Alycidon

Sorry did not mean to be dramatic !!. Stainless steel guard is available from Specflue, usually used in lofts to prevent clothes etc falling against it. Not sure if it fits all types of flue pipe as diameters vary. Your local Specflue distributer should be able to advise/supply, comes in two pre cut lengths, 1.7 and 2.4m from memory but might be wrong. Building regs state that flue pipe in upper rooms should be boxed in with non combustible materials, ply is combustible and therefore should not have been used or signed off. I suppose if the ply was a fair way from the pipe ( this would vary depending on the combustible clearance of the pipe used) then use of ply might have been accepted, even so its bad practise. None the less you have had it signed off so keep that certificate safe as it arguably lets you off one area but your insurance may still refuse to pay out in the event of a fire. Cases are passed to loss adjusters whose task is to wriggle out of paying a claim. Don't give them any grounds at all to refuse to pay. When you are able to afford it get it boxed in properly with a non combustible board, I would normally say plasterboard but I am not a builder so am unsure on its suitability for a bathroom. No doubt others will advise. A

This is illegal under the building regulations, did you get it signed off as being safe?, that is another legal requirement. I cant see anyone signing that off as being safe. A towel or clothes coming into contact with the exposed pipe will ignite, if as a result the house burns down you will, if not signed off be in major trouble. You will be fined for the failure to sign off, ( one guy in Loughboro was fined 4,300 recently), your insurance company will also refuse to pay out. The guy from Loughboro lost his house and all his posessions and was fined on top. A

But the join from a 125mm stove pipe to a 235mm od 150mm TI twin wall pipe is pretty ugly, ask any woman, it's they who usually have the last say on how things look!. If you need that bit of extra heat from the pipe the stove is too small. A

wood ash is good for the garden but if you have been burning pallets the preservative used on the pallets is harmful to health. Put it on the veg garden, then eat the veg and it gets into your body, it is harmfull to you. Burn pallets which is not recommended then dispose of the ash in your bin not on your garden. A

I am 24 miles from Buckingham and could use my Disco and trailer to help shift it, that wil take about 2 tonnes ( 2 cum ish), any use?. Will call later when I get a minute. A

I have a Euc about half that size that I have letting dry out having ringed it, I assume it should split OK using a decent splitting axe maybe aided by wedges but have not actually got that far with it. A

Agreed 100%. Recommend you get an independant HETAS registered installer in to look at and quote the install and sign off. Poujoulat TI is excellent, its all I use as well. You might consider bringing the twin wall all the way down to the appliance ( stove) and having it powder coated to match the stove. TI as it comes is shiny stainless steel, not what most want in their front rooms. Just use a powder coater who knows what he is about. Make sure the stove is the right size for the room, if you are unsure about this I have a calculator in my web site, pm me for details. Are you in a smoke control area, if so you will need a DEFRA approved stove, most manufacturers have DEFRA models. Just dont buy cheap chinese crap !!, you will be replacing it in 3 or 4 years. A

This site is excellent for giving you costs per kw and CO2 emissions per KW of all the fuels. Energy Costs Comparison - Nottingham Energy Partnership As you will see burning seasoned logs bought at about £100 for a builders bag by the looks of it stacks up well against most other forms of heating and is very much a winner in the CO2 stakes when compared to Gas etc. A

Customer service is everything in any business. Dead right, build a relationship with the customer, word of mouth is the best and cheapest advertising there is. A

Toffs and kiln dried. I think you are struggling to see the wood for the trees so to speak. Kiln dried wood sold by Certainly Wood, Timports and others is typically 18-20% moisture. Allegedly the kilning process kills any infestations, that is a benefit that you dont have I agree. I had to chop up a small wind blown oak about three weeks ago, it was still alive as part of the root was still attached. I ringed the bigger (12 inch or so) sections and yesterday the cut faces of these was around 17%. I do appreciate that the centres have some way to go of course but once cut and split you are well on the way to selling a comparable product. I would suggest you buy yourself a wood moisture meter and surprise yourself with the moisture content of your stock. The only thing the Kiln dried has that you dont (given time) is no worms. Just make sure you charge well for it !!. If someone offered you a new car for £4k you would quite rightly think it a pile of crap, the same car at 20k and suddenly it a far better car !!. I am selling stoves, have just had a JAPA 700 delivered today, I will sell air dried english wood this winter at levels that just undercut kiln dried if its dry enough. If not I will sell whats left over from this winter and leave it for the following winter. Maybe I wont sell a lot but I will make money on the good quality product that I do sell. No point being a busy fool. I just need some cheap cord. A

