multi fuel stove

[plasticpigeon]

Hello. Log burners seem to be very popular at the moment, and when I have been to peoples houses that have them I have been impressed by their ability to heat a room, or even a house while using much less fuel than an open fire which seems to eat logs and warm up the world without warming the room much. However I don't find them very attractive and get frustrated when people pull out fireplace inserts and fit them into a square plastered hole in a wall, so I have been resisting putting one in. However I have recently found this esse stove online which can fit into a Victorian/Edwardian insert. Does anyone have any experience of this kind of thing?

http://esse.com/multifuel-stoves/esse-301-mf/

 

[88v8]

We had a new Esse a couple of years ago.
Ate logs, hard to light, hard to control.
I took it out.

And bought another Clearview.
They do an inset
http://www.clearviewstoves.com/stove-details/vision-inset
which imho also looks a lot better than Esse's ugly modern lump.

Clearview not cheap - and you'd need a flue liner which is also not cheap - but they appear now & then on eBay, which is where I've bought both of ours.

Clearview's design features are now out of patent, and Stovax have produced a rip-off which is said to be good quality - this from our sweep/installer who has no axe to grind with us as he knows he's not going to sell us a new stove. Stovax do an inset
http://www.stovax.com/stove-fire/stockton-wood-multi-fuel-stoves/stockton-milner/
which they also call a Hearth Stove. I don't know the prices but I bet they're a good deal less than Clearview.

In economic terms, they heat one room; they need a good supply of seasoned wood; or coalish; which has to be stored; the purchase and installation cost is high. Plus an annual sweep. Apply 6% interest to that capital outlay, do they save money? Noooo.
Nice to have though.

Ivor

 

[plasticpigeon]

Thanks Ivor. I hate the Stovax hood, but the Clearview looks right, but is expensive as you say. I don't think we are expecting to save money by having a burner, but we would like some kind of working fire in the room we spend most of our time in, and an open fire while nice doesn't seem very effective as a heater. I also have one eye on future desirability and people love log burners these days. I know one couple who bought a house as it had a log burner installed already. However as my other half rightly pointed out, if I make a stove installation look like an Edwardian fireplace, that will not be on trend and may not appeal if we ever sell the house as it wouldn't look like a log burner in a square plastered hole. There is nothing in the opening at the moment so I am in a quandary about what to do.

 

[Flyfisher]

Interesting comment about 'eating logs'. The only way to get heat from a wood stove is to burn wood - the faster it burns the more heat you'll get. As far as I can tell, 'efficiency' is basically the ratio of heat into the room versus heat up the chimney. It has little to do with how much heat can be extracted from a piece of wood because that is pretty much fixed by the weight of the wood - heavier wood will release more heat than lighter wood.

I don't have figures to hand but my recollection is that wood contains about 1/3rd the energy of coal, meaning that you'll need to burn about three times the weight of wood than coal. Given that wood is much less dense than coal, this translates into a lot of wood for the equivalent heating effect. Perhaps this is where the idea of 'eating logs' arises, but the idea of having a cosy room by burning one log all evening is fantasy - the physics is all against it.

We have three Stovax multifuel stoves, one of which is a boiler stove. The 5kW stove keeps a very large bedroom toasty warm providing we keep it fed with a couple of split logs every 30-40 minutes. A 7kW stove does a similar job for a large drawing room. If we use coal on this it will easily last two hours between shovelfuls, more if it is damped down or depending on the coal mix. If we burn wood, it generally needs refuelling every 45 minutes. The 11kW boiler stove keeps a large sitting room warm and provides DHW to run the underfloor heating in the new kitchen as well as bedroom radiators. It also needs refuelling with wood every 45 minutes or so and being a large stove each load is proportionately larger than the other stoves. We usually get through two large baskets of wood each day if lit around mid afternoon and kept burning until midnight. The UFH means the kitchen/sitting room is comfortable the following morning and keeps the chill off the house throughout winter.

Does all this save money? It does for us because we have free wood (well, 'free' ignoring all my chain sawing and log splitting!) but if we were buying wood then I doubt it. in fact, I reckon that energy-for-energy, it would be cheaper to buy coal than ready-split logs . . . . Especially if only buying by the large bag/trailer load because of lack of storage space.

There's no doubting the loveliness of a real fire, and until I'm too old for lumberjacking I'll be happily keeping ours and not switching on our backup mains gas boiler, but it all comes at a cost in terms of time, money and convenience.

