Wanted a log burner for years, now we have reached the point where we are ready to do the living room.

Should we still get one? Are they being “phased out”. If not, what else should we get?

Not really for heating (we have gas combi) just for sitting round in the evening and when we have tonnes of wet kit.

Currently we have an open fire.

Cheers,

Mick

If you have an open fire then it is a no brainer to replace it with a stove. Modern stoves are about 90% efficient versus less than 20% efficient for an open fire. As you already have a chimney your installation costs will be minimal.

What do you burn on the fire? Do you already have central heating?

For me (personally) the main question is are you in a town or village with many around you or are you rural located?

I get that it’s nice to sit in front of a fire, but log burners really are appallingly bad for local air quality.

are you on mains gas

I don’t like ours, and we’ve not used it the last couple of winters. It’ll go when we redo that room. Previous owners fitted it, it’s way too much heat output for the size of room (so it’s like a sauna in there with it going), I can’t be arsed with keeping dry wood to hand or getting the chimney swept. Plus we live inside the M25 so air quality is bad enough as it is.

Might consider a fakey electric one, or just get rid altogether. I think they’re fine in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere but the fad for putting them in suburban houses needs to stop.

Burn wood*, not gas (or oil, or coal).

[ *does not apply to urban dwellers ]

[ *only use properly dried wood ]

[ *not all wood burners are as clean burning as they could be… don’t go cheap ]

[ *we’ll all be switching to electric heating, just as soon as the national grid is decarbonised ]

If you require the heat output on a regular basis, a good stove is wonderful. Special occasions only, keep with the open fire. A great atmosphere creator.

We have just gone through this and decided it didn’t make sense much as I wanted one. So we have just had one of these installed https://www.stovax.com/stove-fire/riva2-500-gas-fires/riva2-500verve-xs/

We have central heating and mains gas here and it seemed crazy for us to burn wood and pollute the local air more.

(Have a house in Scotland as well where the Morso stove is the only heating, no gas there, in fact we only got electricity about 15 years ago!)

I get that it’s nice to sit in front of a fire, but log burners really are appallingly bad for local air quality.

We have one, its lovely, but the air pollution is very noticeable, I can taste log burner pollution in the air in our street as soon as someone fires one up. We’re in a low emission area so they’ll all be DEFRA approved stoves, but still quite noticeable.

Live on the edge of a town in a smokeless zone.

Yes we have mains gas (“we have gas combi”).

On the open fire we burn smokeless coal.

I wanted one, I got one, I wouldn’t if I could choose again…

Too much PITA and not nice for neighbours. We were the first in our street, now its like a pea souper on a winter’s night!

We went

https://www.stovax.com/stove-fire/vogue-gas-stoves/vogue-midi-gas-stoves/

Sure it’s not quite as pretty/warm as a log burner but it is remote control and i don’t have to deal with ashes and logs.

I also remember my non mains, non gas rural years , gas is a lot Quicker/easier.

We installed one in each of our last two houses. Have just renovated our current house, and would have liked one just because they’re nice, but we’re on the edge of Oxford, where the air quality is pretty crappy, so we decided on a gas fire instead. It doesn’t look as nice, but it warms the room up, and isn’t pumping so much nasty stuff into the local air.

(We got a high output inset thingummy that wasn’t dirty cheap – about £1500 including surround and oak mantelpiece, from these people: https://www.casttec.co.uk/ )

I have a gas fake log burners – its great. supplemental heating and looks the part. In an attic flat its the only answer

if you are have an open fire and do not need the log burner for heating i would not bother. an open fire is so much nicer

Things to note

– if you’re not getting wood from a local tree surgeon (or similar) then firewood is expensive. As in, you’ll get through a few quid’s worth per evening of use
– you’ll also need your chimney swept once a year
– Until the tidal wave of news swept 2020 away, stove emissions were creeping up the environmental agenda. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get stricter in the next 5 years, possibly with a ban or requiring some kind of chimney filter (which aren’t cheap)
– emissions from stoves do seem to be really quite bad, much worse than people thought until fairly recently (but personally i love the smell in the air when everyone has a stove going)
– you may eventually discover, once the novelty has worn off, that you only really fire it up twice a week

Have to say, no, because the environment etc etc.

We have no alternate source of heat. But I’d take gas in a flash if it were possible.

– you may eventually discover, once the novelty has worn off, that you only really fire it up twice a week year

fixed…

Had one in the old place as there was no mains gas (only oil)
Ran it to feed a thermal store for water and CH
I spent way too much time and money on keeping it fed with ‘free’ wood (pickup truck, chainsaws, PPE).
They are messy polluting things.
They look lovely.
We now have a fake one that runs off mains gas.

On the open fire we burn smokeless coal.

Far worse, in every way, than using a wood burner properly. Well, not every way… smells and looks lovely, but none of us should be burning the stuff if we can use an alternative, really.

I understand why people are loving the open flame look gas centre pieces… but if you’re going to burn gas, do so as efficiently as possible… you might as well use your boiler (assuming you have one).

Got to say I’m well impressed by the posters above who wanted one, could have got one but didn’t due to polution.

Genuine respect.

thegeneralist /\

+1

One of those things that’s nice but no good when everyone has one. When I lived in Hebden Bridge the air quality was horrific on a cold day.

Looking for a house online at the mo and it’s quite shocking just how many houses have them these days.

The problem with wood burners is 90% of people haven’t a **** clue how to use them, the hour I spent after fitting one instructing on how to use it was wasted on most people.
Not in the business any longer, but some customers were just born stupid.
After initial firing up a stove all you should see from the chimney is a heat haze, any smoke YOU’RE NOT DOING IT CORRECTLY.

