Ugly woodburner - what is it?

[danjennings]

Ive recently moved into a 17th century almost wreck of a place and was confronted with this beast, any ideas, comments at all? What is it - the only reference i can find to it is a picture in a diy book talking about how to cover up by painting old and ugly woodburners, with a drawn pcture of this beast. I'd be greatful ( or grate full ) if any one might tell me more about it , or even want it?
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[ilona73]

hi Dan can you repost your pictures as they arent showing so we cant see to help!
ilona
x

 

[danjennings]

hi - is that better?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Gosh. That's got a certain witchy charm. I quite like it! All you need now is a few old books of runes, a dusty cloak thrown over a battered leather chair, and you can hire the house out for Harry Potter film sets!

 

[Moo]

I rather like it. With the rust removed and then a good going-over with something like zebrite I think it would look rather smart.

 

[Penners]

I agree.

 

[danjennings]

But - would you let it have pride or place in your lounge? :?

 

[ilona73]

oh of course i would .. i think its lovely... it looks like a pot bellied stove to me...
absolutely fab once its restored and in situ not to mention the amount of heat it will kick out once you have it going and lit!

 

[essexbearhunter]

it looks like a pot bellied stove to me...

I'm afraid that is one thing that it CANNOT be - for it has no pot belly and is not a stove.

The pot-belly is a fairly graphic description of the way the girth of that type increases before reducing again.

Stoves have cooking as a primary function and usually have the fire chamber enclosed and a flat surface (acting as a hot plate) above.

The one shown here http://www.stovesareus.co.uk/catalo...ruce-multifuel-wood-burning-stove-p-5778.html is fairly typical.

 

[Schoolmarm]

But - would you let it have pride or place in your lounge? :?

Not long term, no. I could just about put up with it for this winter.

 

[Lime]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/04/woodburning-stoves-the-truth

 

[danjennings]

Dont quite understand you link Lime !

 

[Feltwell]

But - would you let it have pride or place in your lounge? :?

Not long term, no. I could just about put up with it for this winter.

I'm with 'marm, I think it's ugly. Use it short term if neccessary (after getting chimney swept etc) and then look to replace in the longer term. Put it on Ebay, someone will buy it!

 

[AMc]

I might be tempted to give it a good going over with a wirebrush wheel on the drill and a coat of stove polish.
New woodburners are expensive (we paid £800 + fitting) and I'm not any more impressed with my brand new one than the ancient lump in the front room.
Of course if you really hate it then e-bay it and get something else.

 

[AMc]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/04/woodburning-stoves-the-truth

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment - I wouldn't consider using a stove alone to heat my house. If you have no other choice then I'd get a log boiler, heat store and rads so you only fuel it once a day.

We have 2 stoves, one does a very impressive job of turning the front room into an oven even without the central heating and saved our bacon when the oil ran out last year. The other does a good job of warming up our vinery conversion in concert with the underfloor heating but I wouldn't want to use either or both to heat the house long term - lighting, fueling, adjusting the burn rate, lugging the logs...its all right on a Saturday night and we lit the stoves daily over Christmas but everyday? No thanks!

IMHO they don't even look that pretty as even our new 'airwash' stove coked up the doors within minutes and all you see is a dull red glow!

 

[danjennings]

thanks for your replies all, I shall be getting rid of the beast, via either my builder who knows everyone locally and has spead the word already, or of course, good old e bay. My experience of wood burners is actually very good, had a few at previous houses and they have always performed very well, hear what you are saying about airwash systems not working but there are some more expensive ones out there that do the job very well and all said, why not leave the doors open, I know its not as efficent, but as the use i need is to add more heat to a centrally heated house anyway, its more to create that warmth and fel that only something like an open fire or simlar can do. There are lots of very good woodburners around but lets compare then to sat nav, use as an aid not as an alternative, common sense has to creep in there somewhere.
So Im afraid its coming to the end for my pig ugly stove, watch out e bay!

Thanks again all!

 

[lou]

What do you mean by a log boiler? Is this something different from, e.g. a multifuel stove? And I am only just picking up on the heat store idea. Will google to find out more but any helpful sites you can point me towards would be helpful.

 

[AMc]

What do you mean by a log boiler? Is this something different from, e.g. a multifuel stove? And I am only just picking up on the heat store idea. Will google to find out more but any helpful sites you can point me towards would be helpful.

Log boilers and wood gasification boilers are ways of burning wood very efficiently to create large amounts of heat very fast.
Essentially you stuff a load of logs into the firebox and the unit blasts them to get them lit, then burns them very hot for a short time - that's the best way to get the maximum heat output from the wood. The heat is used to warm up a large water tank you then draw heat from that tank over a period of time. When the heat store begins to cool you burn a bunch more logs.
This works very well if you have a large supply of cheap seasoned wood.

There are also wood pellet boilers that store little pellets of compacted sawdust in a tank and burn them continuously in the same way as a oil or gas boiler burns fuel. You have to buy the pellets and storage can take up a lot of space - we were told we'd need a 2mx2mx2m space to store a years supply for a large 5 bed house.

Both types of system are substantially more expensive than mains gas (if you have that option). Installation costs are higher than oil but running costs are supposedly on a par. You can also look at heat pumps (ground, air and water source) as another way to heat your home if oil is the only other option though my current experience of this air source heat pump has not been positive so far.

The green building forum is a good place to look at the options and read experiences, I would also recommend their Green Building Bible as a source for high quality information about the alternatives available - worth the cover price if you're intending to fit a £5-10K heating source!
http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/?CategoryID=5

 

[Flyfisher]

I'd second all that. We looked into wood chip/pellet boilers and came to the same conclusion; expensive to install and expensive to run - and we're right on the doorstep of Thetford Forest and a number of woodchip/pellet suppliers - although they are, apparently, completely automatic in operation. I got the impression that such systems are currently more suited to schools and small industrial complexes where large areas are to be heated. Certainly, a lot of the literature I read was really aimed at such applications rather than private homes. This may change over time, I suppose, but current economics really favours mains gas (if you can get it) or even - dare I say it - solid fuel (at least I avoided the 'c' word.)

To be honest, I feel rather let down because I had big green ambitions when we took on our project but when you get down to the details, all the 'alternative' options seem to come with a high price tag. I only hope this will change over time as more people adopt the alternatives but, frankly, there seems little financial incentive to change at present. Also, I dare say the price of wood would rocket if everyone was dependent on it for all their home heating.

 

[MdB]

To be honest, I feel rather let down because I had big green ambitions when we took on our project but when you get down to the details, all the 'alternative' options seem to come with a high price tag. I only hope this will change over time as more people adopt the alternatives but, frankly, there seems little financial incentive to change at present. Also, I dare say the price of wood would rocket if everyone was dependent on it for all their home heating.

My gut feeling is that the "green" alternatives will not get a lot cheaper but oil and gas will get a lot more expensive as the supply dries up and that will be the driving force for people to make the change. Having said that, our heat pump was only a bit more expensive than the oil alternative.