Tillhill told me they were selling at £35 a ton for softwood, this is timber for chipping, dont know any further details, ie transport costs etc. A

In the past I acted as a distributor for Gates Industrial drive belt and hose division. The belts you require are DRIVE belts and not car or truck fan belts. AVX13 x 850 I am sure is ( or certainly was in my day !) a fan belt, ( 13mm top width, 850 outer circum). Drive belts are designed specifically to transmit significant power not just drive a small alternator or power steering pump. There are a number of different belt sections, A and B used to be the common imperial belt sections, then came metrics, SPA,SPB, SPC etc. These are in no way interchangeable as the top width, sections and depths are all different. Fan belts will only last a very short time when used in these applications even if the top width is right. Gates make a very high quality product, if it failed quickly it is either the wrong section or the pulleys are misaligned or worn. Belt pulleys do wear as the belts grip the side of the pulleys ( not the bottom) to transmit the power. Belts with cogged inner radius are generally preferable as the are designed to go around smaller diameter pulleys while not putting excess strain on the cords within the belt that are transmitting the power. A

Add value by selling DRY logs not seasoned and charge a higher price. Just need seasoning a bit longer. If people want to buy cheap wet seasoned wood let them, they will sooner or later come to quality. A

There are a lot of 'commercial' grade wood pellets around made of pallets, I am burning a 50/50 mix of commercial and virgin DIN standard pellets. The commercial alone produce clinkers. For some reason the above mix does not. I just load a bag at a time of alternate stacks. A

Renewable John, Yes you are right, maximum moisture 20% and 14% preferable. Sorry. 'Seasoned' wood at 30% is no good at all. I have photos of a flue access panel leaking tar down a wall following a cooker being fed wet wood. Took several chimney clean logs to clean the tar in the chimney. The VAT issue I took up with the Revenue at length about a year ago. Initially their local view was that it was up to me as the retailer to decide if it qualified for 5%. They did agree though that if a subsequent VAT inspection disagreed with this the retailer would have to pay the balance of the VAT, plus a fine of at least the same value, more if there are other accounting errors. There seems little scope for an appeal. This would mean the retailer loosing money very heavily, margins on these are very thin anyway. In the end I insisted on a written letter from the main VAT office in Nottingham telling me what rate to charge, they rang all wood fired cooker with water boiler manufactures and asked them what the appliances principal job was, was it cooking food ( 20%)or heating water (5%). As they are all principally Cookers then the cooker rate applies, currently 20%. Esse have subsequently amended their advice to retailers. The only way you can now buy a wood fired appliance at 5% VAT is if its principal job is to heat water as a boiler and any cooking facility is secondary. So it needs to also look like a boiler as well. Retailers that have sold cookers with integral boilers at 5% in the past are on very thin ice when the VAT man comes to check. A

Solar dried?, how does that work?. Air dried for a longer period?. A

Loaded with a couple of tons of wood pellets or pulling the box van I get 15mpg from my Disco diesel, a shade more on motorways. Still cheaper than running a separate vehicle though. With the box van I deliver stoves and range cookers, switch to a tipper and we are ready to go with firewood. A

I am looking to replace my IFor Williams GD85 with a tipper for firewood. Must hold 2 cu m and have a tailgate that drops as opposed to opening from the bottom. Looks like I will need a 10 footer ( with ladder rack !!) as I don't really want the extended sides as it will also do general duties. What do those of you that use trailers for firewood use and how do you rate them. I have 2 IFWs at present ( the GD85 and a 10 foot box van) and never had a minutes problem with either, dont really want to go elsewhere but that Atlas advertised here looks a decent bit of kit, just presumably poor resale value in a few years time. Thanks for your thoughts. A

No doubt he bought a cheap chinese stove as well. Once he buys some 40% moisture wood from the DIY sheds he will learn, not that he will ever admit that to you of course. On two occasions this winter I have caught people with bandsaw in hand cutting wood from my roadside hedge, they seemed to think that the hedge was public property ( wrong) as as such they had a right to cut it. One was cutting willow !!. A

Humidity was not something I had really considered being different in different areas but thinking about it then its a very valid point. 18%-20% will burn Ok, softwood at that will go well and you wont get any customer complaints but for optimum performance it needs to be drier. A

