Surly they would need some kind of warrant to enter your property, how would they obtain evidence to get this, I coul not see them taking smoke samples on your roof? Unless your chimney is smoking like a steam train that is?

Charnwood country 4 here. Keeps the family warm, nice big viewing window and easy to control.

Yes ski I know, its ni on impossible there are no tales from people actually fined. However London was once smog filled, smokeless zones (and the rise of gas c/h) have changed that, let's not take unwanted steps to Mary Poppins world again. Plus with NOX issues with air quality and cars...its a growing issue.

Think the main way the authorities would catch a home owner is on initial sign off. There is also a very hefty fine for delivering logs/fuel to a property without a suitable stove, so I wouldn't be surprised if that made firms check. I hope I'll get a fair bit of free wood (brother has had 2 mature oak trees off me, so he owes me for a start!) But I may have to buy.

Is there a difference between the charnwood c4 and country 4? Realised the c4 prices I'd found were £750+, the stove at £650 is a country....... Bet that's not DEFRA.

I'm starting to favour a dovre 250..... And my budget has been creeping up.

Ah no, the country is approved too

8O. SWMBO just said, 'I think we should save up for that one with the cute squirrel on the side'

Neil- FWIW, Beacon Stoves in West Wales did me a stonking deal on my Badger, undercutting all the on-line prices I'd seen by a large amount. I collected the stove myself in my Berlingo, so they knocked off a further load too. Plus free tea and biscuits in their very well stocked show room. Fast service, extensive stock, helpful staff, low prices. What's not to like?

http://www.beacon-stoves.co.uk/

The website is not updated very frequently and seems a bit out of date, don't let that put you off. If you are heading this way it is well worth a look in.

Hello mate! Cheers for the pointer, if I bring the bike down I could maybe let you drag my sorry flabby Arse up a proper welsh mountain as I come and collect it too 🙂

[i]Must be DEFRA approved, won't be used constantly but will be regular top up heat,[/i]

Turn up your central heating instead?

Or as usual, this Stovax as we've one 🙂

Firefox stoves are good value, well made and they do a DEFRA approved version.

Neil- no probs. Let me know. The shop is just over the hill from Brechfa.

Anybody know about Portway stoves?

Just get a Charnwood country 4, you wont regret it.

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As said above having a large viewing glass is great.

Looks lovely!

I was second highest bidder on a 5 year old dovre 250 that ended on eBay this morning... Darn!

The shortlist seems to be morso squirrel, charnwood country or c4, dovre 250. So having started looking for cheap but OK SWMBO and I seem to have migrated to good...and save up if not lucky on eBay. I'm OK with that 🙂

As a dealer, making a reccomendation on the options you've mentioned...Personally i'd go for a steel unit like the charnwood. Access to spares is good, it's well fabricated, it empolys some modern tech (air-wash, secondary combustion to some extent) but most importantly the carcus will actually stay airtight (asuming door seals are maintained). This is not the case with an aged cast unit i'm afraid. Lovely as a Squirrel is your talking about 15-20 year old technology, being sold at current prices. It's a no brainer. Even better if you can... Buy a Clearview or a woodwarm and ponder no more!

Really? Others had advised to go for a cast iron stove as they radiate more heat which seems odd to me but the source is my brother who heats a substantially sized room to the furnace temperatures his SWMBO and MIL enjoy with a Franco belge every day it's cold, for 10+ years, and had experience of 2 different stoves at a previous house for as long again. If the Franco belge was DEFRA approved I'd be looking at one of those as an option too.
So your input has now unsettled the apple cart.... But this is why I asked the question here, to get lots of input, so thanks.

Actually, on DEFRA approved, I've noticed the squirrel is approved according to morso's website, but searching on gov.UK for morso's approved appliances doesn't show the squirrel...... Puzzling

Cast Tec Norvik 5 here. Use profile the same as yours. We needed Defra, sub 5kw, but as large a chassis as possible so it didn't look daft in our massive ingleneuk. Unlike other sub 5kw stoves it doesn't look like a miniature. Seems very well built and has tertiary air (apparently good to have). The woman in the shop said they were built alongside AGAs. I don't know if that's true or desirable, but definitely UK built which was attractive.

Got a couple of Hunter Hawk 3 / 4 stoves here, nice and compact - easy to fix and service - clean the insides, and clean the flue no problem.

Not sure of cost. they are output of 3.5kW I think, or so. I would expect they are DEFRA approved - how do you check?

If you Google 'smokeless zones'. One of the top bits is the gov.UK sight the page explaining what they are/the rules. There is a link there to the page with exempt appliances, that list is easily searched by manufacturer.

Yeah. That popular misconception comes from the same out dated school of thought at 1.putting bends in chimneys to "help them draw" 2. Not needing to sweep chimneys if they're lined. or 3. being able to burn ash when it's green. Cast is a denser metal so it "retains" heat for longer than mild steel hence making cookware out of it. It doesn't however "radiate" more heat. The downsides of cast iron:- Quality of molds and castings vary, assembly is crucial. 6 panels to joint together (each panel has to be bonded/sealed to make it air tight) doesn't get done with cheaper stoves i'm afraid. A well constructed steel stove with welds will always be stronger/retain its air integrity after continued expansion and contraction. It's all fairly logical stuff when you consider it. I have the benifit of having sold both types of stove for the last 23 years to draw experience from however.

http://smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk/appliances.php

Here you go, click on a country and search.

