MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
It's going to happen now, seeing as I just pulled the old fire surround off the wall to see what was behind. Question is, what's a reasonable price?
I've been to the local installers - who have a reputation for being a bit expensive - and they've quoted just shy of £5k. That's to take our old crappy 90s gas fire, widen the fireplace hole, new hearth, brick out the new hole, put in a big beech mantel thing, and install 8kW stove with all the required flues, liners, plates, etc. plus our first ton of dried hardwood. It's a stone cottage with chimneys already in place if that helps, stove by itself is ~£1200 and labour charge is £1150, 2 men over 2 days. Is £5k reasonable or do I need to be shopping around?
If I told you I have just done said job for £700, minus a ton of logs, would you believe me ?
Oh, and location is NE Fife. Going rate for trades up here is £250-£300/man/day
If I told you I have just done said job for £700, minus a ton of logs, would you believe me ?
You fancy doing it again?
I fitted my own stove. Liner,all prep to fireplace and new pot for £1000.Co monitor would suggest I did a goot job. Biggest expense was a second hand stove. You might want to ask for a breakdown of where the money is going; for example most sweeps round here will install the flue for £300...would have been £300 for 45 mins work in my case. Even going posh, if you are contemplating it,that sounds a bit sore. What stove do you want,liner is £20 a metre for 916,the rest of the stuff is all bitty; pot £45,rebate plate etc all cheap as well.How much for your hearth and can a local bricky/plasterer open it all up cheaper?
Check your chimney. If it's in good condition you may not need a flue liner and vermiculite etc. Could save a pretty penny.
It doesn't help you but I had a new 20kw boiler stove fitted, 300ltr tank, all associated plumbing and considerable structural work to chimney done for a good bit less than £5k. Maybe £3k all in.
You are an hour from me, what exactly is it you want done to the fireplace? (I'm a plasterer)
I've had a quote for much the same: remove hearth and brick surround, widen inc lintel, strip rest of chimney breast and replaster and paint, install slate hearthstones, sweep chimney, install flue and all necessary gubbins, commission, inspect, small pickup of logs. £2.3K + whatever 4-5KW stove we fancy.
Have you tried the Stove Shop on the Newport-Leuchars road? They're supposed to be pretty decent.
Ox - I have the contact details for a good installer in your area if you are interested. He did mine in Perthshire. He's good and reasonably priced.
The Flying Ox - MemberYou fancy doing it again?
Nope 🙂 sat here with it fired up nice and cosy and warm.
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You need to read up and DIY
Have you tried the Stove Shop on the Newport-Leuchars road? They're supposed to be pretty decent.
Not yet, can't get hold of them. It was the one at Guardbridge I've been to.
Ox - I have the contact details for a good installer in your area if you are interested. He did mine in Perthshire. He's good and reasonably priced.
Yes please. Email in profile.
firstly, 8kw is a fairly serious stove, that might just be too much. My parents put in a massive stove, because they liked it, and now Dad spends most of his life cleaning baked-on tar from the glass as they have to run it with the vents closed up to keep the room temp below 10,000C. They'd have been better off with a 3kw.
Anyway, there's a few days work to rip out, sort, and prepare a fireplace for a stove. Plus materials: hearth stones, etc.
liner? + fitting?
register plate?
nice stove?
it all adds up quickly. £5k? it sounds a lot, but it's believable...
You are an hour from me, what exactly is it you want done to the fireplace? (I'm a plasterer)
I want this:
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turning into this:
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Ox YGM
For 8kw I imagine they would also be fitting some additional ventilation somewhere to comply with regs?
Sorry, does that include the stove? If so, I would say that it's not too far away from reasonable for a signed-off job. You could probably save some money by getting different trades to come in and do different bits.
[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/opening-up-the-inglenook-woodburner-stove-progress-pics ]This recent thread[/url] explains a lot
I knocked all the plaster and pointing out myself Cost = £0
Local Brickie Pointed it up for £190
I sept the chimney Cost = £0
I put the hearth in Materials cost = £50
Register plate I designed and had made at local sheet metal works cost = £40
New stove [slight damage to enamel] £250 reduced from £600.
Flue, right angle joint fire cement Cost = £80
Fox YGM
Nothing yet... 😕
I'm quite liking the idea of just getting the SDS drill out and attacking the wall. We're having the whole living room redecorated after a water leak before Christmas, so it's going to be chaos for a bit anyway.
the popolis_uk address?
Had a one a couple of months ago for just short of 4k after vat. Remove existing gas fire, alterations, flue, new stove (about 1k). Can send you the detailed quote if you want.