 

[kreyszig]

I put in a victorian designed stove (link - you found me a picture of it in a catalogue, PP)- and it definitely "eats logs" - the efficiency in terms of heat out into the room vs up the chimney is quite important. Modern stoves can recirculate some of the heat before it shoots up the flue, whereas ours will roar with delight that it's being fed and promptly expel as much heat as possible up the chimney. Coupled with the small capacity it needs feeding very often indeed.
It's a beautiful stove but I wish I had put a damper in the flue to calm it down a bit. If you are after something interesting that won't break the bank or heat the room up very much, I'd recommend getting on ebay; there are some lovely bits of french and british cast iron sitting around.

 

[plasticpigeon]

FF if more heat from combustion goes into the room and less up the chimney, that means that less fuel has to be burned to heat up a room. On a stove I believe the burn rate is regulated by having an air regulation device of some sort which means that the fuel can burn more slowly and still deliver enough heat to warm the room up when compared to an open fire. The rate at which fuel is burned is not a constant!

 

[Flyfisher]

Yes, the burn rate can certainly be controlled with modern stoves. My point is that if the burn rate is turned down so that logs burn (or smoulder :wink: ) for longer then less heat will be released per unit time, regardless of how much goes up the chimney or into the room. It would be like having a smaller radiator instead of a large one and the effect on room temperature will be similar.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Less heat released, but a greater proportion goes where it is needed, hence slower burning for the same heating power into the room.

 

[Flyfisher]

Ah, I see your point.

Yes, possibly. I guess it's a balance between the chimney/room split and the absolute amount of heat released into the room. 100% efficiency (i.e. ALL heat into the room) is not much use if the actual amount of heat is too little.

But, as anyone with a stove or open fire will know, all such figures and calculations are really only guidelines and in practice there is plenty of art as well as science involved in coaxing the best out of a real fire. It just takes a bit of practice.

 

[Zebra]

It's a beautiful stove but I wish I had put a damper in the flue to calm it down a bit.

I know this doesn't necessarily make sense but I find that slowing the air down as it leaves the fire (turning the damper down in the flue) seems to retain more heat into the room than slowing the air down as it enters the fire (via the air vents in the doors).

 

[88v8]

But with an inset I don't think one can have a damper?

Ivor

 

[skier-hughes]

I do believe slow burning of logs is less efficient, so although you may get more heat into your room you get less heat from the same log.

 

[Zebra]

But with an inset I don't think one can have a damper?

Ivor

Ah. No, probably not.

 

[kreyszig]

well well. retrofit dampers, who knew! link - think I'll put one of them in.

If you install a stove with part of the flue showing then you can of course put a damper in like the one above or a section of flue with a damper. But I'd have thought modern stoves would have all the damping they require built in to the stove itself (such as an outlet damper)

how about this for an insert stove:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ANTIQUE-F...022?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3aacee1026

 

[88v8]

...how about this ...

Wayhey, yes

Probably not very efficient by modern standards, but still better than an open fire.
Go on pigeon, it has your name on it.

Ivor

 

[plasticpigeon]

That is a lovely stove. However the flue is inaccessible when fitted so it would be impossible to fit a damper in the flue:-( This has been good for my decision making though. I am pretty decided that I will have an inset stove, the fancier the better, with a tiled backing in as Edwardian fashion as possible, and a standard late Victorian/Edwardian surround. I want a woodburner that doesn't look like a microwave on a stool. One issue (I know this would be the least of your worries Ivor) is that I live in a smokeless zone, so it my be prudent to fit a Defra endorsed stove. The council may well allow people to knock down listed buildings, build extensions that go into neighbours gardens, and stick sheds on their roofs, but I'm sure one complaint from a neighbour about a smokey chimney and they would be insisting I remove the offending object.

 

[mims&pip]

Ooh, yes that's lovely.....well if you don't want it PP I might have to buy it :wink:

 

[plasticpigeon]

Also I am thinking ahead, at least 6 months. How about you finish your house with the fancy stove Mims, and then I can buy your house from you and pretend I am one of the pre Raphaelite brotherhood.

 

[mims&pip]

Also I am thinking ahead, at least 6 months. How about you finish your house with the fancy stove Mims, and then I can buy your house from you and pretend I am one of the pre Raphaelite brotherhood.

What a great idea PP On the subject of our place, we are currently taking the approach that we'll certainly do *some* work - estate agent suggested we rewire and remove all the woodchip and other nasties, as well as tidying the garden, which I'm well on the way with anyway. I think we're also going to do the kitchen as we have already bought the units and tbh we're not the type to give up on a project :roll:

Hopefully we will have it ready to hit the market next Spring - whether we'll recoup our expenditure is another matter.....

Looking forward to seeing you in full Pre-Raphaelite mode :lol:

Mims x

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Sounds to be a good schedule of works in preparation for your proposed sale in the Spring! Good luck with it!