neiln

I picked up a few rounds of it from a local tree guy. Yes, its like tightly packed grass. it split apart easily though so went in the stack to dry and i burnt it this past winter. I thought it might go woof! like a bundle of hay or straw but it burnt slowly, not much heat though. i wouldn't bother with it again although it was low effort.

Hi Alycidon. The Franco Belge is a Belfort, 5KW freestanding, good solid stove and although i know it would sell on easily I've nabbed it and its going to be a posh patio heater for me (I've bought 2m of flue pipe and a sack truck to move it easily. That stove wasn't fitted in mum's present house, she moved last year and took the stove, planning to fit it again. This new house has a Jetmaster fireplace, not great. She got mucked about by a sweep that had quoted to fit the Belfort but clearly didn't want to (why give a quote? why give a very cheap quote!?) she found a new sweep. When he came to sweep the flue and quote it was soon obvious the last guy didn't even sweep more than the first 2m or so last september and just wrote out a certificate...so good job he isn't fitting the belfort after all we feel. New guy suggested something different and mum went off to a local retailer with my brother and they picked out the brabas. I've now seen the brochure and it looks good, very swanky. its a 4.9kW unit, Dutch. Looks so good it makes me jealous....maybe my stovax needs changing....hmmm.....but then again the brabas is costing 3 times what my stockton costs so maybe not. I've a youtube review by ecostoves and it looks decent, high quality, and has a ten year warranty. As you say, its not a big company, and you wonder if they will thrive or not, but it seems a good product ...and may well outlive mum

It seems mum has decided to fit a swanky new designer stove so has a Franco belge Belfort to re-home...to me. 600lb rated sack truck is £30 on eBay so moving it isn't an issue. I'm thinking 2*1m lengths of enamel flue pipe which costs about another £50. I'm going to have a swanky outdoor stove this summer!

Mum's getting a new stove, replacing an old but absolutely perfect Franco belge instead of getting our installed in the new house. I think the sweep has suggested the barbas,. Dutch she's told. Anyone know if they are ok? Just don't want her being sold something rubbish by a sweep that's making extra to supply.... Not fussed on replacing a perfectly good stove... It's paid for itself and it may be the unilux will fit the new opening better .... Or at least it's for the sweep to sort out installing it if he's recommended it!

Still going. Just a few hours of an evening but the forecast is for another week of drizzly greyness so I'll use more yet. Really glad that I had a good summer for scrounging last year. Managed to make a couple of new contacts through WFH, hearing saws and walking out to say hello, then got loads dropped off. Plus a couple of neighbours took oaks down. I scrounged about 25 cube over the last 12-14 months. So despite burning more then normal I've good stocks. It's good to be 2 years up right now.

Creativity needed. I'm in South London, zone 3, typical '30s semi, so not tiny garden but not acres either. Old and collapsing garden shed with internal dimensions of 6'6" X 8'6" filled solid holds about 9-9.5 m³. Front South having wall of the house gets stacked to window sill height and 2 rows deep making another 3.5-4 m³ and finally a pallet wide stack as high as the fence down one side of the back garden, pallets under and tarp over, another 15-16m³. That all looks quite tidy in my eyes, although the logs awaiting processing piled beside the patio or strewn on the small front garden don't I admit! 2.5 average winter's worth of wood if everything is full, although I think most I've ever got to is about 24-25m³.

Build another shed, or just get assume pallets and tarp the top. That's what I do for 2/3 of mine. It's fine with good quality tarp.

It depends how desperate you are. Or splits ok and dries (it shouldn't rot!) But dries light. One of those pithy woods with not much to them so a lot of volume for not so much back. It does burn though. I've a couple of cube in my stack but only took it as I was building my relationship with another local tree guy (and since have had 3 mature oak trees). If he called offering more, right now is pass.

I actually managed a night without the stove yesterday! Looking at the forecast for the next two weeks, I reckon I'll be lighting it for a few hours must evenings still. I could end up burning until June at this rate.

