neiln

I agree that syc is very consistently easy splitting and dries well, but it doesn't compare to the denser woods when actually on the stove. I burn a lot of it though, its alright. not sure its the least labour intensive though, that prize goes to robinia pseudo acacia/black locust which in my experience splits easier and burns like oak, silver birch is also a consistent easy splitter for me. Oddly, despite all I've read, for me Ash has been a consistent PITA to split....I've no given up though, it does bun nicely.

often it just needs some fresh thermal conducting goo on the peltier to fn base bond. cost for the goo is just a quid or 2.

E.gunni? I know Aussie hard wood are insanely dense growing there but the eucalyptus I've scrounged has always been fast growing, rings 1cm wide, easy splitting and like conifer to burn.

Well I split 12-18" diameter rings with a hatchet, id call that really really really easy. Holy pine? Blessed?

I knew Americans rate locust very highly and had looked it up and found its pseudo acacia/robinia. I'd started to notice it's not uncommon in parks... It helped seeing a labelled tree in crystal palace park. When I got offered the chance to gather some I jumped, and now I'll always jump. I found it burnt like Oak and it was really really really easy to split.

Horse chestnut dries to something that is not very dense, not a great wood for burning. Sycamore is plentiful and ok but not special. Anything dry is very true but my favourites Oak False acacia Holly (so long as someone else has dealt with the prickles) Apple, quince Ash

same for me - heat the whole house. I checked my gas useage against 2 years ago, before i fitted either of my stoves, and I now burn a bit under half the gas I did, while downstairs is 3-4C warmer than it used to be, upstairs is as warm or a degree warmer, the house is drier, the snugness is amazing!

Yeah I've learnt over the past 2 years I've had my stove, log size and type give the most control of burn temp and speed

Lol yes I meant the room door! odd isn't it, an airbrick is easy to add but so avoided, although I suspect the need for 6 inch flue liner not 5 inch is a second and very good reason to stick to the lower kW stove. Where are customers putting these stoves? in a fireplace? if so then I how do they fit a wider stove that is too big for the room? the fireplace would be sized to the room, the stove that fits the fireplace must be (roughly) sized to the room too....roughly how big are your logs? 3 on either of mine and its brutal, its not 4.5kW 45 minutes? conifer and burning fairly hard, 45 yeah. oak...hour and half, apple or quince....2 hours +.

Open doors, use a floor fan, warm the whole house.

Most 5kW nominal stoves are rated at 7 ish max though surely? Well the 2 I have experience of, Franco belge Belfort 7.5kW max, stovax Stockton 5, 7 kW max.

impact driver for big screws. bosch blue drill driver combi deal

the staining from iron in oak will travel several metres up the trunk. As said above, tannic acid in the oak reacting with the iron, its why you don't use steel screws/ironmongery on oak products, only brass. I had an oak in my garden, about 20" diameter, when felled the tree surgeon (poor sod) found a horseshoe completely swallowed at ground level. he knew it was there though, the staining went a couple of metres up the trunk. zone 3 London and a horse shoe in the middle of a tree....a reminder I guess that when the tree was small it was farmland

The brushes are not stiff, it's basically strimmer string. I've read creosote comes in 3 stages, stage one - powdery soot like, easily removed. Stage 2 - getting wetter and oily/tar like, removable but messier. Stage 3 - heavy deposits, the oily tar has dried/hardened to thick caked on tarmac like tar. Removal is hard, wire brushes and spinning chains to break off, but damage to a flue possible. What I take from that is, sweep often enough that you never get type 3, and hopefully not much 2. Burn dry wood and burn hot and I guess it would take a long long time to get more than type 1.

Can't remember the brush make but could dig it out and check if you like. got it online and aid for a top end home owner/semi pro set of rods that are more resistsnt to heat. my flue has bends, the danger with cheap rods is leave it spinning but not moving and where it touches around a bend it heats up quickly and gets damamaged...so obviously keep it moving but also better rods resist the heat more. thinki paid about £100 for err 9m of rods and the brush. here's the set up, vac catches to minimal dust tht might escape (very little as i tape up around a bit of waste pipe and feed th rods in through that). most soot/creosote falls into the stove. And the result, 1/3 or 1/2 a ash pan of light poweder, dark brown colour.

