thomashenry

I think you're absolutely right about this. It's also very common for people to think that they are getting a ton of logs when they are in fact getting a builder's bag, aka 'a ton bag'.

According to Ofgem Home, a typical figure for annual household gas consumption is in a year is 16,500 kWh. Now, with a boiler at about 90% efficiency, it means a house is using about 15,000kWh a year of actual heat. The cost of this will vary a lot depending on your tariff, but around £600-700 quid would be fairly typical. So how much wood would you need to get the same amount of heat? Dry wood contains about 4kWh per kilo. Now the overall efficiency of most stoves is around 70%, so you actually get 2.8kWh of heat from each kilo of wood. Using these figures, you'd need 5.35 tonnes of dry wood to get 15000kWh of heat. In terms of cubic metres, we'd be looking at around 8? So at £60 a cubic metre, you'd pay £480, so that's cheaper than gas. £75 a cubic metre is the point at which firewood starts becoming more expensive than gas, and at £90-£100 it's a lot more expensive. Where I live, a fairly well established firewood vendor charges £95 per .75m3, equivalent to over £120 per cube. This is pushing around twice the cost of gas per kWh. So in general, log prices of around £75 a cube are competitive with gas in terms of energy output. Of course, with wood you get far far more than just heat, and the extra value from the cosiness and ambiance of a real fire makes logs far more than just fuel.

Very true, but I think the result is that most people with stoves/fire places only use them occasionally for the cosy ambience, rather than for seriously heating their homes. At £80 for 1/2 a cubic metre, wood is a lot more expensive than gas and even coal.

As a DIY logger, just for my own personal supply, I really struggle to see how it's a viable commercial product. I go through about 5-6m3 a year, and to buy that amount from local suppliers would cost me in the region of £800. It's just too much - only a limited number of people are going to be able/willing to pay that sort of price.

I have a Morso Squirrel 1412 and I think it's one of the only things I've ever owned that is perfectly designed and made. I can't fault it at all.

My experience is also that wood split thinner will dry out a lot quicker. I've got a 9" thick ring of willow (about 20" diameter) that's been sitting in my garden for a year or so - it's still sopping wet. Wood from the same tree that was split into logs dried out in a few months.

I never let them slumber, the overnight 'burn' technique I use is to put on as much wood as possible about 1 hour before bedtime, and let it burn as normal down to charcoal. At this point, I shut the stove's air supplies off completely. The charcoal will burn very very slowly for about 7 hours if there's enough of it.

Yeah, I mainly burn softwood (well, Willow but also a fair bit of pine). It's fine, but I do find hardwood has some advantages sometimes. To keep my Morso 1412 in overnight is easier with hardwood for sure. Different kettle of fish to your large boiler burner though!

To me there are two advantages of hardwood over softwood: 1. If you have limited space for storage, then 1m3 of hardwood goes further then 1m3 of softwood. 2. If you have a smallish 5kW stove, it's easier to keep in overnight with hardwood than with softwood.

I have a Morso Squirrel, 5kW. This is the first winter for which I've sorted out a proper log supply in advance. I started with about 5 cubic metres, and 500kg of smokeless coal. The stove has been lit almost everyday since mid October, and sometimes kept in for days on end. I also light an open fire in the living room fairly regularly. At the moment, I've got about 2 cubic metres of logs left, and about half the coal. So it looks like this amount is plenty for me. My spend on gas for central heating has been tiny this winter - looks like it'll end up being no more than 2000kWh.