Alycidon

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

If you see any others like it drop me a pm will you please. Lots of unmanaged woodland around here. A

I assume none of you are running Palax machines then, from the videos they look good bits of kit to me. I was also interested in this reply as I will need to upgrade maybe next year. Supplier help and back up is so so important. A

I thought Balcas were buying up all the wood in Ireland, carriage from the UK would be expensive but the south lake district might not be to bad. A

Agreed. Are you not overweight fully loaded for the 4x4?. A

Pull them back, give him his money back, handling charge is tempting but I doubt you will get away with it. Every dog has his day and one day you will have the chance to get even, maybe !!. As you get older getting even becomes less important. I had a woman in today after grate polish, £6 a tube + VAT, 'I can get it on line for £5 + VAT', maybe you can but add postage to that, she said she would leave it and buy it on line. Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. She left empty handed, I don't mind a bit of a haggle if 2 or 3 k are involved but not 2 or 3 pence. A

Fill using the forks of the loader/teleporter to hold the bag with the bottom just touching the ground, when it get so full that logs are rolling off the sides at the top then if you lift it and level the heap it should be about level. You might want to add another dozen logs for effect. A

Is that scheme still open?. Thanks A

If I get time I will run that one by Morso and Esse and see what their thoughts are. A

Bless my cotton socks, 400K + !!!, and that presumably is a grant. Big money especially as CW may have had to match it. I said they were sharp operators, bet there is not many here that have received that sort of aid. Herefordshire is not exactly an employment blackspot. A

The problem is that these days there is a lot of cheap chinese crap quality stoves around. Even an iconic brand has taken to having their stoves made in China, quality has gone right out the window according to some installers I spoke to on a training course last summer. Luckily I don't act for them, if I did I would dump them if I started to have issues. The Chinese think that we want cheap crap, UK asks for lowest price and we get lowest quality. They can make good products at a price, the secret is for the UK buyer to keep metallurgically on top of the job. A

A lot of people who are buying stoves have no experience at all with any form of fire. Their stove dealer should educate them but most don"t seem to. As a result they want 'tree wood' as opposed to scrap wood from pallets etc. Quiet a lot seem to think they can go for a ramble in the countryside bandsaw on hand and help themselves, then burn it that night !!. I get a lot of odd looks when I put my landowners hat on and educate them. A

Not heard that one before, ask the guy what make his stove is then check with the manufacturer yourself. Please report your findings here, thanks. The only thing you sometimes get with boiler stoves whose heat to water has been under specified is tar forming as they take so long to heat up as they are to small to do the job being asked of them. That will happen with all woods but more so with wetter ones rather than hard/soft or oak. Once you get to the bottom of it have a chat with the installer and educate him a bit. A

Advertise it on the 4x4 sites, I would have thought looking at it 4 to 5k. A

Looking at their set up they have apple crates 5 high in the yard seasoning then pop it into a kiln for a few hours just to finish it off. Going from green to finished in a short time would have far higher fuel costs. No point in rushing it of nature will do 90% of the work for free. A

I make it a point NEVER to follow the heard and always paddle my own canoe, CW are basically farmers that diversified in firewood. They are sharp operators and they do the job properly, good luck to them. I see no reason why they as suppliers cannot be emulated. I currently sell a mix of Larch, Scots pine, Spruce etc, I sell it simply as firewood and make no mention of hardwood or softwood unless the customer asks. If they do then I pick up on what the Scandinavians mainly burn !!!. I measured the hardwood ( Ash and Silver birch with a few bits of beech,oak etc) today, 15%-18% so that can now go as well. Did not expect it to be ready this winter. I am intending to introduce an audit trail for the end product, gives the customer confidence of he knows exactly where his logs have been grown, processed etc, you saw CW tying labels onto filled bags containing MC details and probably other things, Papers say -20c in two weeks so that should be good. A

EMDA ( East Mids Dev Agency) site states that they have stopped accepting applications for grant funding as they are being closed by the govt in March 12. Have yet to actually speak to them though. A

When I was examining buying in containers of KD product from abroad this spring the average MC I was quoted was 20/22, one guy in the Ukraine claimed 17%. Most of the companies I spoke to claimed to be CW suppliers !!. Looking at CWs set up I doubt that. In fairness to CW I have never knowingly measured any of their product. My own softwood that I processed this spring and early summer is now going out at 7-12%, thats air dried under cover. I can see no benefit in me selling KD product unless I kiln it myself for a few hours. I posted elsewhere here that I processed some ash earlier this week for winter 12-13, fresh felled it was 27%. If you sell stoves you know that 24% is far to wet to burn efficiently and cleanly. I recon that ash would be 24% in maybe a month !!. A

I can sympathise with that, some stove sellers cannot see the wood for the trees, to many people are chasing web prices instead of selling their own local benefits. I charge about £80 a stove ( 15% or so) more than web based companies, I am upfront about it and explain why, almost all prefer to buy local as long as the price is not to far out. As for stocking and installing stoves, you probably could, certification is not a problem, attend a course, do an exam then do half a dozen under supervision and away you go. Quite a few want some building work though so those skills would also be needed or bought in. Even if stove guys were prepared to buy in and store by and large they do not have the handling equipment the job demands hence I see and still see an opening. A

[Pre 97 licence holders can drive a vehicle up to 7500kg MAM and with it tow a trailer not exceeding 750kg. A smaller towing vehicle can tow a larger trailer as long as the entire MAM is no more than 8250kg This is called the gross train weight (GTW) Just to add another small spanner into the works here assuming the thread owner has his answer. I have a Disco 2, can tow from memory about 2.7 tons all up. Pulling that weight or a trailer capable of carring that weight as part of a buisness, ie for hire or reward does it need a tacho?. If so can I just keep a note of drivers hours in writing instead. Thanks A