Alycidon

10-15 is perfect. A

Thats something you can do nothing about at all so whats the point worrying about it. Cant see why they should, they are pretty cute unless they are specifically targeting someone, that happens in my old industry, put someone out of the game then slide prices back up. A

We had a thread on CW very recently when most of these points were aired. Couple of additional thoughts; A, Pellets, I would have thought that using DIN spec pellets instead of commercial pellets would give to boiler manufacturer no option on a warranty issue. My home Tadano Mini K25 boiler has no statement about using DIN pellets even. B, CW, They dont want their distributers handling any more than the small bags and ideally giving a bag away with each stove. CW deliver direct, retailer makes about 10% for handing the paperwork. BUT CW gain a name and address of a user who has used their products. So who does the business when the customer rings CW direct for a refill !!. Cost of carriage is the key issue, pallet rate is currently £30-£45 depending on volume so that is also a plus point. Keeping your own marketing and local service sharp will also be important. Believe me it is far far better to have a comptetitor selling at a higher price than you than someone selling at your cost or below. Been there and got that T shirt in another industry. A

Looks like the remains of a hay baler to me, designed for shoving grass along a tube maybe 18 inches square not splitting wood. If the operators hands survive intact to lunchtime ( which I doubt !!) then I cant see even a JD lasting that long. I wonder what the H&S would say !!. A

In Sept last year my logs were 5% and 9% MC for soft and hard respectively. Measured again in December they had risen to 10% and 16% or thereabouts, barn stored. 16% is still ideal to burn but it shows that even barn stored MC will rise. A

Thanks for that, makes interesting reading for all the firewood pros here. Looking at your web site you have a lot of useful info on the industry, shame there does not seem to be an equivalent covering England. A

Let them get wet and they will increase in moisture levels. Inside is best, outside with a sheet over the top is second best, A

I caught someone with a bowsaw on some property I own cutting willow last winter !!. Seemed to think as it was a road hedge he had the right!!. Hetas have just started with an approved firewood scheme, CW are one of the first members. Will it help you sell more wood?, not sure. I have just joined the Hetas approved retailer scheme and I have passed the HETAS installers course, I can therefore display the Hetas logo on premisies and web site but not sure yet if it will help me sell more product. If you are a firewood supplier I can only suggest you tie up with a local stove retailer. He has first access to new stove owners, I frequently deliver a stove and a cu m of wood in a bag at the same time. A

Yes, but be aware that there is an occasional building inspector who don't know the regs. They deal with the whole regime of building regs, we just deal with Approved Doc J that relates to stoves. I had a council BI recently that signed off an installation done by a builder, the Redbank cowl that had been put onto the top of the pot was for venting an unused chimney only, it even had marked on it 'not for use above ANY live appliance'. As there are not currently any regs covering cowls then technically its a grey area. Luckily I spotted it when I delivered the stove, that cowl has a series of small round holes in it, these would have blocked with soot after a few months with potentially nasty if not fatel results. The BI now refuses to return calls etc, it may now be going to higher authorities. In the end I supplied the correct cowl and the customer fitted it himself. A The procedure to use a BI is: A, Contact the BI, explain what you are planning, listen to his advice. B, He will send you a bill for inspecting the job. C, Pay the bill, he will then give you permission to start work. D, Do the job. E, Call the BI in to inspect the job and sign it off. Stoves must be installed to Approved Document J of the building regs, this can be downloaded for free from the Planning Portal site. You use the first sections, the back end of the regs covers gas installations, you CANNOT do gas installs. Just put Approved Doc J into google, Planning Portal should be on page 1.

I had this issue on my 03 plate Disco, we took the cat off. Passed MOT no issues and goes like hell, just stinks a bit!!. Need to have the engine switched off when hitching a trailer up for sure. A

In my old business for 23 years I ran small Diesel vans ( fleet of 8 or 9 usually) for around 300,000 miles in about 5 years usually Ford Connects were our favourites followed by Vauxhall Combos. Only ever had 1 VW Caddy thank god, that spent most of its life broken down. I was pleased when the insurers scrapped it after a prang and only 180,000. Fuel wise there was not a lot to choose between the Ford and the Vauxhall, both were returning about 50-52 mpg even at 300,000. The VW never came close, best it ever did was 46mpg, average was nearer 43. VW promised me 60mpg then blamed my drivers when they consumption was so bad. A

Grabber ATs on my Disco, done about 90,000 miles on them so far, about another 20.000 left in them. On the wifes Defender we have BFGs, much lower milage as the wife uses it. Only thing about some mud terrain tyres is they may let go tractionwise suddenly on good surfaces, a friend has them on his 60 plate Defender, great off road but on but at 70mph they are to be treated with care. He has a bit of a scare on the A14 a few weeks ago, the backside started coming round on him. My SWB Defender County 7 seater gets unstable very fast if you have a full passenger load on, I suspect its the design of the chassis/suspension rather than the tyre. M6-M1 junction coming south, you have a long sweeping downhill bend, Disco with 7 up does that at 70 mph no issues, Defender with 7 up was on the edge of rolling at 60 mph. A