Could you insulate the liner from the top? I believe standard rockwool is fine, or purpose made blankets can be wrapped round the liner. I get the issue with a constriction making it difficult to pull a wrapped liner through but if you can access the top and push, poke, drop bits of rockwool down around the liner and insulate above the restriction that may help a lot. It's bound to be the top where the gas is coolest and most of the soot is. I sweep my flue with a power sweep/rotary brush system, through the pipes access door, letting the soot fall into the stove. each year I get enough powder to half fill the ash pan. That's from burning 6-7m³ of 18-24 month CSS wood. If I remember next time I'll stop and check on the accumulation of soot after the first 6m, before I do the last 2m,. My stove is on the adjoining wall to next door (so internal flue) but last 2m is above roofline. My guess is that most of the soot is accumulating in that last couple of metres.

good effort!

Another couple of possible differences i thought of. do your parents ever soot the glass? They will be sooting the flue a little at the same time, maybe you run that tiny bit hotter. Do they shut down and relight every day, but you run continuous? I'm guessing if they are room heating then they may. Every start involves a sooty period and a cold flue for it to settle on.

insulation will make a big difference but also, are both flues internal or is your parents on an external wall? Is your parents the same length or longer? longer will draw well but will also cool a bit more before the top. Same diameter flues? you have a bigger stove? bigger will mean more flue gas and thus it will be travelling up the same diameter of pipe faster, thus cooling less per metre travelled. also I am guessing you run yours to heat a big space and ths run it fairly hot? parents not slumbeing but still running nearer 'tick over' to just heat a room will make a difference. Lots of things all making a bit of a difference possibly. I've read its worth doing periodic (say every few days) a hot hot burn, get the flue properly hot all the way up and drive out any dampness or creosote that may be accumulating.

exactly! an open fire will cool a room in a modern house, taking more heat out by sucking huge volumes of heated (by another source) air up the chimney than it releases into the room. look fab but. You could go with a large fireplace insert though, a good way towards stove efficiency with a good chunk of the looks of the fireplace. as for stove fitting if i wasn't scrounging free logs...well i wouldn't have the 2 stoves, I'd definitely want one and would likely fit one but like the vast majority of stove owners thse days, I'd buy 1 or 2 cube of wood a year and just run th stove for a few hours on the odd midweek evening and a bit more at weekends....not like currently where i kick the *rse out of the stoves and get quite agitated if the gas boiler fires up.

vermiculite is lighter and better insulating so better for those two aspects. afaik its just as durable to heat but it may be more fragile to being hit by logs/poker etc. i replaced knackered refrwctory bricks in a franco belge with vermiculite and all seems good, oh and it was cheaper.

Excellent,. It may not be the densest then, but straightforward splitting wood, delivered, and free is always a good thing.

How's lime to split? I've got some on the way to try out. It'll be a tree from a garden somewhere in South London, so likely it's not straight grained. Will it be x17, x27, Stihl 8lb maul, or 365 on noodle duty?

i was looking new, although end up with a great used 365xt, but I considered this lot ms461 £781 - 6 horses, a full on stage coach, no pony and trap here. £130 per horse _________________________________________________________________ too costly line, wet dream saw but remember I only buck woo dolmakitasach 7900 £550 - 5.7 horses ------the stand out £96/horse....but after failing to get one delivered for over 2 months, and trying 2 different on line dealers, i came to my senses and returned to thinking stihl or husky 365 xtorq £550 - 4.83 horses ----- £113. fr jones, a very good dealer, are about 3 miles away so this saw makes a lot of sense 550xp £515 - 3.75 horses why would anyone?..well anyone after a great, light saw would, but if weight isn't an issue then, no. ms391 £498 - 4.5 horses £110/horse if weight is no issue this is a worthy contender. its a farmboss/homeowner saw though ms261 £495 - 4.16 horses £118/horse i got a bit put off by the cranks made of soft cheese issue husky rancher 555 £483 - 3.8 horses £127/horse didn't consider the ms441 its much lighter than the 461, but similar money and less powerful, and weight isn't an issue for someone that only bucks wood, at home, running a tank or 2 through it, so the ms441 was ruled out very quickly.

Husky 365. That's why what I got to compliment my 180. Small saw does 85-90% if the work, big saw for the big stuff. I considered ms261 but got the husky in the end. I suspect if you get the 260 and a 16" bar it would do everything and you'd sell the ms180.