Gas bill when you have a log burner

[Big J]

You've got a free supply of heat that is processed at the expense of the business Stephen. I say go for it.

 

I love our Rayburn - it is the heart of the house and rather than heating being something that you basically ignore (except for when the gas bill comes in), it becomes something you lovingly prepare and care for. We do almost all our cooking on ours, as well as getting heating and hot water.

 

The best thing is that you are in control of your fuel costs - not at the whim of energy companies.

[Tom D]

Its worth it, if you are in a home you intend to stay in for a while.... Fitting one with a combo style system won't be cheap, you will either need to fit a conventional HW cylinder and neutraliser into which you plumb your gas boiler and wood boiler, or you keep the combi for the HW and fit a heat sink i.e. a double coil Cylinder into which you plumb the neutraliser, and the output to the radiators..

 

either way wont be cheap.. We used to do about 1600litres of lpg a year, now we do about 250...... and 30 cube of logs....

[JimM]

5 bedroom house battered by the wind right on the north east coast and on oil. Since we put our stove in we've dropped our oil bill from £1500 to under a grand for the last 3 years.

I thought about integrating the stove, but we get power cuts too, so decided to leave it standalone.

As has been said above, the house now has a real warmth to it.

And when the power goes out the whistling kettle sits on top beside the pot of soup!

Has to be done Steve ;-)

[openspaceman]

I have just added up my gas I'll for this year, £1500 ish!

I have a 2 bedroom semi detached and that's with a log fire heating 2 rooms.

I keep meaning to get a log burner installed, I wasn't going to bother with radiators as we have a combi boiler, and have heard that can be tricky to work together. Although I have heard of a centraliser.

Your thoughts please and an idea of your gas bills would be appreciated if you don't mind sharing:001_smile:

 

I have a semi 2 bed 9" solid walls, no double glazing and gas is about 500 quid a year. Vented central heating was already here when we bought in 79 but I did change the boiler 15 years ago. As only two of us live here for last 16 years and both work I never thought it worth plumbing the boiler, just have the Jotul and a first generation pellet stove. I burn a fair few logs but less than 60kg of pellets a year (too expensive so only rarely used since I have had to buy them). However I am 350 miles south of you.

 

I don't think a neutraliser will work unless you fit an expensive heat bank, like a gledhill thermal store. Even then the neutraliser is just a fancy micro thermal store in any case as it depends on a thermal stratification so you could feed the vented side of the store instead with the woodburner.

 

It is feasible to put a woodburner heated thermal store into the return to the combi but the pump logic would need thinking about and power would be restricted by the size of indirect coil the woodburner would feed. You cannot have a non vented wood burner in your combi circuit.

 

First thing is to check your contract for gas, if you have been "rolled over" you will probably be able to get a better rate by changing.

 

Next would be to insulate roof, then walls then floor., trouble is each of these things is regulated by building control now.

[Johny Walker]

costs us 1200 a yr for gas n lecy ,3,bed detatched ,running 14 rads ,& we have 8 down stairs rooms ,wifes anti log burner ,

[Big J]

wifes anti log burner ,

 

Why?

[Ian Leach]

£360 per year on gas 3 bed bungalow, no log fire.

[Johny Walker]

Why?

 

she was brought up on a farm & watched her mum mucking out the fire every day ,so kind of put her off any thing in that line

[Stephen Blair]

Just looked at Raeburns, brand new £4k with free Aga log burner worth £600.

J how many logs an hout do you think you use?

[Big J]

she was brought up on a farm & watched her mum mucking out the fire every day ,so kind of put her off any thing in that line

 

Fair enough I suppose. Wood burners have come on a long way recently. Our stove and Rayburn are fairly low maintenance and produce very little ash (one 20 litre bucket per 3 weeks, for 3 cubic metres burned).

 

Jonathan