The Flying Ox - MemberI'm quite liking the idea of just getting the SDS drill out and attacking the wall.
Just do it, wife will have a duster wont she ?
the popolis_uk address?
That's the one. Still nothin though...
You may find this website helpful http://www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk/
I opened up a modern fireplace and lined myself then had a stovefitter supply the stove and drop flue and connect for £1k including Hetas Cert.
Opted for a Granite hearth which cost £250.
Newcastle here, just had 5kw stove, flu liner and pot top, remove gas fire, sort out hearth ( we supplied granite tiles - add £150 for slate one) open out firplace and fireboard around sides and skim front of chimney breast all done 2 1/2 days £2200 Like above watch size, inlaws had monster fitted couple years ago and ended up needing get removed as were badly advised.
Edit - that includes them supplying stove
So the consensus is that £5k is a bit steep then. I thought as much.
I'll give the wall a damned good looking at tonight to see what I'm working with, then post back here with pics.
As for 8kW, the living room isn't huge at 13ft x 17ft x 7.5ft, but the house is so very cold and draughty. We plan to open up the stoop through to the kitchen (which effectively doubles the size of the initial space to be heated) and use it to heat upstairs as well via the double winder staircase off the living room. It's a very oddly laid out house, if that all sounds a bit weird.
Quote here in Brighton are as follows
Stove - Morso
Take out rubbish gas fire and make good
Flue liner
Fit stove
Around 2.5k providing we don't need scaffolding ( which we probably will)
But it seems to be a nightmare - lots of fly by nights, all the competition dissing everyone else. There is a no liner vs liner discussion. I was told I had to have one legally - and now I am told if my chimney is good enough, I won't ...
But I have no idea of the parameters that govern this!
I think I paid about 1.5k for a £500 stove, granite hearth, open up fireplace and make good, and a chimney pot check and cowl fitted. I asked for a liner but he was positive it wasn't needed, probably would have been £800 for one of those (only a bungalow) so fairly short if needed.
As mrmoofo states there does seem to be a lot of conflicting advice out there regarding liners!
I chose to assume that the stoves are designed to work with a liner and that is where their efficiency is graded so I fitted a liner.
Would be interesting to know if people are managing to heat more than their living area with a large stove as the OP is hoping to do.
I went from 4.5 to 7kw in my gaff
4.5 would heat the room and be working hard to do it., 7 heats the hall and the upstairs/bedroom while needing less fills and holds flue temperature more evenly.
Due to the lack of consistent advice, we may well go the route of a jet master fire ... It will only pump out 3 kw but that should heat the front room as a secondary source of heating (it's bleeding cold when it is cold outside).
Anything more than 5 Kw will fry a house - unless it is being used as primary source / really big open space. BTW the room I am trying to heat is 4.5 x 4 metres with high victorian ceilings ....
We have a 5kW in an open plan Victorian Terraced House (3 bed) and it heats the whole downstairs nicely - when it's really cold outside it takes a while, but once up to temp it pretty much replaces CH entirely.
We have a 5kw Charnwood and it provides plenty of heat for large lounge (6 x 4m ) with doors open to other spaces. Seems to run cooler with seasoned oak compared to reconstituted wood blocks.
5K seems like too much - get a few quotes, meet a few fitters.
Hey duckman wher do you get the 916 liners from at £20 per m??
Right, so a bit of exploratory demolition has me slightly confused. Despite the house being built of sandstone, the internal wall in which the fireplace sits looks to be entirely brick and with no lintel in sight. The current fireplace cavity only goes back about 12" as well. This wall is a gable end which used to separate 2 buildings (1 x two storey, 1 x single storey, now knocked through into one house) and is a good 3 feet thick. Would a house built in the early 1800s normally have stone exterior walls and brick walls inside, or am I going to have to remove the bricks to see what's behind?
Also, the position of the chimney flue - which happily looks to have a very good condition 9" clay liner inside - seems to be off-centre and not very deep-set at all, which would make our plans to widen the fireplace a bit trickier.
Regardless, I'll be taking the plasterboard off the whole wall at the weekend and we'll see where we stand then.
We have a 5kW in an open plan Victorian Terraced House (3 bed) and it heats the whole downstairs nicely - when it's really cold outside it takes a while, but once up to temp it pretty much replaces CH entirely.
That's the main reason we're after a stove. Gas bills in the winter are close to £200/month just to maintain 19°C. There's a place down the road delivers chopped, kiln-dried hardwood for £73/ton. It's a no-brainer, and if I end up doing most of it myself it'll have paid for itself in a couple of years.