My 5 and 5 year old girls bullied me into doing their first camping experience in the garden at the start of April. Lots of fun but must have been the coldest night I've ever spent in a tent with a heavy frost on the fly sheet and condensation in the inner! Still, survived it and they are keen to do more! Just need to convince the wife to try it now 😂

I think 8m³ might save more than that on gas, I have guesstimated in various ways and got £60-£75 per m³. However even the top end of that, scrounging and processing wood I'm down at about £10/hour. Still, I enjoy the work and the house is much more comfortable. It was just the depths of winter when I got tired of lighting 2 stoves as RT breakfast and feeding logs all day, then wading across a swamp of a lawn and refilling 2 IKEA blue bags with lots logs and carrying to the house. WFH meant I fed the stoves and kept the house warm though, and consequently burnt half as much again as the last couple of winters.

I normally stop about now, a week into May, and normally have quite a few fire free nights through April. Seems to have been cooler this Spring and I've only had 3 or 4 nights without a fire at far. Looks like it might finally warm up that last few degrees Sunday though. ~12m³ burnt, c/h only used for about 10 days in February when I got fed up of lugging wood in from the stack. Saved a good chunk off my gas bill.

Please please PLEASE stop spreading dangerous rumours that leylandii is good to burn! It'll make it much harder for me to get good firewood.

That Esse above looks fantastic! It's something I'd love if I had a nicer outdoor space rather than a garden full of wendy houses, play prams and other kids toys (haha!), the price is just a bit rich for me currently. It does make me think about something I've thought before though, buy a cheap chinese made log burner which can be found for £250-£350 new, buy some flue pipe, maybe buy some decent wheels or casters and attach them so its easy/possible to move and put away. £350-£450 and your done. No it won't be the quality of the Esse, no where near, but I'd hope it woul be more durable than the lightweight backpacker toves, and definitely much bigger, at a price that I could convince myself is reasonable.

Yes it's all compromise isn't it. I'm like you though, I don't like being smokey, it often makes me feel unwell.

Yes I was sat by a chimenea Sunday night and had a headache from the smoke, although clothes didn't smell the next day and the thing was warm. That outbacker stove looks interesting. I wonder if another 0.5m on the flue might be needed.... Can't really judge it's size.

Sounds positive. Shame they don't radiate more heat though.

so how did you find the solo worked then?

No rush, I know you've got your eye out for something.

Thanks Joe, I'll translate a few terms to British English 1400sf=square feet. large-ish but not huge....my rough calc gives ~1250sf for my largish for london 3 bed semi. a cord of wood is 128 cubic feet or 3.5 m3 joe mentions power outages / black outs. rural us, ice storms, wind storms etc its not uncommon for power to be out for a day or 2, or for rolling blackouts if demand exceeds supply in cold periods....People died in Dallas this winter when they had a bad cold storm and rolling black outs. so wood heat is there as an important back up. read norwegian wood, its law in norway to have a wood stove for the same reason oh and if you've seen the axe thread here, Joe is the very kind gent that sent me the True Temper Jersey

Blimey, £250 on wood saved £400 on gas, wow. Oh hang on... Heating bill, not gas... Your not on mains gas.. adds up now. I reckon a cube of wood saves me about £65-75 of mains gas. I spend time on arboristsite more than here which is why I know a bit about the American stoves and practices. In fact I believe rarefish from there has just signed up here to ask about an Elwell axe. I'll point him here for some first hand input rather than what I've (mis) understood.

If by primary you mean air from beneath the grate, and secondary air from above (often air wash down the glass) then most wood burning stoves are cleanest burning and keep the glass clean with the primary shut and secondary controlling the stove. Your Mecca stove would be fabulous but wood isn't dense enough to pack l enough energy in to a small firebox.

Go on hearth.com and read the user experiences, or any of the other mainly us forums, and you'll get a feel for how they use their stoves

They are MASSIVE stoves. The bk Princess is at least 4-5 times the size of yours, assuming you have a 5kw stove. It will take 16" logs, split no more then say 8-10". Big logs burn slower, a huge fire box takes a lot more fuel. They really do burn a long time, the large secondary air stoves will do 8-12 hours, cat stoves 12-24 or more if right down low. They aren't more efficient, it's the same regs. The European regs just copy the US EPA regs a few years behind, besides our stoves are 80-85% efficient so there's not much to gain there. It is simply more fuel in the stove. Plus your 40 minute reloads are to keep pretty flames, the big stove long burns a "load to 'coals". They aren't pretty looking room heaters, they are devices to heat a whole house through a cold winter easily.