Stereo

Isn't there a chap in the middle of Cornworthy too? Thought he was called Dave too. Bought some milled softwood off him a few years back. Farm right in the middle of the village.

Interesting. Thanks.

Thanks all. The road hedge is already native and I plan to lay and restore this but it's not going to stop anyone for a good few years. I was going to fence about 6 foot inside this and put in some kind of barrier in between. All the suggestions look good. I do want a bit of a noise screen as well but hearing a couple cockerels over a hedge you can't see through is different to seeing neatly laid out pens of rare breed chickens ready to pinch.

Just to clarify, we only crank the heat and open the windows to solve the damp / mold issue which is caused by the vandex tanking. I have gone into this with plasterers and plumbers at length and despite some arguing that colder would be better, this is the only thing we have found to work. We once went on holiday in October and the gas combi failed due to a leaky expansion vessel and we came back to a disgusting mess which took days to clean down. That's a separate issue and one we will solve room by room by removing the tanking in all but the lowest rooms and reverting to traditional limes etc. The bits of wall we managed to persuade them to let us just point with lime mortar have never suffered any damp issues at all. I am not consuming energy just for the fun of it. Seeing your kids sleeping next to black mold is not a good thing. When asking about direct / indirect, do you mean coil vs. not a coil. In ours the Esse uses the water in the body of the store. This also circulates around the underfloor heating on demand. The flow goes in halfway up and the return is at the bottom of the store. Is this the problem? The gas combi is plumbed into a coil which is not what it was intended for but the store is a retro fit. Could the Esse also be plumbed into a coil? Wouldn't that be a sealed system with the resulting issues? I appreciate that the Esse is never going to heat the house and provide DHW, especially to the temps we currently require. The reason we got the store is that we wanted something that could use solar water, a wood stove, possibly a heat pump / proper wood boiler like the Eco Angus to replace the gas in future and also solar PV also in the future through the immersion heater. So all those renewable sources helping to heat the place and the immersion as ultimate backup. It seems though that far from helping, the Esse is causing an issue and also, the constantly circulating water is stopping the Esse working well. The answer I suppose is to fit a laddomat so that the Esse just adds spare heat when it has it and otherwise acts as a cooker and ambient heater. Perhaps I would be better looking at building a small extension to house a proper log / chip / pellet boiler and much bigger heat store and just have a wood fired rayburn for cooking / heat.

Yeah, I think I'll have to go the ladomatt route and just take any input that the esse can make as a bonus. It's lovely as a cooker when it's not being killed by the heating and warms our main living area. Quite easy on logs too and burns efficiently when it's running right. I feel that the store we have was under-specced for what we need and I'm a bit hacked off about that. I guess we need to stick with the gas until we can afford to install solar water and maybe ground source heat.

Yes, that's what it says. The store has solar connectors as well so we were thinking we would get a solar water roof panel for the summer and some help in the winter and the Esse would also add what it could. I'm now thinking that the Esse is pulling the whole system down by circulating cold water or something?

There is that. But given the time that has passed, I think a solicitor would advise that I am wasting my time. There's not much really to hang it on, it's just all a bit rubbish.

Thanks for your help. What sort of room temperatures are you running and where do you control it Each room has a underfloor circuit and a room stat going back to a manifold. Stats are set to 20 degrees. This is warm I know but we have another issue in that the house is a barn conversion and building control made us fully tank the whole place in Vandex which has caused a mould issue as the walls can no longer breathe. So we have to have windows open and crank the heating. This keeps it at bay, sort of. It's an issue we need to remedy room by room by removing the tanking and going back to lime plaster. Ongoing project. If we run the house any colder, we get black mould everywhere. What is the HW output of your stove and as already said dry wood? The W23 is rated at 2.35KW max I think but there have been suggestions that this is optimistic and depends on a fully stoked firebox with very dry wood. I have a farm and source hazel, syc, ash, oak and lots of dead standing elm. It's seasoned for a year outside, usually in billets and then logged and a year in the shed. It's bone dry so that shouldn't be an issue. Store temperature? As mentioned, the gas boiler keeps the store at no less than 50 degrees at the control stat height (about half way up), I guess cooler below this. Sounds like you have the heating on at night? Yes, the stats just call for heat when needed. I was told that with underfloor, it's better to keep the slab warm than let it go cold and boost in the morning. Also, we need a constant temp ref. mould as mentioned before. Have you good insulation under the under floor heating 100mm insulation sheets with pipes fitted into this on a concrete slab then a screed on top of this. It works very, very well and I'm happy that this is up to spec. Have you checked for leaks ie constant topping up of the system? No leaks at all. No overflow running hot water to waste? Nope. We did have a couple years ago but was sorted and I can't honestly recall what was causing it. A faulty valve or something minor.

