Spruce

What is wrong with you lot down south? If I lived where you do I'd be heating my house for free

Is that Strathbogie Saws? And c'mon, Aberdeen/Huntly isn't too bad in the winter. Bit slow, maybe, but the same goes on all routes.

The sitka we get from the FC always has a lot of rot in it, I don't know if this is just a consequence of being palmed off with rubbish they can't get rid of any other way or whether sitka is quick to rot once down. Even rotten, though, it burns fine if it's dry, provided you can split it without it disintegrating into smush.

Much better if you can't, then you're getting the maximum volume for your money. To the OP: That sounds expensive. If you're the end user make sure you are paying 5% VAT.

Yes, and it should be marketed as such. Kiln drying (ie, drying with heat generated from a fuel source) is a complete nonsense. If you think about it it's as wasteful of energy as burning green wood in your stove. There's a place just down the road from us producing wood pellets for pellet boilers out of perfect processor size cord. I don't know how wasteful of energy the process of making pellets is, but I'll bet it's at least as bad if not worse than kiln drying. If it were a waste product that was being made into pellets it would probably be justifiable, but decent wood that could just be cut up, air dried then shoved in a stove? Bonkers.

But you probably sounded like you had a clue when you phoned then up. "Oh, er, hello, I'd like to, er, buy some wood for firewood please" was probably pretty close to what I said. They sure didn't need to ask whether I was the end user:001_tongue:

The FC sell cord to the end user at 5% VAT. 25 tonnes is about a year's supply to heat a reasonable sized house up here, a lot of (most?) people who rely on wood for heating buy in by the artic load and process themselves. It wouldn't be financially viable to do it any other way.

Is it ok to have it signed off by the building inspector rather than a Hetas engineer?

I'm not totally sure whether you're answering my post or the thread, but I put in a 7" liner as recommended by the stove manufacturer for wood burning. It draws great - but only with air from the bottom which is the way it's meant to work. The airwash is there to keep the glass clear, the air from the bottom comes through a thermostatic flap controlled by the boiler temperature. There is an additional manual air intake which we normally only use when lighting (instant raging inferno!) or when it's flat calm. Flue is swept twice a year, probably excessive as very little comes out, and it runs straight up . We have no problems with lack of ventilation - quite the opposite, unfortunately. In spite of that the house is lovely warm. We use about 3/4 artic load of softwood a year. It's also our only heating apart from the little Esse, but we don't really need that. We were going to do a combined oil boiler and stove originally but thought we'd get lazy and use the oil too much, so we thought we'd see how it went without the oil. As it turns out we've never once regretted that decision.

We'll be burning Scots pine from about Xmas, once the rotten Sitka I got landed with last time round is finished. The Scots looks and feels much more substantial and I'm looking forward to getting it into the stove!

Maybe it's a size thing - ours is quite a big stove (Aarrow Stratford 21kW), we just wouldn't be able to burn enough wood to heat the house without an air supply from below as well as the airwash, unless it's a really wild night. Now I think about it the wee Esse we have in the living room burns fine on the airwash, but that only takes a few small sticks. It can be quite hard to get that one shut down enough when it's windy without blackening the glass.

I have to say that isn't what we've found. The sooted up glass is caused by incomplete combustion due to insufficient air getting to the fuel - the 'airwash' from above is raraly enough to prevent this. The glass remains clear, or at least clears quickly after lighting if there's a good air supply from below. The only time I'd shut off the primary air supply completely is when there's a gale blowing and the flue is sucking like crazy.

If you're giving it away we're near Banff, feel free to drop it off any time! What is this problem people have with softwood? We've been heating our house with it for a few years now and it's, well, wood and it burns.

I went one worse than that! I had a Performance Power electric chainsaw first, then a Performance Power petrol one before I gave up and bought a Husky 345e. Since then I've cut 5 artic loads of cord and it's still great. If it weren't for my, er, 'variable' sharpening and the occasional bonus Forestry Commission stone life would be perfect.