woodrascal

Have a look at the the British manufactured, Dunsley Yorkshire. I've seen a couple on demo and they look really nice and solidly made. They've got the water boiler in a seperate chamber from the firebox (as opposed to a water jacket) so they burn wood much more efficiently and cleaner - which means less smoke and cleaner flueways.

That's a fair point Firewoodman, but the 2 bricks are designed for slightly different applications. Both, to some extent, protect the stove interior from direct contact with the flames. However, heavy (dense) 'clay' firebricks while being mechanicly stronger also soak up the fires heat. They take a while to initially heat up so the stove gives out less heat to the room on initial fireup. The plus side is they hold on to the heat when the fire dies down (making it easier to re-kindle) and it still throws out heat even when the fire goes out (acting like a storage heater). Vermiculite (light, fragile) firebricks are designed to insulate the firebox. This raises the firebox temperature quickly, which promotes a cleaner burn and more heat to the room in a faster time. On the down side, once your fire has died, the stove will soon cool as the vermiculite bricks don't hold onto the heat. It's interesting to note that an increasing number of top rated stoves (including some mentioned on this forum) have vermiculite bricks fitted.

I went to see one of these at a dealers. It looked like a really badly cast, iron lump. As far as I know these are made in China and re-badged over here. The dealer didn't think a lot to it either, not very good build quality or controllability. Beware - the Btu output is not based on burning wood. After having had your Franco Belge, I think you'll be dissapointed with a Hercules.

Jotul dedicated 'woodburner only' stoves are good but I wouldn't advise you to buy a multifuel version. We've got a friend with a multifuel F100 and it's absolute rubbish. Several local dealers/installers/fuel suppliers have told me the same thing. Jotul seem to have simply dropped an ashpan/grate arrangement in and it's knackered up the airflow system. In the 4-5kw stove market another British stove to look at would be a Charnwood Country 4. We've got one and after a bit of tweaking it's not bad. The Clearview Pioneer 400 is a good stove but not cheap. The Morso Squirrel 1410 is as already mentioned, a good little stove but make sure you get the clean burning version. It really does chuck out more heat than the 'standard' one. Euroheats Harmony 23 is a cracking smallish stove. The Esse 100 pictured in a previous link is a popular stove and works well. We've got an old Esse Dragon Mk 1 and that's a nice (if leaky!) stove. We've also got a couple of cheap chinese made 'Tigers'. They're pretty rough as they come but we've modified them to woodburning only and completely re-lined the firebox with insulating brick. Now they perform really well.

Log supplier, when you're burning your wood in an open fire most of the heat (and probably a lot of the gunk from your wet Ash) is going straight up the chimney. Get yourself a stove, you'll use less fuel to get much more heat and you can sell the logs you save, to pay for the stove and installation:001_smile: We used to have 4 open fires - we now have 4 wood stoves and we use about 70% less firewood and have a much warmer house.

Over the years I've burnt many cubes of ash. It burns great when dry but burns like wet wood when wet. It'll knacker up your flue system as well, if you burn it green, whatever anyone tells you. Wet wood is wet wood wether it's ash or not. You wouldn't advise people to burn birch with 39% MC, would you? Give me virtually any type of DRY firewood rather than wet ash.

Oh dear, not this again....

Just out of interest Marko - do you do your own web design?

My Maplins one lasted for 5 weeks. Having said that they replaced it for a new one without quibble. Apparently they'd recently sold 4 and mine was the only one that had failed. Incidently they look like a re-badged version of one that's been recommended on this forum that costs over £40.

Evening Marko, I think what you're doing is great. One suggestion however - please remove the link to those firewood songs/verses They contradict quite a lot of the good points you so clearly put forward regarding burning only dry wood. Keep up the good work.

You're spot on there Dean. Like it or not, a lot of firewood customers are at last realising that the term 'seasoned' doesn't mean a great deal - it's the moisture content that they're interested in.

We've got 4 wood stoves and a woodfired cooker. One stove is flued through a SS flexi liner - one through a Selkirk Insulated Twinwall - one through an Insulated Thermocrete chimney - and one through a clay lined masonary chimney. The wood cooker is flued via an insulated Twinwall Negarra chimney. We use only dry firewood. I sweep our chimneys every 6 months or so (every 4 months for the cooker). Even the ones in almost constant use, have very little soot deposit and no discernable tar buildup. If you burn dry wood correctly, in a properly installed appliance, and have a sensible chimney maintainance regime you won't get any problems.

Dean's right. It doesn't have to be unseasoned softwood causing chimney fires either. A near neighbour of ours burns exclusively oak. He gets it himself in cord form, stores it outside or in a dark shed, then cuts and splits it and chucks it straight onto his open fire. He had a belter of a chimney fire last year. 8 feet of flame jetting out of his masonary chimney and big lumps of burning black stuff landing everywhere.

Over here in Wales the FC stopped issuing licences and then, after stirring up a hornets nest of public outrage , have started issuing them again! Incidently, they reckon it's only a tempory measure. Here's a quote from their statement - "we want to ensure that everybody, including the elderly and infirm who may not be able to get to their nearest woodland, is able to have access to this wonderful fuel source. This will be one of the benefits of moving to a network of local merchants who can supply anybody.” Has anyone on the forum been contacted about this by the FC?

Danny, Don't make your log store totally sealed. To dry the logs off properly you're best to get air moving through them. If you put them in a sealed 'shed' they'll just slowly moulder away. Put up with the rats and get lots of air and sunshine(!) on your firewood:001_smile:

Wood smoke will kill you as well. One of the products of combustion of wood, be it in a stove or an open fire is Carbon Monoxide. Large amouts of CO are produced when the wood has burnt down to charcoal. You can't smell or see CO - you just die... Technically you're supposed to get the installation done by a HETAS registered engineer or get it signed off by Building Control. Installing woodburners can be relatively straightforward (we've got 4 stoves and a wood cooker) but if you do it incorrectly you can damage property and kill people. Have a look at this link for sensible guidance on how to do the job safely. http://www.backwoodsman-stoves.co.uk/MAINMENUS/InstallationMenu.html