Tip 1.

Don’t uy wood from b&q.

Tip 2 don’t get precious that your window gets blackened, it will unless you only burn the perfect wood at full blast all the time and clean the window all the time. Its a fire. It will get blackened.

Wood is eco, coal is not. We can grow more wood.

Coal fired stove / open fires polluted the local area, coal fired power stations pollute somewhere you personally can’t see or feel the effects directly. Typical NIMBY reaction. Rather than make a change away from coal, just moved it so I can’t see it.

Tip 2 don’t get precious that your window gets blackened, it will unless you only burn the perfect wood at full blast all the time and clean the window all the time. Its a fire. It will get blackened.

Not true I’m afraid.
A stove with a good air wash system should stay clean. We have Clearview stoves (who I think came up with the air wash system, but I may be wrong) and although we try to always burn good dry wood they are certainly not run at full blast all the time and they never gone black in the last three years.. The glass might get a quick wipe every couple of weeks but even then only a little white ash comes off.
Not all stoves are equal and anybody who thinks they are are only kidding themselves.

Not saying all stoves are equal and it sound like have had better performance than I or any other “full time stove users” I personally know (but you do sound you’re good with your burning of only well seasoned wood). However its stupid to get too precious over blackening e.t.c on a stove. Its a bit like getting a dog and being surprised even if its very well trained that very occasionally, when ill it might shit on you floor.

As an update, plan e is now in action and I am sat in front of a very impressive flame and heat output from half a “blazer” Eco log. Lasts about 90mins per half log. If your struggling, give a pack a try and see what you’re aiming for with wood.
Might just buy a pallet of these……..

bigblackshed – Member
Wood is eco, coal is not. We can grow more wood.

unless you grow your own wood then there is energy (usually oil) required to harvest it, cut it, and transport it to you – so contrary to many claims wood is not carbon neutral. As with most ‘biofuels’ there isn’t enough landmass in the UK to support the demand if everyone used it; and if it became mainstream you would need so much fast growing production wood that biodiversity would be out the window (along with MTB trail centres etc that get in the way). Then when you burn wood, as with coal, there are particulates going up the chimney. Not to mention the SOx and NOx that come from burning stuff. The problem is we have become obsessed with CO2 emissions and ignored the other pollutants.

Coal fired stove / open fires polluted the local area, coal fired power stations pollute somewhere you personally can’t see or feel the effects directly. Typical NIMBY reaction. Rather than make a change away from coal, just moved it so I can’t see it.

Thats a grossly simplified view. (1) producing lots of smoke in areas of high population density is not smart and results in respiratory disease. (2) producing smoke in a small household fire is not a very efficient process, totally uncontrolled, and unmanageable – producing smoke at a single site is much more efficient (less particulates to start with), easier to scrub etc. If wood was really the eco solution we would have switched ALL the coal fired stations to wood.

Wood burners have their place, and might even be one of the “better” solutions in some situations but they are largely ecobling bought as a fashion statement by people with 2 cars in the their driveway, who take multiple foreign holidays (by plane). Still at least when they realise how inconvenient wood is they will probably go back to whatever they used before except when they have a dinner party unless they switch to coal?

‘Disillusioned with my wood burner’ is a classic STW #firstworldproblems middle-class angst thread. 🙂

Just for balance, I’m not disillusioned with mine. Nor am I suffering any undue anxiety over its unashamed middle-classness.

Now, back to searching for cheap flights for a mountain biking trip to Eritrea.

“Shock! Our parents generation moved away from open fires because they were hard work, not particularly cheap and didn’t provide instant heat”

no they didnt Im 25 and grew up with open fires and then a stove and an open fire , my grandparents have a stove and an open fire. – all in the country

I now have a stove and an open fire…..

How ever on my girlfriends side her family have been fireless for 2 generations – living in towns so i have been trying to educate her on the merits of using the stove over pressing the on button has been hard but i think shes worked it out now

I’m up early to get my van out for my neighbour to borrow for the day. He’s a gardner and trims/fells trees. I suspect there might be a few logs in the back when he brings it back. The eco-cost will be the difference in emissions between his little car and my foul van over the distance to the site.

Top thread. Lots of experimenting to do tonight on the Morso!

We live right next to a wood, but very few limbs / trees seem to come down. I also don’t have a chainsaw so anything will have to be manually cut (at the risk of the Council’s ire) and dragged back to the house, but worth doing I suppose (once the logstore is built).