[i]That's the main reason we're after a stove. Gas bills in the winter are close to £200/month just to maintain 19°C. There's a place down the road delivers chopped, kiln-dried hardwood for £73/ton. It's a no-brainer, and if I end up doing most of it myself it'll have paid for itself in a couple of years. [/i]
I'd spend the money insulating the house myself and then take a look at your boiler and rads.
FWIW We've a 7.5kw stove in a room about 6m x 8m and +2 storeys height, it keeps it warm (we've no CH, but just an Aga in the other room).
Just had a new condensing boiler fitted, all windows are double-glazed and loft spaces are insulated already. That's about as far as we can go though, cos it's all solid stone walls - no cavities to insulate. It's just an old draughty house, and I reckon we'd spend a lot more than our £5k stove quote to prevent any more heat loss.
It sounds to me as if you would be best to call a brickie in and get some advice and even quote for opening up your fireplace to suit your spec of stove.
I would personally leave a minimum of work to the stove fitters i.e. fit flue closure and stove as they will probably only be subbing the building work out anyway.I am sure this will bring your costs down!
cajsparky
Would be interesting to know if people are managing to heat more than their living area with a large stove as the OP is hoping to do.
Currently heating the entire house with the boiler stove. Three bed semi with an attic conversion, all rooms nice and toasty. Stove is 16kw to the radiators, 4 to the living room. Worked out pretty much perfectly. A smallish fire will see the living room at about 22 - 23 degrees, the adjacent kitchen about 22. Master bedroom above the living room holds the tank so is always toasty. Bedrooms about 20 degrees including attic conversion.
It seems kind of wasteful to generate all that heat and not do anything with it, especially when the cost of the install wasn't much more than a standard stove.
jimjam great stuff! How much fuel do you get through as a matter of interest? You got me thinking....
It varies quite a bit, some months I'll try and keep a really tight eye on it and run it very economically, other times I'm frivolous and burn through fuel like it's going out of fashion. Currently (after xmas) I am in economical mode.
That's about 5 25kg bags of phurnacite a month at £8 per bag and maybe half a basket of sticks/logs a day. Currently working through scrap wood, and various bits of deadfall/windfall from nearby forest. So cost is zero.
In the past 12 months I've bought logs two or three times. I can't remember, I think three. Local guy delivers 1.5 ton builders bags for £40. The problem is I tend to take it for granted when I buy it in and use it pretty quickly but that amount will last at least a month, two if used carefully.
There's a place down the road delivers chopped, kiln-dried hardwood for £73/ton
Don't plan on saving money by fitting this thing. The only time that works out is if you have "free" wood, and that usually entails a lot of time/effort/tool-use on your part.
FWIW:
When we moved in, our whole house was running off an 18kw wood fired range + 9 rads, with a simple thermostat driven pump. The stove was crap on wood (no way did we get 18kw from it) but ok on smokeless and ran quite well on anthracite. Fairly uncontrollable though, slow to respond, and always a cold house in the morning. Now replaced with something from the 1960's - TRG coal boiler which is mostly automatic (10 minute daily loading/de-ashing routine).
We've also got a 7kw multi fuel in the lounge which heated a 8m x 3.5 lounge, which is open to upstairs. It is oversized. We'd be far better off with something half the size. If we run it full blast the lounge gets to the far side of 30oC in short order.
I doubt I would ever consider a manual stove for a whole house. One in the lounge for weekends and evenings, yes, but for regular radiators type whole house heating, something automatic wins every time.
Incidentally, I'd never get a woodburner per se - I'd get a multifuel burner instead, it gives the option of running on smokeless which is about a million times less faff to deal with.
You got me thinking....
BTW if you're thinking of joining up a boiler stove with your CH, add a few £k to your install cost.
brickwizard - MemberHey duckman wher do you get the 916 liners from at £20 per m??
Sorry,that should have been 904/316 liner. I got it from gr8 fires. My mate had a sample of the cheap stuff and I was able to cut it with a stanley knife. Having fitted the liner I would have gone for the cheap stuff as it was such a doddle to fit the liner I wouldn't be that bothered to do it again...And put a fancier chimmney in.
Incidentally, I'd never get a woodburner per se - I'd get a multifuel burner instead, it gives the option of running on smokeless which is about a million times less faff to deal with.
I thought that, but we've never burnt coal in ours and just use wood...
I thought that, but we've never burnt coal in ours and just use wood..
If the stove is an expensive lifestyle accessory to supplement a mains gas CH system, then by all means wood only, who cares, just buy a bag or two of kiln dried.
If it is a main source of heating, then having the option of burning smokeless is essential.