Too long ago probably. I don't want them back so I have to get someone else to rectify, then go after them for damages. It's a long shot and a big risk of costs to me. Plus all the aggro. I've been burnt but I guess I've learned.

I would rather not, they made a hash of it in the first place and having spoken to others, I'm not their first victim. Big local firm too.

Thanks all. We have underfloor heating which is multiple circuits controlled by room stats. This uses the body of water in the store and the store is kept at 50 degrees min by a gas combi which was in place before we got the store. This means that the water in the store is always hot enough to run the heating and provide DHW on demand. The Esse runs through the store as well and is supposed to heat it but to be honest the store never gets near 80 unless there is zero demand for heat. In the winter we run the Esse 24/7 as far as possible with good dry wood. But once the weather draws in, it stops working as a cooker, never gets hot enough and also doesn't seem to help with the heating either. I think the answer is a Laddomat or similar. The constant cool water coming back from the bottom of the store is stealing all the heat from the boiler in the Esse and making it run cold. I suspect also that the gravity effect is causing water to cycle through the store when it shouldn't be. I am putting in water which is not up to temp. I think I'll have to get that sorted first.

Wood is dry as a bone. I've blamed that before but this year I have big stores of really well seasoned ash and dead standing elm. Seasoned outside and then barn stored for the late summer. Not much soft wood but I do have pallets and use that for quick heat. I suppose I thought that the Esse would heat the house with gas backup but maybe it's the other way around. Maybe I should use a Laddomat so that the Esse does cooking / ambient heat and adds what is spare to the heat store? Should have got a Rayburn. Bah. Needs more wood but we've got loads of that.

DHW is supplied through a heat exchanger inside the store which is located at the top. I guess it's correct that if I feed water from my stove in at the top and it's cooler than what's there, that would be a bad thing. So I guess the flow going in halfway up is a good thing. I'm a bit disappointed in it all really. Burning wood all winter in the stove doesn't seem to have lowered our gas usage much. For instance, we fired up the Esse at about 10 this morning and it's been burning steadily. I don't think the heating has been on. At about 1, the missus had a 5 minute shower and the gas boiler came on. Surely a 3 hour burn should give enough hot water for a 5 minute shower? Maybe I need a Laddomat to make sure only hot water is sent to the tank and that the stove is always working at proper efficiency? I kind of get the feeling that nothing in my system is working the way it should. DHW by the way is perfect. Mains pressure hot and much better than the gas combi we used before. Anyone have any resources for calculating store size / boiler size for a given size of house?

This is sort of firewood related and I know there are some folk on here who know about such things. I have an Esse W23 woodfired range hooked up to a Gledhill Torrent 200l Thermal Store. It's a nice set up but I have a couple issues with it. Firstly, as it's all gravity, if the tank is cool (gas boiler keeps it at min 50 degrees which is all we need for underfloor heating and DHW) and the stove is lit, it takes a long time to stop cool water coming back to the stove and makes the stove useless as a cooker. I understand I can sort this with something like a Laddomat. Secondly, even after a good long burn, the store doesn't seem to stay hot very long. On a cold night I'll often hear the boiler cutting in a few hours after the fire has died down. I'm wondering if this is down to the store not being big enough, or if it's not working properly. I've been reading up on stratification and can't quite get my head around why it is so important. The thing that bothers me about it is that the guy who installed the Esse and Store connected the flow from the Esse halfway up the store, not in the top. I understood that to achieve layering, the hot should go in at the top and sink down slowly. Isn't putting hot in halfway up going to cause churning of the water in the store? Or am I just expecting too much of a 200l store to be able to keep a 3 bed barn conversion heated all night once fully charged? I would like to get to a point that I can load up the Esse before bed and not hear the gas all night but I can only get a couple hours of decent heat out of a single burn so I'm maybe just being unrealistic.

Up until June I ran a business built largely around eBay selling tools and machinery but we had to stop in the end. People are now just using it to get new stuff for free and there is nothing the seller can do. We had a load of old damaged stock that we sold off on auction when we packed it in. One was an oil filled radiator with a dent in the control panel. I listed it as spares or repairs and 'not working'. The guy wanted to pick it up so turned with cash. I said I hadn't tested it but it would probably be fine with a bit of tickling. He just said 'I'm not bothered. If it doesn't work I'll buy a new one off eBay and claim it was damaged, then send this one back for refund'. That, in a nutshell is what is going on and it's getting worse. eBay of course will back them all the way and just put a hold on your money until they eventually side with the buyer. The one thing it is useful for is getting high value items out there. Just put them on a 10 day auction and do a cash deal before if you can. I just sold a chicken house like this. Could probably have got £50 more on an auction but I would then be waiting for the buyer to put in the slightest complaint about a scratch or some other nonsense and then my money is gone with no guarantee of getting either money or house back. It's become a joke really.

