Does a wood burning stove count as a tool?

[D_W]

Hi DW, that sounds like it was fun!

Definitely a good point about insulating the base. Will think about that.

As a kid, it overlapped about 11PM to 2AM before the fire department left. The top two feet of the bottom floor were black and no ceiling could be seen, and when FD came on the scene, they used their giant fans and aired it out. It was monstrously cold out at the time.

When my eyes got heavy, I went to a room in the other side of the house and fell asleep under a pile of blankets.

Wish I could sleep like that now!!! I do remember seeing smoke coming out between the plaster walls and trim and thinking that looked unusual. Not unusual enough to stay in the room and watch.

 

[Sandyn]

When I was very young, one of my jobs was cutting firewood. We would get trailer loads of 'backs' from a saw mill. That was just the thin slices of outer bark from the tree. I had to saw them and chop them up. If we got logs, my father and I would use the crosscut saw to cut them. This was a big saw, two person, two hands each. If my father thought I wasn't pulling my weight, he would suddenly pull the saw hard just as my hands were close to the log and batter my knuckles on it. .

We had open fires, so lighting them was a bit of a pain. Trying to get a draught going to start the fire was always difficult. The standard method used, was to get two sheets of newspaper over the fire opening, leaving a gap at the bottom. This directed the air over the fire at the bottom to light it. It saved having to blow on it and getting hyperventilated, dizzy and smoke inhalation. Most times what would happen, the fire would catch suddenly, hot air would rush up the chimney and pull the newspaper into the fire and set it alight. Friday was bath day, so I had to spend ages collecting bark and smaller bits of wood to get a roaring fire to heat the water. I hated doing the 'sticks' as they were called. I didn't get anything for doing it, but if I didn't, I would get a clout about the ears.
I was and still am very skilled at chopping blocks and chopping kindling really quickly. Most of the scars I had on my hand from chopping, sawing and getting burnt have disappeared now. I had many. I still have one on my left index knuckle from when I sawed it open with a new bushman blade.

Happy days!!!

 

[Cabinetman]

Hi Sandyn, when you were doing that so was I but a little bit further south, first job in the morning 6:30 light the coal fire for the customers – fish merchants and filiters coming in frozen cold for a cup of tea and a bacon bun. That café is now my workshop. I got rid of the chimney breast but now I’m thinking it might have been a good idea to keep it.
Probably best we don’t start talking about scars on our left hands- I’ve got loads!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I found a booklet written about my junior school published in 1965, which was the year I left. In the early years of the century the caretakers first job of the morning was to light the twenty two stoves. It must have been great fun cleaning them all out at the end of the day.

Likewise, I have series of parallel but now very faint scars up the side of the left index finger caused by saws jumping.

 

[smugdruggler]

Avoid cast iron and fire bricks. Steel welded is far more durable.
I've had several over the years and currently have two "Dowling" stoves.
Both good for wood, maintenance free, but the "sumo" is much better for sawdust because of the vaguely pyramid shape - you need a good surface area on top of the sawdust for it to burn - an old cylinder style won't do it so well.
With dry wood they get hot very quickly if there's enough draw up the chimney but you need as much cast iron flu pipe within the room as possible as a lot of heat comes off it.
Bigger is better - a small fire burns hotter, more efficiently, heats the room faster, in a big stove half full, as compared to the opposite.

We have friends with a house in France. They have a stove that they believe was made in Scotland but that was all. I now know that they have a "Sumo" and have passed on the information, they are over the moon. I have seen it in operation many times and can confirm it is an excellent stove, easy to light and will run with the door open without fumes escaping. Our friends stove also heats water for their central heating.

 

[Sandyn]

I had a pot belly that was brilliant, but intermittent heating may cause surface rust.

Wow!! that sounds serious......have you seen a doctor or tried weightwatchers?

 

[Pallet Fancier]

Wish I could sleep like that now!!! I do remember seeing smoke coming out between the plaster walls and trim and thinking that looked unusual. Not unusual enough to stay in the room and watch.

Yup, when I was a kid I slept through a visit from the fire brigade, as well. Apparently it was very noisy, with lots of flashing lights and large men clumping around in heavy boots and not trying to be quiet, and I had no idea it had happened until I woke up, the next morning!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My grandmother never had her chimney swept, She used to wait until the fire was blazing and threw a pint of paraffin on it. She lived in a small village - a hamlet, really, in the bottom of a valley - and if she did it on an overcast day you couldn't even see across the road for smoke. The fire brigade talked her out of doing it eventually.

 

[Jacob]

We were told that one rural way to sweep a chimney (when the fire was out) was to get up on the roof and drop a live hen down it. Two or more if necessary. Never tried myself.

 

[Pallet Fancier]

We were told that one rural way to sweep a chimney (when the fire was out) was to get up on the roof and drop a live hen down it. Two or more if necessary. Never tried myself.

Never tried yourself? Why, do you think you'd have been a better chimney brush than a live hen?

Now I'm wondering if that's where the Santa Claus down the chimney tradition started... a shortage of live hens!

 

[Sandyn]

Chimney fires are really scary. They can make the house shake, low rumble/roar. You can't see anything at the bottom, but at the top, it looks like a rocket taking off...upside down. That would be the time to put the chicken in....... Clean chimney followed by a nice meal!

