openspaceman

Whilst I have no direct experience of masonry stoves I do have a lot of experience of the effect of slow heat release from a chimney breast. As my stove runs about 16 hours a day in winter and the house is very small (77m2) the chimney breast gets warm to the touch even in the bedroom above., with a thermal image one can plainly see the route of the flue and the gradual heating of the wider brickwork. This is so as the chimney is cement lined and does not have a flexible steel liner.

Yes but the union just above the tie looks weak and could develop a problem if the future. Agreed it is a bit late to prune it off but maybe the whole branch could be tipped to suppress its growth.

Funny you mention that, here we were in the trial area for showing ID and the reason given was because of voting fraud in a ward predominated by first and second generation immigrants from Pakistan.

Not got round to doing anything with it as the owner had bought a small brush cutter for all the weeding she needed doing, I have far too many projects on the go.

I asked before but they don't seem at all common

I don't know but because they burn so hot I doubt there is much soot to sweep off. I have no direct experience but have exchanged posts with Norbert Senf, of the US Masonry Heater Association, about various aspects.

Masonry heaters are popular in US where they have bigger rooms and houses. They get built in the middle of the house so the hot bricks radiate heat all around. Similar things are used in East europe where the flue even runs under brick sleeping platforms. The thing about them is they burn very cleanly because they run flat out for a few hours, the flue gases take a labyrinthine route through the brickwork . Because the bricks don't conduct heat as well as metal the gases have to pass a greater area of brickwork to lose their heat before passing up the chimney. After the fire has burned out the air inlet, and possible flue, are closed so that there is no circulation passing up the chimney. Soapstone stoves are a sort of inbetween, a normal metal stove clad in shaped soapstone which retains the heat.

He is clever he just has a belief system that doesn't allow for the fact we live on a finite planet.

Interesting, I have a FR480C, languishing in my shed for a few years, with a duff battery. This is the model with electric start and apparently no choke. The owner didn't want to pay for a new battery. Do you know if any of the pull start models like your, starter-recoil mechanism would fit?

Reads like it, also picture is far too pretty to be here

Anything over 750kg traveling at more than 25mph needs full suspension to stay within the law AFAIK

Sounds sensible, any particular reason? I remember the throttle response, injection settings I suppose, was entirely wrong when my mate went the other way and fitted a Perkins in a land Rover.

So sad, she was ten years younger than I and working behind the bar at the Dukes Head in Beare Green , after college or school, when I met her. Last time I saw her was at a forestry show ~15 years ago but I was still chatting to her when buying spares for an old shredder till around 8 years ago. Being out of the industry I had no idea she had gone till this thread.

Yes in essence; because traditional back boilers were literally the back surface of the combustion chamber they presented a less than 100C temperature to the firebox, this effectively quenches the flames and thus produces sooty particles, this is why the boiler surface always looks black from the tarry deposits. There is no reason a stove manufacturer couldn't have the boiler after the combustion was complete but at the same time the flue exit temperature would have to remain above the dew point of the exhaust gases and vapours. I think there is plenty of scope for making use of some of the concepts used in pellet burners and chip stokers to make a high tech stove with water heating but I expect the price would be a bit steep compared with a metal box, some fire bricks and a ceramic glass door. Or you could site a back boiler above a masonry stove.

Do you know how the prices add up? With ground mount there is no scaffold cost and that adds £1500 down here. Even a top grade inverter is no more than £2500 for 5kW and a cheap chinese hybrid much less. My panels were around £500/kW and if you can use a qualified electrician for the connection but to get the export money you need an MCS certified installer in order to get the certificate the electric company will require.

BTW Aberdeenshire will benefit from longer summer daylight but considerable worse outside temperature. Often when people find heat pumps expensive it is because of poor installation. A heat pump benefits from being able to utilise very low (~30C) flow temperature. Underfloor heating is ideal. Where radiators are used often there is not enough heat exchange surface, so return flow is not cold enough and hence the heat pump has to boost to a higher temperature, reducing COP ( the amount of heat you get out per kWh put in). Ideal for new build but tricky for retrofit.

