New member posting his first picture

[Paul D]

I must have stumbled upon a great idea for a new forum, for those with old worn out buildings and cars. We could call it Period Bangers UK. :lol:
I still think an open fire is best. Once we get ours going , the heat it kicks out is sometimes too much. But is suppose it depends on the size of your room. We don't have a huge room , but big enough.
Must go got to clean up the oil leak on the front drive!!!!

 

[Nemesis]

Em - a Franklin stove is an open fire...

 

[Penners]

They are not as large as the largest Stovax, which is what we have, but they are rather cheaper.

But of course large is not necessarily beautiful, with woodburners.

Specifying an overlarge woodburner for the room brings its own problems. You find it very difficult to run it at a level that keeps the room comfortably warm, rather than roasting hot. And a woodburner shouldn't be run too cool, otherwise the flue doesn't get hot enough to prevent condensation of corrosive combustion products.

So you have to balance the heat output of the woodburner to the size and thermal efficiency of the room.

The optimum temperature of the stove's flue about 500mm above the woodburner is between about 110 and 250 degrees C.

 

[Paul D]

Hi, well stupid me for not knowing that, apolgies all round!!

 

[Nemesis]

But it's not a closed stove - it's basically an enclosed firebox.

It fills the space (anything smaller would have looked silly) and keeps us warm - with an open fire, which, when the metal has heated, can be quite a small one.

It's given us, so far, 14 years of troublefree heat. Ours has solid doors and is similar to these:

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/Franklin-style-stoves.html

In fact it looks exactly like this, only without the brass rails:


[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]


This is fun!

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/stovemockup/stovemock.asp?size=big

 

[Louisa]

Nice quirky house and the puddy tat gives it a real homely feel.

 

[Nemesis]

What happened to puddy?

 

[MdB]

But it's not a closed stove - it's basically an enclosed firebox.

Oooh, that looks exactly what we need for our fireplace. I've been wondering what the best option would be and that looks like it would fit in nicely. Thanks Nemesis.

Any down sides at all?

 

[Penners]

Yes, I'd quite like one of those, too.

Not the woodburner - I've already got one.

 

[Nemesis]

Any down sides at all?

Not really! It's not an airtight stove (we previously had another Stovax which ran the heating and hot water but that wasn't possible here as the pipework was going to not work) but as an 'open' fire it's really good. A back boiler would have been useful though if we could have managed it, to link in to the other system.

However, I appreciate how well things work depends on a number of factors, but we get a good blaze. There is a damper which gives some control in the flue.

It's usually only lit in the evenings. It lights really easily with a firelighter and a few sticks, close the doors, and the metal gets hot as well as having a 'proper' fire once we open the doors.

If filled and closed up it will keep going for a few hours, with dampers etc closed, but it's not something we do often.

You can get various sizes, and Machine Mart has a cheap version, but I think only in one size.

The link I posted above seems to have them at far less cost than many places.

We have flue pipe up into the gathers, then into a chimney with ceramic liner.

Ash goes into the ashpan and can easily be emptied. Close the doors and the mess is hidden when the fire is out.


From the website:

This stove was originally conceived by Benjamin Franklin and the design has been with us for over 200 years. While it is not the most efficient stove around today, it is perfect for the situation where the feel of an open fire is wanted, but coupled with the greater ease, efficiency, cleanliness and safety of a stove. Franklin stoves fit the bill perfectly for those large inglenook fireplaces that either won't work properly or just serve to suck the heat from the room and send it up the chimney. The medium and small Franklins will fit more normal sized fireplaces and all three models look good freestanding.

Its generous sized firebox allows you burn large chunks of wood, but the grate and ashpan that now come with it let you burn coal and anthracite as well.

The great joy of the Franklin is that, with its doors folded right back, you have a large open fire and yet close the doors, and you have an efficient slow burning stove.

This stove has been copied all of its life (we have another good version on the site made by Stovax), but be aware that there are a number of rather poor copies around today (made in China) that fall a long way short of the quality one would want in a stove.

It comes in three different sizes, with a choice of plain or glass doors

 

[MdB]

Thanks for that. Its going to be a while before we need one but its certainly something we will be looking in to.

 

[Paul D]

Hi, puddy got kidney failure. We have now got another one from a persian called Molly reIMG]http://pic80.picturetrail.com/VOL2091/10188896/18354541/289305203.jpg[/IMG]scue.

 

[Paul D]

This is molly

 

[Paul D]

Sorry I know we are getting away from the the chosen topic. I have another question which I will post here.
Working on the garden of a listed house. Do you need any consent to change the layout. I have had an idea of digging out a few tons of earth from a sloping lawn have a patio.
Paul.

 

[Nemesis]

Nice Molly. Our ancient puss is suffering with kidney probs too.

 

[Penners]

This is molly

That's not a cat, it's a draught excluder.