Thanks Jake, that agrees with my basic physics. Radiation depends on surface colour, finish and temperature, surface temperature depends on heat away ( radiation) and heat conduction through from inside. Steel could be made thinner increasing conduction thus temp, thus radiation and I doubt the specific conductivity is much different between iron and steel, so I can't see how cast iron would radiate better. I can see that casting thick and heavy is cheaper/easier than fabricating and welding steel plate of the same thickness so they tend to be thinner, less thermal mass.

so looking at steel just on the morso range for a moment, morso 04 looks nice. £900
FEATURES
Radiant heat
Air wash system
Primary air supply
Secondary air supply
Riddling grate system
Ash pan

Then looking at the others there is the S11-42, not sure if that is steel or not actually but I'm guessing it might be. £1200, yikes
features
Convection heat
Air wash system
Pre-heated combustion air
Pre-heated secondary air
Tertiary air supply
Ash can
Optional outside air kit

okay so why is the 's' better? i understand convection instead of radiation mens it will be cool on the sides (what about the top though?). the pree heated air stuff sounds great, but what does it do for me? the overall efficiency on the 2 stoves is very similar, the 's' is a good bit smaller in size for the same power, but then the 04 would fit my opening, if it didn't I'd have no qualms about altering the brickwork of the chimney breast anyway.

blimey, I didn't know that existed. thanks. Used to be in Edinburgh where suspect the same regs applied. Now in the sticks where anything goes. Hunter, and a Morso as well.

Stop worrying about the specs, in the end it's a very hot metal box in your lounge, that will suck huge volumes of air up the flue and ventilate the house while keeping you very warm. The quality of your flue and your wood is more important. If you err on the side of a smaller stove you will be burning it hotter and therefore cleaner; nothing looks worse than an oversize stove shut down and smokey with the glass all blackened. The Morso 900 looks fine, it has a nice simple description. Have a look also at a Dovre 250, which is similar. Not sure about price though.

nothing looks worse than an oversize stove shut down and smokey with the glass all blackened

Our stove is massively oversized. 7kw or so, wheras what we actually need is about 3kw.

I stacked up two piles of firebricks inside it, one each side, from the grate up to roof of combustion chamber.

Works lovely now.

[img] ?oh=d136657ba984e736e2a26ab847056ac7&oe=5631E1F3[/img]

I quite like the 'modern lines' look on stoves and this is the chesney salisbury we had fitted having its first burn test

[img] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/KOOS_wM4N-yCQCKai-kj5p13RxrRH8FR1uNVkoMbXjU=w1378-h775-no [/img]

This is the end result after redecorating, the chimney outside is massive and we could have done the whole inglenook look, but again we preferred the simple lines

Currently getting quotes for stoves/installation, but unsure whether to go for a wood only or a multifuel, what are the STW opinions on this?

You can go either, our installer did advise though that if you use other fuel it will knacker up your flu faster, so although ours is multi we are sticking with wood.

[url= http://www.stovey.com/ ]Stovey[/url] but I am biased as I design for them 🙂

if you use other fuel it will knacker up your flu

I'd go multifuel, but I prefer the way coal burns.

However.

coal contains sulfur - best burnt * by itself *
wet wood contains water and makes tarry crap

together they make sticky sulfuric acid gunk

i.e. avoid wet wood + coal.

wet wood is bad enough by itself

coal on its own is fine, especially anthracite (or smokeless at a push)

Multi is better because wood doesn't burn brilliantly without a good bed of embers. You can form the bed of embers with smokeless fuel nuggets, which will sit and glow all day until you chuck on a log and open the vents and in seconds you'll have a cheery fire.

As long as your wood is well seasoned and you get the chimbley swept regularly you don't need to worry about tars.

On seasoning wood, here's a pic I took in September of a freshly-cut piece of wood, which I weighed, left in a warm dry place then re-weighed on 21 February. As you can see it has lost 60% of its weight in water! Your storage and drying arrangements for wood are as important as your choice of stove.

[img] [/img]

This is our log store, made from pallets and an old plastic conservatory roof with some felt, it faces south and is in the windy gap between the house and the neighbour's fence so ideal for drying:

[img] [/img]

Good idea weighing and marking some of the logs, will use that one!

Jeez I'd like mark my logs and weight um, I use a little moisture tester and it seems to work fine

BTW I've had a Firefox for a couple of years now and have no complaints

Woo who!! After some bidding on eBay and missing out (just) on a dovre 250 justa few miles away, almost driving to Daventry for a morso 1418, and an evening deciding if a £150kg clear view could be lifted into the boot of my car (I came to my senses), eBay came through! Made an offer on a 'buy it now or best offer' and now have a brand new stovax Stockton 5 multi fuel on its way to me. Better sort a flue liner. 🙂

£150kg clear view could be lifted into the boot of my car (I came to my senses),

Been there done that. On the suggestion of the stove pros on STW - stack of breezeblocks to jack it up with, plus some cardboard boxes in the boot for easy sliding.

When I googled for ideas I found a stw thread, may have been yours. I decided I didn't want the hassle for a stove much larger then I really wanted and with a boiler I didn't want. I took a day to come to they view though.

I apologise now for the questions about flues, hearths, wood piles, splitting mauls, chain saws and other stove related parifanalia which will come over the next few months.

First one, I'll size the opening to take a stove fan so just looked up the sizes. There is a big spread in cost isn't there? Calfire ecofans at nearly £150, down to what I imagine is a Chinese copy for £40. Is there a difference in quality? As an engineer I kinda fancy a Stirling engine powered fan like the Vulcan... Thing of beauty but, is it fragile and likely to wear out? I imagine a Peltier based fan has very little to 'go wrong', either through wear or being knocked, when compared to a mini Stirling engine. Also, does one can type do the job any better than the other?

I decided I didn't want the hassle for a stove much larger then I really wanted and with a boiler I didn't want.

good call

an oversized stove is an annoyance at best and practically unusable at worst