Exactly. I’m stunned by an the users saying there’s smells. I run mine all winter and it’s very rare to be able to tell from outside the house. No visible smoke or smell if wood is dry and fire burning hot.

Was like you, and went for it. I have to admit I ‘wanted’ one. We had a huge extension and it’s great for heating that new area and the old part of the house.
We went for quality, meets all new and planned regs, nice simple single lever control/choke. We also have a temp gauge fitted, and a moisture tester.
I initially had to buy logs, but now I use a local tree surgeon. He tips me off if he has Ash or Oak. He can get rid of chipping, but not logs. So I collect those and I have my own chainsaw.

I’ve been on the roof when its going, deffo no smoke or smell. Just haze?

We have no mains gas and, at times during the winter, can struggle with local electricity outages. We have electric central heating.

So, we got a log burner installed about 4 years ago. Hwam 2630, nominally 4.5kw. Ensuring we use only well seasoned low moisture (<15%) quality firewood, the only visible smoke is during first ignition, then no sign at all.

It is great for those days when you want a quick heat of the house (just leave the internal doors in the house open) or if power fails.

Just plan ahead for the following year or year after when it comes to buying and storing logs unless you want to use kiln dried or take a risk with unseasoned logs (which will cause issues).

The sweep was here last week for the annual sweep. £80 included check of the log burner, flue, smoke test, etc. Money well spent.

We have a gas stove.

It is AMAZING

Push the remote, woosh on full whack all 4.2kW and 82% efficient

Remote has a thermostat so the place doesn’t get too hot

No faff with wood, no mess, nothing to clean.

Its a thing of beauty, best thing I’ve ever bought for the house apart from the insulation I put under the floor.

Portway 1 gas stove

https://www.portwaystoves.com/portway-1-gas-stove

Really need to get that picture hung 😉

The sweep was here last week for the annual sweep. £80 included check of the log burner, flue, smoke test, etc. Money well spent.

How much! I pay £30 for that (don’t think he checks the flue particularly).

Horses for courses innit.

In the middle of nowhere in the depths of the Highlands at 250m altitude on lpg. The hulking big stove will warm the whole house with doors left open etc. But it is hotter than the sun next to it.

£400 buys me 10 cubic metres of logs which is a shed load of money for about 2 shed loads of logs. But That will mean the LPG is only used minimally beyond hot water. I reckon without it the LPG bill would make me cry – multiple times more than £400 of logs. I think for us £3 of logs = £10-12 of lpg in terms of heat generation, maybe better. But that is reliant on a cheapish source of good wood and ability to store in bulk and compared to relatively expensive LPG.

My only advice – if you go for it buy a stove small enough that it can be run properly and not throttled back – that’s a one way street to a blocked chimney.

If it’s just for show….maybe not worth the expense. And if in an area where the local emissions are a factor then again, maybe not.

As you already have a chimney your installation costs will be minimal.

Whist this *may* be the case, it is not always the case. For a stove to burn efficiently the draw needs to be right and that may mean a liner is required.

@wzzzz How much was that, if you don’t mind me asking?

just going through the same decision.

we had a lovely baxi open fire. the mrs didnt like it. it smelled when you burnt stuff on it (properly seasoned wood) so i suggested a wood burning stove. No smoke. less smells. she decided she didnt like that either. So we compromised and she got an electric fire 🙁

in a word – no.

Our house had one when we moved in and whilst it’s great for heat and ambiance, I feel very self conscious when using it and as such rarely do. I ride home through 4 villages and in winter with the wind in your face, the smell is utterly dreadful thanks to woodburners.

Ours combusts very well, and we have no soot formation on the bricks, glass etc when using properly dried hardwood, but still, I have to close our windows in autumn as many of the neighbors will run woodburners as soon as the temperature is below 18.

I’d replace it with gas in a heartbeat if I could, but there’s no gas in the village and and nowhere to safely store a cylinder in the garden without demolishing the greenhouse. .

We had the same discussion, i struggled with the air quality issues.

We considered gas but as we have central heating already it would be for show and most of the time it would be switched off.

In the end we went for a fancy electric one. We can have it on in the summer evenings without the heat but over a grand for for a fan heater is a lot to stomach.

– you may eventually discover, once the novelty has worn off, that you only really fire it up twice a week

We use ours pretty much every day throughout autumn / winter. We do have gas CH, but just use the fire instead as it’s much nicer and only heats the downstairs, which is where we are most of the time.

We had two Dovre 250s in our house. Great multi-fuel stoves.

One thing nobody has mentioned is the huge volumes of air stoves suck up the flue, meaning the room is always fresh and well ventilated.

We use ours pretty much every day throughout autumn / winter.

So do we – it normally uses about two standard 1 tonne bags (plus any random offcuts I end up with) in a single season (so about £200 over four or five months) so not that bad on costs (our gas usage doesn’t go up very much in the winter as the radiators don’t kick in much).

@Cougar stove was £1000 I think a few years back, googling they are £1200 or so now https://www.fireworld.co.uk/gas-stoves/portway-1-gas-stove

Fitting is similar cost to a wood burner, but the fitter needs a gas ticket and the intelligence to understand its neither a log burner nor a gas fire, it’s a gas stove. You’d be surprised to hear I struggled to relay the concept to lots of installers who ere mostly only interested in fitting gas fires or log burners.

I ended up dropping a log burner spec stainless liner down (that was also rated for gas), but this is way over-specced for a gas flue.