Wood burning stoves, Multi-Fuel Stoves and fuels

Ardbeg, my favourite dram, it’s all starting to make sense now :laughing:
I certainly like to have some Ash, Beech or Birch for starting the fire, takes the work out of it, then top up with Oak, Peat or Coal if using the dual fuel burner.

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Jotul and Nestor Martin here. Would never be without them.

Surprised no one has mentioned the compressed sawdust heatlogs and similar products. They e burn hot and fairly slowly and not using virgin wood seems sensible. They need perfectly dry storage so not an open wood shed. We get some kiln dried logs once a year mostly for kindling and use the heatlogs the rest of the time. Our house is drafty with big chimneys. No issues installing or running stoves.

We are currently exploring installing a wood pellet boiler, which burns smaller versions of the same. Any experiences of those would be interesting. We have fuel oil for boiler at the moment

Bruce

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This is what we use at the moment

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Waiting for the rugby to start! I love being retired

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Hope you have the space for the storage, plus the opportunity to have a gravity feed system. I looked at them, my local garage / village shop uses them, but I don’t have a good storage area (reserved for wine).

They give out good heat, but the ones I’ve seen don’t provide a great ambience. The flame is fairly innocuous. But as a boiler, hidden away, they would be a good choice if you are not too concerned about the energy used to produce them, which is not outweighed by convenience or cost compared to oil or gas.

Re the wood pellet central heating We have ideal dry cellar storage for pellets in bag form but not large enough for a huge hopper and automatic fill. We would need to manually fill the system maybe every week in winter from bags.

As for the heatlogs they do burn fir a while with a fairly nice flame then glow as they settle down. I don’t think you would tell the difference looking at the stove really. Minimal ash too.

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Crap photo of the heat log flame

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Me too, but no fire needed this morning here in Cornwall!

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Maybe another thread topic but wood pellet boilers may be pricey but energy cost is less than oil per KWH and the Govt RHI scheme would give us about £1700 a year back for 7 years as currently configured. This would be higher than our current oil costs!

Bruce

Cottage style …

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Been a stove user for about 20 years now. Over that time I’ve seen the cost of commercial log supplies go up and up each year… the popularity of stoves as a style item rather than a source of heat :frowning:

I now purchase complete tree rounds from a local tree guy who delivers it by the trailer load. I then get the axes and chain saw out and convert it to stove size logs. This is a lot cheaper and actually quite relaxing fun. He charges about £50 a load and I go through three loads over the winter - about 100Kg a week. Since we only have oil for heating using wood like this is cheaper. We light the stove at about 4-5pm and then get all the doors open in the house to get the heat all around. We get away with only running the oil central heating for a couple of hours a day… this is whilst waiting for the stove to spread it’s heat around the house.

Our current stove is a Morso. Next time I’d install a stove that draws it’s air direct from outside… a little more work but it’s more efficient and you don’t have to fanny about with wall vents.

One year I purchased a pallet of the compressed sawdust brickets… never again. Compared to burning proper seasoned wood the brickets are low heat output and if you aren’t careful they collapse to a pile of sawdust when you add more fuel. They clog up the air feed and make lots of ash. As a test, to see of things have improved (and because I was too ill to lug wheelbarrows of logs around), I recently purchased a bag of the sawdust logs. Never again… they’re just as bad as I remember.

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Thanks fir the sawdust log tip…was thinking about them. Agree the price if logs gets more expensive each year.

Not sure what you used but our heat logs leave 90% less ash than wood logs and are definitely hotter than even kiln dried hardwood

The last ones I tried (about 4 weeks ago) were ones made from hemp.

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I hope you did not inhale

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tbh I was hoping but I can confirm no wacky moments :wink:

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whatever about the environmental impact of wood burners I’ve always thought of Kiln dried logs as been not the greenest fuel - energy required to fire the kilns (probably gas) and over here they seem to be mostly imported from eastern europe so considerable transport considerations too

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We have two wood-burners (different makes, one is an Esse I think, can’t remember the other) and a Rayburn oven. The weed we use all comes off our land (about 8 acres, surrounded by very overgrown hedges - basically linear woodland). I have been cutting the trees down in these hedges, and laying the hedges (fairly crudely but successfully) so they are becoming much more hedge-like. Fair mixture of trees - a previous occupant had planted a lot of poplar trees - mostly round the edges and just in from the hedges. Which haven’t done the hedges any good, so I’ve been cutting those down and burning them. Otherwise Ash, Beech, Oak, Blackthorn, Alder, Goat Willow and a little Birch. I tend not to cut down the oak, but any that fall I use, of course. The neighbouring farm allows me to have any fallen trees. We’ve been here 20 years and barely made a dent.
I’ll be really annoyed if they stop us from burning wood. What do we do with all the wood then? And it has certainly saved us some money.

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I’ve used similar ones in recent years ad they certainly give a fair amount of heat. Have also used some octagonal shaped ones which are a dark brown with a hole in the middle (Homefire or Hotties brands). I mentioned Verdo heatlogs above which used to be available for £2.79 in Home Bargains of all places but they no longer stock them.

I’ve purchased these on occaions at the B&M discount stores - 5 logs for £3.99, they look quite similar to yours, but stock seems to disappear quite early in the Autumn:

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(Blazers Fuel Logs)

I believe that some heat logs are better than others - I read somewhere that ones created using very high pressure cause lignin in the sawdust to melt and act as a natural binder, whereas ones made with lower pressures tend to fall apart more easily.

I saw some new heat logs in Homebase the other day - Homefire Superheat Logs - very pale fine sawdust base I think. I don’t like them at all, awkward shape/size and seem to crumble too readily despite being dry.

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I think some of these kinds of sawdust log are much better than others, but ultimately prefer proper logs.

I’m finding of late I’m mixing fuels - kindling in the middle lit by those wax impregnated lighters, surrounded by an outer frame of 3-4 peat briquettes with a seasoned or kiln dried log above spanning the kindling and peat briquettes below - the real wood lights quickly and gives decent heat to ignite the peat well. The peat lasts a lot longer than the wood so I top up as needed with more wood/peat as the night goes on.

Peat does produce a lot of ash though.

Would love to prepare/season my own fire wood as you describe, definitely something for the future when I have more time on my hands.

I agree on the modern ‘style item’ comment, but ours are currently a very important heating source in the house.

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