Alycidon

There have been several threads recently requesting a supply of cord. Are you all planning to process it and sell it this winter?, I assume thats what you have in mind but hardwood simply wont be dry enough for optimum results. I have been processing stuff over the last few months that has been felled for between one and three years, the soft will be ok but the hard wont. I tested some Silver Birch, end grain of logs about 6%, in the center once cut and split was nearer 40%. A

Ceiling height is also important. A friend of mine puts them on stoves in narrowboats, no fan and only the first 15-20 feet is heated, put a fan in and the entire 40 feet of boat is warm. A

I find that I can get softwood to 500+ easily but hardwood is a bit of a struggle unless ultra dry. A

Ah I see, 500 deg is pretty hot, I usually run mine at 400-450. As you other lads will note as long as the outside of the stove is at about 200 degrees the blades will continue to turn and do their work. A

That looks nicely positioned on the stove, should work well. I have sold 30-40 in 18 months, only had one problem when a motor started running slowly. Calfire collected it and replaced the motor at no cost. My showroom one works for about 8 or 9 hours a day, 5 1/2 days a week, it has run for 2 winters with no probs at all. The thermometer on your stove is designed to measure the temperature of the flue gases and is best positioned about a foot up the flue pipe. However if your flue pipe is stainless steel (like mine !!) it wont stick do leave it where it is, it gives you a pretty good idea of whats going on. Whats that fog clagging up your glass ??. temp shown on your thermometer is hardly hot enough to start the fan so I suspect it might be condensation. If so I would be concearned about rust in the stove. A

I am afraid it does, the smaller 2 bladed model (E800) does need 9.25" of clearance between the top of the stove and the bottom of the chimney opening or the bottom chimney sealing plate. A

It starts when the outside of the stove gets to about 200 deg C. the hotter the stove gets the faster the blades turn. A

I am a local agent for Ecofan. I have one on my showroom Morso Panther 8kw stove. This sits on the rear of the stove and push's hot air rising from the stove in front of it out into the room. It creates an airflow in the room ( but no draughts!) that silently brings the hot air down from the ceiling. I have 10 foot ceilings in the showroom and the stove is the only form of heating. Without the fan I am cold but the ceiling is roasting, with the fan the heat is evenly spread. You wont see the best of it without a big or rear flued stove, a normal top flued 5kw stove will not normally have the room for the Ecofan to sit on the rear of the stove and for the blades to clear the flue pipe. The two bladed one has a smaller blade diameter which might help. Putting them in front of the flue pipe reduces their effectivness. With a low ceiling height again the effect will be reduced as the room warms from the ceiling down. Thats why some people love them and some dont. I usually allow customers to borrow one for a night to see for themselves, usually they remain sold but not always. Please be aware that fake chinese copies of Ecofans have recently been found in the UK, http://www.ecofan.co.uk/fake-ecofans.html the genuine importer is Calfire Ltd, you should be able to find your local stockist here: Ecofan - Find Eco fan stockists through the UK distributor A A

I have had a tour of a wood pellet producer near Newark a couple of years ago. They cut and chop using a heavily modified John Deere forage harvester, store in piles for 6 weeks, that takes moisture down to about 25%, it then goes into a drier (fueled by dried chips) to take it down low enough to be ground and then pelleted. A

Willow is commonly used as a source of feedstock for wood pellets. It is cut and chipped with a modified forage harvester, stacked in the open for a couple of months to dry then fed into a processing plant. A

seems a fair offer to me, A

No its pellet only but does have a facility to add an oil burner at a later date if required. Got a grant on it but I would be pretty sure that sticking an oil burner onto it would upset the grant people if they ever checked it. Putting a boiler stove or wood boiler into an energy store is fine but you cannot put a boiler stove into a pressurised system without a cold water tank to vent excess heat to in an emergency. Here are a series of drawings using the Esse centeralizer manifold, all feature either a cold water tank of a bulk energy store. http://www.esse.com/pdfs/Centraliser.pdf Having said that Broseley have developed a system called SWCS that does allow boiler stove and condensing boiler to run together however they will only supply it to companies who have qualified plumbers who have been on and passed to Broseley training course. Here are the details: Innovation In stove design | Broseley Fires A

Downside is that it needs regular stoking, shoving a wheel barrow full of wood into it twice a day soon pales I can assure you unless you get your wood very cheap. Just not viable in my book if you are on gas even with the grants, I have a wood pellet boiler, filling that up twice a day in winter is no fun when you have a foot of snow around. A

Sounds like a true gent, A

I had a customer in last week who we installed a 5kw stove into a 2 bed bungalow in a village without gas this time last year. He said the stove had saved him and 3/4 of a tank of oil and had paid for itself in one year. He said it is the best thing he has every bought. A

The Nottingham Energy Partnership web site will give you all the comparative costs of energy, price per kw and CO2 emissions per kw. Energy Cost Comparison | Nottingham Energy Partnership I did try and paste the chart here but it just merges all the numbers together. In round figures paying commercial rates for logs (see the additional info for log prices paid on the bottom of the chart) the cost per kw will be about the same as mains gas at present. We know that the price of gas it rising fast due to govt taxes and most of us recognise that hardwood will need to be £120 a cu m pretty soon if buying wood from the likes of Tilhill etc. Again govt taxes will come into play if they have not already. At least by buying a big stock of wood you can 'fix' your energy prices. If your lady has a source of cheap wood then her costs will be somewhat lower. Be aware though that burning used pallets is not advised due to the preservatives used on them. These are harmfull to human health. A

I thought I had a fair heap but only about a third of that, about 90cum of soft so far in a 20 foot bay, teleporter buckets are handy of the job. A

They wont work and 60% of all court fines and compensation orders never get paid. Crush the truck is about all you can do. A

Personally I would only sell ready to burn and push a moisture content aspect, I have posted on this elsewhere here recently. Dry wood produces no tar, minimal soot deposits and lower levels of particulates in the flue gases, better flame patterns and of course as you state more heat. Surprised you are not selling in bigger bags but I do appreciate that small nets = bigger profits. A

Lucky you got that fast a police response, we get 'no one available" usually if I have poachers. Good result anyway. Now then you left wing commies, how would you like it if someone started cutting up limbs dropped by a tree in your garden, the fact that it dropped onto the pavement ( and had it dropped onto a member of the public or their car etc you would be liable to be sued) means that its still yours not anyone else's. Twice last winter i caught people red handed with bow saws cutting branches off willow trees on the road side of some farmland I am lucky enough to own, they seemed to think they had a right to. Willow as well, not exactly high quality wood. I have had a big trailer load of split ash stolen last summer, it was 200 yards from a road, a days worth of cutting and manual splitting. Now it goes home in big lumps. A A

Process it and sell it, might be to wet for this winter though. A

Look in your owners instruction manual. People do burn coal I know but it is not recommended. I have seen bags of ordinary house coal these days marked "not for use in stoves". A

You cant burn ordinary house coal on a stove, burns very dirty, clags up the glass and danger of backdraught. Weight for weight coal will produce more heat than wood when burnt on an open fire but at twice the price of wood then wood is a winner. A

I remember just before I bought my first car petrol had gone rocketing up to 6 shillings a gallon, that was following the 73 middle east conflict, I think !!. For you youngsters thats about 30p for 5 litres. A

Well in that case I would leave my wood in the barn, prices will rise with the cost of gas etc. No point in being a busy fool. A