Whoever mentioned the thermometer, where does it go / where did you get it from? More gadgets!

Just for balance, I’m not disillusioned with mine. Nor am I suffering any undue anxiety over its unashamed middle-classness.

Hehe, obviously I have one too, and my mother owns a bit of woodland so I get my wood from there. 😉

Just found disillusioned an amusing choice of word – kind of implies having bought wholesale into the STW woodburner ‘lifestyle’, then slowly realising all his hopes and dreams are built on sand.

Rather than having just bought a woodburner then found it’s not perfect, and that logs from B+Q are quite expensive.

I know I’m reading too much into it!

I also don’t have a chainsaw so anything will have to be manually cut

Just buy a chainsaw – Aldi have them in for £60 and they work reasonably well plus 3 yr warranty.

but with the caveat please get some safety gear aye br ?

Shock! Our parents generation moved away from open fires because they were hard work, not particularly cheap and didn’t provide instant heat.

Discussing this in the boozer last night actually. We just ordered up a gas fire. It turns on. it heats us up etc and there is no traipsing around trying the fuel it.

I love the look and stuff of these burners but i prefer instant heat more and no faffing.

we have a boiler for those days mark 😀

tbh once you find a good wood supplier (which i did via this forum) and have somewhere dry to store it. I find it to be quite theraputic to stick the fire on.it needs tending to maybe twice during the night.but then i spent 15 years lighting the fire if i was home first at my parents.

we only just got central heating and water installed in our house in september (moved in in february) and tbh the heatings hardly ever on other than at 4am in the morning to ensure its warm when i get up for work.

Chainsaw – I’m quite nervous of them tbh. If I ever did take the plunge I would probably be wearing a suit of armour!

Thanks

Not a bad thing, being nervous about a chainsaw, same for any machinery like that, respect required. Had the first reasonable windy night in a while last night, Chainsaw will be going in the boot of the car soon, for those impromptu limbs and big branches that get blown down!.

Also, if you’re looking for logs, contact your local authority as well. I got a load last year for 47 quid, which was hardwood, reasonably dry and filled 2.5 cubic metres worth of woodshed space. I’m burning it this year, and its good stuff. I think it came from the area they cleared building the new uni campus in Ayr. Deal is, I call them, they put me on the waiting list, and call me a day or so in advance, and it gets delivered in a converted landie with a big tipping hydraulic hopper on the back.

That’s the only wood I’d buy, The rest I get from riding my bike on the local trails and keeping an eye out for the stuff that is close to car access. I’ve also considered a wee ad in the paper shop window, small – medium trees removed, for free, then I could pick n choose. Not got round to it yet.

There might be a excess of felled Ash soon, if the news it to be belived, wonder what they will do with all the wood!

Whoever mentioned the thermometer, where does it go / where did you get it from? More gadgets!

Most people use the magnetic type that stick on the flue pipe and monitor the flu tempreture.

They normally have three section low, normal, too frigging hot!

Burning too low, can causes creosote deposits in your flue, not good.

Buring too hot, can dammage a cast iron stove over time.

Our local paper this week, said, the local fire service, have dealt with 7 stove chimney fires in the last 7 days! 😯

sweep often , burn right

i must admit to using the stove like the old coal stove where youd load it up and get it glowing then shut it in.

you cant do that to the same extent with wood as youll get cresoting.

to the OP

properly dry/seasoned wood is your #1 priority, burning unseasoned wood uses nearly all the fires energy just drying out = no heat given off

there’s quite a lot of mileage in maintaining a small stack right next to the stove

Thermometer ordered.

there’s quite a lot of mileage in maintaining a small stack right next to the stove

You are probably right in practical terms. Putting wet wood on the fire will mean it won’t burn well. Putting dry wood on the fire means it will burn hot enough to dry tomorrow night’s wood. But I can’t help thinking that the laws of thermodynamics should be treated with a little more respect 🙂 If your fire is being used to evaporate water from wood you aren’t seeing the benefit of it and it doesn’t matter whether the wood is in the stove or next to it.

You should use the sun to dry your wood.

Can we all acknowledge Polys rant please.
Top draw!

timbur – I thought it a little disapointing as a rant as it was reasoned, made sense (whether you agree with it or not), was spelt properly and was on-topic and had no random capitals. Could do much better. 2/10. (And punctuation! Whatever next?)

I liked the poke in the eye to Middle England at the end of it. Intelligent all the way through and then slipped at the end.