Big capital builds, like HS2, Nuclear power stations, offshore wind farms as well as petroleum/natural gas exploitation favour big business, in the form of corporatocracy, a sort of monopoly caused by the limited number of organisations with the ability to fund and organise the work with government collusion, whereas an individual can make the decision to buy electricity storage, PV panels, even possibly a wind turbine and get a return on investment. Okay so the Chinese firms that make the equipment are big businesses but because there is competition the prices are reasonable. We know from HS2 where costs are not controlled by competition leading to massive price over running. Yes it is a dreadful shame that British companies could not compete in the market because Thatcher felt we could live off the backs of our finacial sector, big mistake IMO. We had been in general decline since 1918 and paying for loans from america in the war years was the clincher. We never developed a business philosophy to replace the colonial era. My system paid for itself in 10 years and because of the FIT subsequent payments have paid for the battery £3400) and additional 1.8kW PV (800) but I did a lot of the mounting myself with salvaged material. I buy 450kWh from the grid in winter but self sufficient mid March to mid October. I heat with a lot of "free" wood. My daughter's system is more typical, 2 strings one SE one SW giving 6kW installed power running into a 5kWhybrid inverter and 10kWh LiPo battery plus a Zappi car charger cost £12k, I think the firm made about £3k profit over cost of equipment, scaffolding and 3 man days installation by a very competent roofer and similar electrician.. Yesterday produced 32kWh and no grid electricity bought since March, including charging the car. If she can use all the predicted 5MWh of electricity it will produce that is worth £1750, else she will receive 15p/kWh for export which will reduce the return somewhat. Current production is exceeding prediction. If she plays the game she can make far more out of the battery by dumping it to the grid between 16:00 and 19:00 then recharging at off peak if necessary for a margin of 32p/kWh. Which can make the battery more sense than PV panels. Where it gets interesting is when you combine a (bigger) battery with an electric heating system and a low off peak tariff. I'll be sticking with wood for my heating.

Strange, I don't depend on it but do check the forecast coupled with the rain radar if I need a clear spell to do something outside and don't have problems. It is good at predicting wind in the context of wind turbines which is why they called for consumption reductions 22 times in the last winter, as well a just testing the concept.

As expected from a right wing rag it was an article pointing out the need for storage of electricity made from renewables and extolling nuclear power as the solution, because that benefits large corporations, when in fact as you and I know for personal use for the summer and most of spring and autumn one day's storage suffices. For PV the hungry gap in November to January is what needs addressing, wind less so. In the meanwhile better weather forecasting means that our biggest traditional generators can be scheduled to come on stream when needed, coupled with current pumped storage. And yes we must remain dependent on natural gas for a fair while yet and will have to pay for under utilising their capacity when not needed, in just the same way we pay to curtail wind power currently because the national grid has not the capacity needed. For the last few weeks I have been curtailing my solar PV production because it is capable of producing more than I use or can export. This is because it is sized to produce what I need in the shoulder months before I have to import in deep winter.

If it is a roll pin it may have snapped flush both sides so the OP is looking at the hole in the middle

I told them their wee scissors wouldn't cut through the layers of ballistic in my trousers and to take them off. I almost cried when the scissors cut them no bother 😉

Yes this can be awkward depending on the owner. Having faced this when someone threw a brick through my mother's garage roof the solution that had lasted over 20 years was to gently clean round the area and then apply a torch on high performance felt.

Yes a lot of variables. Here in the SE where it is warmer and dryer than most of UK I reckon to dry any wood split for my stove in a summer season, May to Beginning of October, to below 20%. A "normal" log is 10-12" long and I can pick it up with one hand by the cross section face. Most species dry below 15% but it depends on keeping them dry and having sufficient airflow.

...and you can still vote for whoever you like once you get there

That's right; when felling in production forestry there is inevitably grit blown up in the bark on sandy soils, whereas in peaty soils you can run all day without sharpening.