No offence taken at all. I agree that kilning is expensive backbreaking work, I have been watching your kilning thread elsewhere, beautiful results, you must be well pleased, I would be. Morso advise max wood moisture content 18%, Esse 20%. The others are in the same area. The Certainly Wood web site will advise that less moisture = more heat from a given amount of fuel, mind you they do have a commercial reason for stating this. I have this winter tried to burn Ash at 25% in my showroom stove after it got some snow on it, admitted this went on soon after lighting and it just sat in the stove, burnt very slowly with minimal heat output. Soot and tar in the flue is increased as the creosote in the wood given off during burning is not ignited at these low temps, it then condenses in the flue/chimney and coats it with tar/creosote. The wood I sold this winter was at 3% and 9% ( soft and hard) when measured late last summer, when it went out is was around 18%. As you say it had picked up moisture ( kept in an open barn) but as its dry inside it soon looses it kept inside. Chuck a 14%- 18% log into a hot working stove with a potential buyer watching it almost instantly bursts into flame, that usually seals their desire to own a stove, usually taking a gas appliance out in the process which creates more market for everyone here. Agreed that if customers bought moisture meters and are prepared to store for some time before burning then the problem would be resolved. But how many retail customers are buying wood now for next winter?, not many. I am simply trying to advise the members what moisture content a stove owner should have for optimum results, most of them will though have little idea unless it has been drilled into then by the stove seller. I am certainly not having a go at the industry as a whole. Customers will remember where they bought wood that would not burn and move on to someone else. Thanks A

Be aware that these small Jap trucks are VERY dear to maintain. I was over a Fuelwood in Warwick last week, their Canter needed a new fuel injector, £1500, only avail from the dealer. Only done 80,000 miles. I would recommend that you all consider buying mainstream Transits etc, dont think though there is a 3 tonner at present. I ran a fleet of 8 or 9 small Fords and Vauxhall vans for over 20 years, ran them all to over 300,000 miles, only ever lost 2 engines ( plastic timing belt pulleys failed after 13 months) and still as economical at 300,000 as they were at 50,000. At least with common trucks you can possibly source bits from breakers etc. A

Tillhill are selling at around £40 a ton delivered down here for min 25 ton load, + VAT. A

I agree whole heartedly with you about lower MC being better no one is going to dispute that, burning wood at 15% is a different experience to burning it at 25% but that is not what the OP asked about. I have been researching Kiln Dried timber for the last 3 months. I have found that all the suppliers i have spoken to will only say thier product is 25%mc. I was dissapointed with this and have chosen to buy freshly cut and dry it myself, time will tell if it was the right decision but a saving of £45 per m3 is whats important to me at the moment. With regards to wood boring beasties yes kiln drying kills them, it is my understanding that this is only important for people importing / exporting logs as part of large retail contracts. I will happily burn mice extracted from traps on my fire so a woodlouse doesnt concern me. Its my view that because the stove makers and sellers are harping on that kiln dried is best, this is what people look for and want. They dont know that really all that matters is the log they are burning is dry and this can be achieved by storing any number of ways. On log sizes nothing over about 4 inch (100mm) diameter for best flame patterns, 4 small bits look far better than 2 big ones, load stove width wise so cut logs around 2inches shorter than the door width opening. A Thanks for the advice on the action of kilning on beasties. Certainly Wood advise a MC of 20-22% normally on delivery. That is not really acceptable, it used to be far lower I understand. But kilned currently it is the best of a bad job unless like me you have a shed full of 18% stuff. So to get a bit more geared up I have this week been over to Fuelwood in Warwick and bought a JAPA700 and rack. I intend to air dry for as long as it takes, wood I am going to split in the next month I envisage selling winter 12-13. I am not busting to sell big volumes just high quality to match the stoves I sell. All my local sellers of logs are selling 'seasoned' at 30% + usually, best I have found is 24% this winter as I believe I have already posted. That is no good at all for stoves or for open fires, thats where the tar in your chimney comes from not the fact that its soft wood. IMHO soft wood actually gets a bad press on tar production, I had my showroom stove running at 500 C on softwood this winter at 22% MC !!. It is a bit more forgiving of higher MCs providing you get a decent fire going first. I have run it every day for about 7 hours since early Sept, soot in the 10m flue will be under 2kg, probably well under and tar non existent. A

[. In my experience when Ash is split and stacked it takes around 6 months to get to 25%. Maximum mosture level for use in a stove is 20%, 14%- 16% or less is ideal. Hardwood at 25% will sit and sulk, it will also produce large quantities of soot and if the stove temperature does not rise above 100C tar. Kiln dried is expensive for waht it is but it does offer an immediate solution. I have measured some of the kiln dried brand leaders product this winter at 22%. I am told that the kilning operation alledgely kills any boring insects within the wood, that I have yet to confirm myself. I am burning Ash in my showroom that I cut and split about 2 years ago, its been in a barn and is around 13%. A