Firewood!

[Harbo]

Make sure you have your stoves flue or chimney is cleaned every 6 months by professionals.
My daughter's stove flue caught fire the other week resulting in calling out the fire brigade. Stove etc ruined - insurance won't pay out as they couldn't prove the flue had been regularly cleaned.

Rod

 

[bugbear]

I got rid of my log burner and fitted gas central heating much cheaper to run, wake up to a nice warm house, no fire to look after. Any wood i get we use for cooking on the cob oven.

Strange isn't it? We've just gone the other way and installed a wood burner as gas was becomong too expensive. We were paying three times the cost of the gas we were using in fixed line charges. Of course, we're not short of wood here.

<profound voice>Local geography is a factor in the cost of wood as a fuel</profound voice>



BugBear

 

[Jonzjob]

Over here the 2 main heating fuels are wood and parafin. We have just had 4 stere (cub metres) of oak and beech. Cut to 50cm lengths and split. Cost delivered was 265€, up 5€ on last year.

Our main heating is propane fueled wet under floor heating and we have an open fire for the cosy value. The wood we now have should last us this and next winter.

Here's a few bits of the beech we had a few years back



I found this in it



It must have been good beech because I found two more as well :mrgreen:



Apparently a pro turner stated once that if you start off with firewood then you finish up with firewood? I suppose that they burn too :twisted: :twisted:

 

[MIGNAL]

Very good. I suppose that's an added bonus. If you see a decent piece, keep it. Plenty of potential spoons etc. in firewood.

 

[Paddywack]

I don't know your situation but if you haven't already done so maybe you should spend money on insulation and then maybe a smaller fire which burns less wood etc etc etc.

 

[MIGNAL]

It's double glazed, draught proofed, insulated. The real 'problem' is that the house is occupied 24/7 and more than one room has to be heated + the workshop. It results in an annual energy bill of £2,700, the vast majority of that on Gas CH. Even if I save £400 per year the pay back time is 5 years - probably quite quick as far as these things go.

 

[dickm]

Up here in the wilds, there's a lot of use of woodburners and, latterly, pellet or chip boilers. With your sort of heating demand and if you've got the storage space, then it might be worth looking at a chip boiler. The local big estate has installed 4 or 5 around their steadings and cottages, and most recently, for a new residential development of about 20 houses on a district heating basis. Of course, they can supply wood chip easily from routine forestry operations, so even with the laird's mark-up, everyone seems to be happy. The boilers are pricey, so you need to use a lot of heat to justify them, but the technology is well proven in Continental Europe.
We rely mostly on a small Morso, but that's with high insulation etc. so a heat demand of about 6kW max which makes a more expensive boiler uneconomic.

 

[Zeddedhed]

can u tell me where u get it zedd please ?

Steve

Steve, I buy it from a mate of mine who is a forester. Depending on where a bouts you are in kent I may be able to arrange for a much larger load next year, although he'll only deliver to one address. If you're up for it you can collect it from me if you have a van or pick up.
Let me know.

 

[Jacob]

Just in case there's anybody local reading this - I will be looking for cheap supplies of burnable stuff when we have our gasifying boiler installed. Any old sh|te wood will do; mdf, chipboard, old furniture, old joinery, building offcuts, freshly cut (we've got the space for drying), pallets, cardboard. No need to pay to have it taken away, we'll have it free of charge (hopefully :lol: ).