Wood burning stoves, do anyone have experience of what is possible?

Started by Greg, October 17, 2024, 12:55:58 PM

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Greg

My recently dead neighbours gifted me (posthumously) a very high quality stainless steel flue 8inch external 6 inch internal, insulated twin wall.  It has all the attachments and is worth about $2000.

I'm going to build a conservatory with a sloping roof, so that the heat can percolate back into the bedrooms.  Rough plan attached.

I am planning to run the stove 24 x 7 in the coldest couple of months dampening it down at midnight and loading it up at 6am.  Anyone have any experience of the practicality of this and the features I might want in the stove?

I do want a glass door on the stove because I plan to spend hours sitting in a leather recliner and watching the flames as I get older.

My theory is that as the heat rises it should end up coming into the base of the bedrooms through vents I will cut in the wall or floors.

This should at least serve to heat these 2 north facing bedrooms and might percolate into the core of the house
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Greg

#1
The bottom area is a kitchen diner 33 ft by 12 feet.  The added conservatory will be 9 feet by 14 feet.  Floors are floating and insulated.

Typical Britush winter is 40F in the day and 20F to 34F at night.  But damp.  It is never a dry cold here, always damp from mid November to mid February.  These are the months that your central heating is on all the time if you want to be comfortable.  From April to late September my heating is off.  I live next to a chestnut coppicing forest with tons of chestnut and ash.  I can take endless amounts of dead trees.  Prevailing winds are from the SE so flue is ideally located.

My hope, theory, dream is that I can get an 18kw peak, 11kw average stove (a good one costing a couple of grand) and run it constantly without massive ash build up and get the house to and equilibrium temp of say 68F at the core and only have the radiators on low or medium.  This should reduce my energy bill by 1000 quid a year.  I don't want to clean out the stove more than one per fortnight
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LausTibiChriste

Maybe get a fan to blow the heat. Friends back in BC have a massive stove with a built in fan system, the amount of heat it gives off is incredible.

Apparently those small ones you put on top are a gimmick - they're piss poor at moving air, but they serve as a good temperature guage. I've heard of people using small desk fans to help move heat around
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Greg

I would just use 100mm inline fans in the wall cavity my internal walls are either 14 in or 5 inches thick because some are the original external wall and the house has been extended.  Natural convections is preferable though.  No noise, no power, nothing to go wrong.

This does have the advantage that they block sound between rooms and they have large thermal mass.  Take a long time to heat up and cool down so act as a sort of cooling thing on the hottest summer days and a warming thing if they are heated up over 24 hours or longer.
If I used a ouija board as a mouse mat would my desktop computer get repossessed?

Greg

The ground floor is floating over half height basement, large crawl space, easy to work in and dry.  That means in theory at least, I could rigging up ducting into the sitting room on the other side of the house which is a 18 foot by 18 foot L shaped room.

I will probably run it hard for one winter (once built) and see how well the house warms up after 48 hours on a full burn by day and stacked up and damped down by night.
If I used a ouija board as a mouse mat would my desktop computer get repossessed?

LausTibiChriste

How much is firewood over there? Or do you live in one of the rare locations in the UK with forests?
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Greg

I live next to a forest.  The trees are all growing in orange sand which is at least 14 feet deep.

It has mostly ash and sweet chestnut.  They coppice parts of it every 10 years. There are lots of dead trees which just fall over.  I collect the chestnuts that are 3 to 4 inches in diameter cut them into 8 foot lengths and let them dry out.  They split when they dry and burn well as whole logs when seasoned for 2 years.  The fire can easily get through the 1/8 inch cracks they develop when drying out.

There are few oak trees too. But they don't fall over. 

You can get wide stoves now 4 foot wide which would mean less cutting.

In an end of the world scenario I will eat the dead bodies of my neighbours and burn their wooden fences for heat.
If I used a ouija board as a mouse mat would my desktop computer get repossessed?

Mushroom

We got a wood boiler last year and it has done a pretty good job warming up the house via concrete slab (in-floor heating). It's annoying but you have to have lots of wood for it depending on the area of the house. And yes, you have to scoop out ash regularly. I was thinking of getting a wood stove/oven for the kitchen cause it can save on electricity but the mechanics of it is tricky to use.

My husband welded a wood stove for another building (to try to keep the animals warm) and you can technically boil water on it but it takes forever. The heat it produces is nice though.

It's too bad coal is hard to get here, that would save time on chopping wood.

Bernadette

We had a wood-burning stove in central California, that kept our whole house warm. My aunt would order a cord of wood every year and burn it all during the winter. She even cooked stew on it, when our kitchen was being remodeled. Our Great Dane would lie in front of it every day, soaking in the heat.
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Greg

That's what I like about them.  Theres somewhere to go to get warm.  Not just slowly get to 66F.

With central heating you are never warm unless you are pressed up against a radiator
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diaduit

We have a solid fuel range and as messy as the ashes are, I wouldn't part with it ever.  We bring home our own turf which costs about €300 and it heats our house for the year.  Only on real cold days where there is frost or snow do we switch on the central heating and even at that its only for an hour.  We have hot water all year round from our stove as we pack it with turf even during the summer but let it simmer burn slow all day and our water is piping hot. We run two kettles on it all the time and when the range isn't at full blast e.g. during the day, we still have warm water that we put into an electric kettle to finish off a proper boil.  Our electric is about €160 per month oh and we dry off our clothes on a rack that we installed over it. Things like knickers, socks and teatowels can be dried fully over it and larger items like sheets, jeans, jumpers etc are on the line and then aired out over the range.

So if it were me, I would sell the wood burner or trade in for a reconditioned stanley, build your conservatory and allow for space in your gable wall for a full solid fuel range , put in a back boiler for water before they're completely banned and you can cook, heat water and enjoy excellent heat while reading, dry your clothes and save electricity.  Mine is 22 years old and still going strong.

Greg

Stupid not to use wood when I next to a forest with lots of it
If I used a ouija board as a mouse mat would my desktop computer get repossessed?

diaduit

You can burn wood in our range also.

Over here, you can't cut down trees and only chop them up if they have fallen.  But yeah, if you can get it for free why not.  I believe UK is bringing in a £300 chimney tax...even at that its still worth it.



Greg

I will just dismantle the chimney 9 months a year to avoid any tax.  It cannot be seen anyway as my house is in a hidden compound.  I certainly don't want a range.  I want to look at the flames through glass.  I would have a fireplace but for the fact that 90% of the heat is wasted straight up the chimney
If I used a ouija board as a mouse mat would my desktop computer get repossessed?

TradGranny

We had a wood-burning stove when we lived in the mountains. Free wood since our property was forested. It lacked enough stove space to cook, but had enough space for a teapot or small pan, which we used to humidify the dry air. Due to lung issues related to the high altitude, we had to leave the beautiful mountains.
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