I have been burning pop in the showroom this week, wedges cut when trees were felled that I picked up in May time. They had laid on the ground for over a year. They simply burst into flame almost immediately. A

Hetas are the body that oversee the solid fuel industry, HETAS : Homepage If you or anyone else does not have a sign off cert for your stove ( and a copy is also lodged with your local building inspector) if you ever have a fire your insurers will pass your claim to a loss adjuster whose job it is to get out of paying a claim. In short no sign off usually = no insurance cover for house or contents. Putting a pipe part way up an existing liner can ( will) lead to falling soot lodging between the 2 pipes and then possably catching fire. Dodgy. A

Well post up the figures then, I am sure we would all be interested. A

Not seen or heard anything about it through the trade. It was not at the stove trade show last summer that I noticed. I would ask a lot more questions, some of the statements about how efficient the stove is compared to those on the market currently ( some of which have stated EN efficiencies of over 80%) take some believeing as you are always going to loose some heat into the flue pipe. Wonder if its CE marked, its not an offence to sell a non CE marked stove but I understand that it is an offence to install one. Maybe it is a big breakthrough, maybe not. A

Last presentation I went to at the chimney sweeps show indicated that in the previous year 140,000 stoves had been sold yet only 30,000 had been installed and signed off as being safe to use by Hetas regisitered engineers. Add another 5000 perhaps done via the building inspector leaves a lot of stoves installed by unqualified persons and not signed off. Any of these people having fires in their property risk having their insurance being invalidated and being prosecuted for breach of building regs. A

Height of the flue needs to be either 600mm clear of the ridge or 2.3m ( might be 2.5 cant quite remember) away from the top surface of the roof tiles under the building regs. So height above roof will depend on flue position on roof and roof angle. Cant say I have ever heard on Merlin stoves, google dont show them either. A

A is 1/2 inch top width, B is 5/8 inch if it helps. A

Smokeless fuel needs far more air than wood for clean combustion. A

At the stove trade show last June there was a guy was a guy from the US selling what looked like a small log cabin. It is a large burn box, maybe 1 cubic meter surrounded on 3 sides with a water jacket. Very highly insulated, feeding the property with insualted underground pipes. You would refill it by the barrow full. A

I use an IFW GD85, 8 x 5 foot. I load it with a 2 cubic meter bulk grain bucket on a teleporter. I can just get a full bucket onto the trailer, the load is ridged up along the center. I then sheet it and cover the sheet with an elastic net to stop bits falling off and possably damaging other cars etc. A

Wood burns from the top down, you don't want air getting underneath the grate otherwise you will get black glass. Once the fire is going close the primary air supply completely and control the stove using the secondary air supply only, primary is under the grate, secondary is down the inside of the glass. Having a stove shut right down and smouldering away will extend the refuelling intervals yes but at the cost of tars in the flue ( because the temperature in the firebox is not hot enough to combust them) and significantly increased soot deposits. Smokeless fuel, anthracite etc burns from the bottom up, you have the secondary air supply wide open and control the fire using the primary air supply thats putting air under the grate. A

They are decent quality stoves but are IMHO overpriced for what they are owing to the vast sums spent advertising them in glossy mags. They are not cutting edge no but are not bad. Price makes them seem at the top end of the market, there are far better stoves that are similarly priced. I dont act for Stovax so have no axe to grind but I have sold a few spurced through trade wholesalers with no issues at all. Mind you I do use a high quality installer. Key is to size the stove correctly to the room size taking into account the insulation properties of the house. These are sized to produce enough heat to give a 21 C temp rise in the room if its 1 C outside while continuing to show good flames in the firebox. Any stove correctly speced and full of wood on a normal burn working well and burning cleanly will want refilling about every 40-45 mins on soft and 50-55 mins on hard assuming the wood is dry. A

I have enquired with both Esse and Morso who are my two main stove manufactueres on this issue, I have this evening received this reply from Tony who is the technical guy at Morso, Esse have yet to respond. No reason at all why you cant burn oak in a morso stove, having said that its not the easiest wood to burn due to its high density making it slower burning. The important thing with any wood is that it is sufficiently dry, less that 20% moisture content. Over-firing a stove to the point of damage can occur with all fuels; its as easy to damage a stove when burning hard or soft wood as it is with approved manufactured smokeless solid fuel. In fact the industry standard abuse or over-fire test is carried out with pine as its low density results in a rapid hotter burn. Regardless of the fuel type the operating temperature of the stove should be monitored with a stove top or flue pipe thermometer Interesting comments on the use of pine in over fire tests, another pointer to the sucessfull use of softwood in stoves. A