If it is a main source of heating, then having the option of burning smokeless is essential.
It might be preferable, hardly essential.
No reason why you can't use wood, you can just phone up and have 6 cubic metres delivered on your doorstep the next day.....
Im a big stove fan and use mine more than most but i wouldnt trade my oil boiler for the mornings .....
Regardless of how hot we had the house the night before its still cool in the morning in winter - can be -10 outside and 13 inside at 5 am. - i do not subscribe to the practice of slumbering the stove over night though.
But if your in the balmy southeast this might not be an issue .
I went for a multifuel stove as smokeless is easier for me to get hold of than seasoned wood (and cheaper). At this time of year is impossible to buy seasoned wood as all the local suppliers have sold out. More coal will be delivered the next day.
Half a bucket of homefire ovals smokeless in my fire lit at 6pm will still be glowing the following morning and is often still going by the time I get home the next evening as well. If you are burning logs then you need to keep an eye on it and stick more wood on before it dies down too much. One advantage of burning wood though is that you only need to clean the thing out once a week instead of every day.
It might be preferable, hardly essential.
I'd disagree. Slumbering wood is bad news, so overnight burns are out. Ordering wood for next day delivery - not in bulk for sensible money round our way. And not at all if the suppliers have run out (as they did round my way when we moved in).
IME anthracite or smokeless is always available.
YMMV of course.
Slumberring coal is bad news too .
It might be preferable, hardly essential.I'd disagree. Slumbering wood is bad news, so overnight burns are out.
You do know that overnight burns are not essential (which appears to be your logic), you won't die if you let the fire go out and relight the next day.....
which appears to be your logic
Well, it's your interpretation of it. It's not all of what I said though.
Slumberring coal is bad news too .
If you're talking about bit coal I'd agree, OTOH anthracite (almost) doesn't tar, and manufactured smokeless is almost as good (although some isn't).
Besides a decent coal burn isn't really slumbering, it's just running at a low burn rate for a long time. It's a world apart from the tarry impurities given off from a smoldering log.
The Flying Ox - MemberRight, so a bit of exploratory demolition has me slightly confused. Despite the house being built of sandstone, the internal wall in which the fireplace sits looks to be entirely brick and with no lintel in sight. The current fireplace cavity only goes back about 12" as well. Would a house built in the early 1800s normally have stone exterior walls and brick walls inside, or am I going to have to remove the bricks to see what's behind?
Mine is Gritstone out and brick in, normal for 1800's Depending where you live depends what ws in there, rmember it may well have been used for cooking and heating as there was no gas and leccy then !!
Ours had a Yorkshire range in originally and over the years had 2 fireplaces built on iside the other. So went fromm this
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to the picture in previous post
[i]There's a place down the road delivers chopped, kiln-dried hardwood for £73/ton[/i]
My folks will do that in 5 weeks, if not less - along with a load of coal...
I guess I burn that in 6 weeks. Wouldn't gas central heating be cheaper and less hassle?
Wouldn't gas central heating be cheaper and less hassle?
We already have GCH and we're paying £180/month at the moment. That's balanced out between very little heating in the summer and aiming for 20°C in the winter, so even if we're getting through a ton of wood every month we're at least £100 better off.
For info, we've ended up going with a chap my wife was recommended. He's done a good job so far, and has also ended up quoting a very reasonable price for re-tiling our roofs and rebuilding the three chimney stacks. This is where we're at:
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Previous lintel was only supported on the left side, just the proximity to adjacent stonework was keeping it up on the right 😯
Between that and the chimney being in a horrendous state of repair, I'm so glad I didn't carry on with this on my own.
Unfortunately because of the way the fireplace was split in two when the cowshed next door was converted into living space (there's another fireplace on the other side of the wall apparently) we can't make the opening any wider, but it'll still be nice when done.
He's coming back to finish tomorrow. I can't wait. What's best for burning and smell? Oak, Ash, Birch?
[i]so even if we're getting through a ton of wood every month we're at least £100 better off.[/i]
A month or a year?
A month, I'm guessing. £180/month for central heating, and as I said it's averaged out over the year. We don't have the radiators on from April/May through to end of September, so we're probably closer to £300/month during the winter. I'd guess that ~£30 of that is hot water, so still £150(£270)/month on gas heating.
What's best for burning and smell?
smell? shouldn't ever get smell with a stove unless its busy poisoning you with fumes.
as for what burns best, anything dry.
We already have GCH and we're paying £180/month at the moment.
Are you heating a stately home? Try switching off the radiators in the 30 bedrooms in the west wing.