Where would I source a dead hedge of hawthorne do you reckon? Soil is light clay. Typical Devon red soil really.

I've just acquired a small bit of land bordering a country lane. It's a way from my home and I want to put some breeding chickens on it as a mini enterprise. The road hedge is fairly high from the road (6' most places) but is easy to scramble over. So, the first thing is a good strong fence but around here a few folk have had flocks stolen and my birds are worth a few quid. It's impossible to keep cockerels quiet so I can't stop people hearing them but that may arouse interest and if anyone knows their stuff, they might look over the hedge and see a good few hundred quids worth of birds ready to pinch. It's not so much the value to me, it's the time to build good flocks up again. Anyway, I think I'll be putting the hens there in late 2015 so was wondering what was the best way of getting an evergreen, thick hedge in there quick so people can't see in. A few thorns wouldn't go amiss either. Something difficult to scramble through. I can lay the top of the hedge and let it grow up as that's all syc / hazel / ash etc. but it won't do the job in the winter. I need a second barrier. I need to do about 100m of hedge. Any ideas which don't cost an arm and a leg?

I can't help thinking that the town councils have a part to play in this. If I want to shop on the high street in my local town, Totnes, I have to pay to park and then I'm on a time limit. If I can get parked at all. I can usually park out by the leech well but it's going to cost me and I have a half mile walk to the shops and back. Or I can go to morrisons and park easily. I may pay £2 for my ticket but I get it back at the till. The fact is that we get a Riverford veg box and an Eversfield meat box and we grow what we can but if I need butter in a hurry the whole system seems to drive me towards a big supermarket and makes it hard for me to go to a small family grocer. Tesco can go hang though. After the way they blanked Hugh on the chicken thing, I have nothing but contempt for them. They thought they could dictate what people want and the chickens are coming home to roost. Metaphorically of course as your tesco chicken will have spent its short live in hell and won't even be able to roost, being a manufactured, freak animal.

This is a great thread.

I was thinking it was a freak accident as stated at the top of the piece until the bit where he tries to catch the branch with his left hand. Ok, things happen and we all make mistakes but come on......

By the way, would a very mature SC coppice if felled? I've had about 50/50 success with mature Alder with some just dying but some exploding into new growth. A few of the big SC have fallen in the last couple years as the wood is on slate so I'm wondering if I felled them for timber whether such an old tree would coppice like an Ash would?

Hadn't thought of a DIY shoot to be honest. I've seen the pro ones and figured that would be best. I'm not in this for money. It's my wood and it's just for firewood although looking at the SC, there could be some really nice timber in there. I could ask neighbour but he's a clever chap and will want something in exchange for access. Probably a permanent right of way he's been trying to get off my family for many years. I don't mind a bit of sweat as I need the exercise and really. The big SC is up top on the level and might be a job for an Alaskan mill or something portable. God knows how I would get trunks down. I did think of rolling the rounds but figured that if they didn't hit anything on the way, the odd one would be death on wheels by the time it made the field.

Thanks, I'll have a look.

I think it's a 345 anyway. I admit that at the end of last winter I put it in the cupboard and because of various chaos, forgot about it. Pulled it out today to do a job. Put in fresh fuel but it's running badly. Will start and then stop. Sometimes will rev, then goes to no power, then takes off again. Went through about a tank of fuel today with no improvement. Seems to run better if the saw is tilted forwards. I know I need to pay it some proper respect but any ideas what could have caused this? Has the old fuel gummed up somewhere? The chain is running freely and chain oil is flowing well. At first I assumes there was some old fuel but there was very little left and I filled it right up with fresh. Do I need to totally drain the saw and start with fresh fuel?

I've got a steep wood with lots of nice fallen timber at the top. Sweet chestnut and oak plus plenty of syc which needs thinning / coppicing. Access is impossible from either side and it's 1 in 3 at least. A hard trek on foot with gear to get to the top. I could, in the future put in a zig zag track for a quad or ATV but don't have the money at the moment and also don't have such a vehicle. I have a Hilux but that can't get anywhere near the firewood. So, cheap or free ideas please? Zip wire? Log slide or something or is just a case of rucksacks full of logs? Further question. I know oak logs will last the few years I need to get access sorted but if I have some big windblown sweet chestnuts (2 foot dia), am I better to log them and stack the logs or leave them lying until I can get a vehicle up there? I have little experience with it as a firewood so not sure how long logs will stand up. I assume a long time as it's used for posts etc.