 

[Jacob]

Never tried yourself? Why, do you think you'd have been a better chimney brush than a live hen?

Now I'm wondering if that's where the Santa Claus down the chimney tradition started... a shortage of live hens!

Well actually I did come down a chimney once. Very wide one in a Welsh cottage. I was on the roof fixing something and the drunken prats below thought it'd be funny to take the ladder away (party going on).
The chimney opened up into a massive wide fireplace and was an easy climb down except the drunken prats below thought it'd be even funnier to try to light the fire!
Managed to escape though, coughing and covered in soot.
Most alarming thing was the loose stonework inside - I had visions of the whole thing falling in with me still in it.
We were so young then and just avin a laff!!

 

[Pallet Fancier]

just avin a laff!!

Well, at least that explanation is short enough to fit in the tiny box on the insurance claim form!

 

[D_W]

Well actually I did come down a chimney once. Very wide one in a Welsh cottage. I was on the roof fixing something and the drunken prats below thought it'd be funny to take the ladder away (party going on).
The chimney opened up into a massive wide fireplace and was an easy climb down except the drunken prats below thought it'd be even funnier to try to light the fire!
Managed to escape though, coughing and covered in soot.
Most alarming thing was the loose stonework inside - I had visions of the whole thing falling in with me still in it.
We were so young then and just avin a laff!!

Our fireplace was large, about 60" wide at the opening, but not the giant tall open hearth type intended for use with a kettle. Just a big fireplace. The chimney was similarly large (the house is built on a granite mine, and the walls are showy thick (about 12" of stone) and the chimney was substantial.

After the fire and dealing with a cracked flue (which the sweeps never pointed out), dad hired a chimney specialist to come and line the chimney with a stainless steel flue. He informed us that the chimney was separating from the house and needed to be taken down and rebuilt. The stone work was bedded together, but he demonstrated how firm it was by lifting each stone off of the mortar - the whole thing was just sitting on itself in layers with no mortar adhesion. IF you'd push the stone below the cap, it would've just gone over the side. It was like that all the way to the bottom.

Not much for house construction, but I'm guessing that's not unique to dad's house, but perhaps the era (1924) or the age of the mortar.

 

[Robbo3]

I have a 5.5kw, glass door, wood burner in the workshop, a concrete sectional garage with a screed floor. Single skin flue, to allow maximum heat & a high temp flashing plate through clear twin wall polycarbonate roof.
Without it, it would be too cold to stay out there for more than 10 minutes.
The burner was selected by the space it had to fit in, not its output. Some days it gets so hot I have to open the door.
Being a flat top it often gets covered in shavings from the lathe but they have not yet produced any smoke let alone a flame. I always make sure the top is clear when I leave the workshop even if it's only for a couple of minutes.
The biggest risk is from embers falling out when stoking the fire, then getting mixed with shavings & dust on the floor.

 

[OldWood]

P-A , had you thought of looking at the diesel type heaters popular with the mobile home community.. I don't know anything about them but that is what my brother is going to fit into his retirement workshop - retiring from doing ..... woodwork!! I suspect controllability might be an advantage with background heat when not in occupancy. Fuel - well central heating oil/ red diesel.
Rob

 

[Jameshow]

I have a DEFRA approved stove world Ottawa stove 12kw which heats up our large lounge very well.

Just as good as the highlander 5 we had in our old house

Steel stoves are much quicker to heat up that cast iron ones.

Cheers James

 

[Krome10]

I was on the roof fixing something and the drunken prats below thought it'd be funny to take the ladder away (party going on).

Were you not invited? What was so important up on the roof to take precedence over getting tankered with the others??

 

[Krome10]

Unfortunately, I think the days of wood burners may be numbered, or a tightening of standards. They are getting more and more popular and the pollution from them is being blamed for some respiratory problems. I'm in a smoke controlled area so must have a DEFRA approved stove, but when you shut it down, at night it doesn't re-burn the gasses, so I don't think it would meet the standards under those conditions. They are tightening the rules for timber and house coal. I think from Feb, all firewood sold must be below 20% water and only smokeless coal can be used. They are also looking at pollution inside the home from wood burners. My one is a poor design, so when you try to refuel. it can allow smoke to escape from the front.
STUDY

Arrgghh - don't say that! We're hoping to get a woodburner installed in the house this month, and a second one (also in the house) later in the year. The ones we like are not EcoDesign Ready either. I've got mixed opinions on whether that's a foolish move or not.

As for the moisture content of wood sold, and the sale of coal, etc. - I think that came in last February, unless that applies to England only:

https://forecourttrader.co.uk/news/...till be able,retailers up until February 2021.

 

[Jacob]

....
The biggest risk is from embers falling out when stoking the fire, then getting mixed with shavings & dust on the floor.

Got mine on a raised steel hearth. Basically a steel box about 2'x3' with a sides 4"to make a box, with a lip to catch embers

Were you not invited? What was so important up on the roof to take precedence over getting tankered with the others??

They'd been for an early drink on the way back from town while I was at home being useful, fixing tiles.