Steven P

I am living in Scotland which might explain my answer conforming to stereotypes. "The free stuff".. though even the English, Welsh or Irish on here are not adverse to that type either It will all burn, I like pallet wood simply because it splits down thin very easily, and offcuts tend to be very dry . Softwoods are better than hardwoods and anything with a straight grain. Anything gnarly isn't so good. My favoured at the moment is the rare pine I have in my log pile (I got gifted a lot of hard wood over the summer... dry pine is rare in the garage this season). Likewise would go with anything that was sappy as well, sticky to split but burns well. Anything nice and dry of course My other favoured source are the splinters that come off when I am chopping my main logs, mostly they are perfect kindling with no effort at all. That all goes into a box behind my splitting area and dries slowly to be good for the winter. Anything left from that in the summer is perfect BBQ wood too.

which kind of makes sense, an established firm working in their area would have arrangements to get rid of their waste I guess (which might be a piece of land with a big pile on that they are happy to give away if you ask).

Does not compute.. you mean you spoke to someone like face to face or on the phone or something and got it sorted. The internet will be very angry with you. Having said that most of my log supplies and access to them are from talking face to face to people, all sorts of people, just need to talk to them.

I thought woodsure scheme covered wood sales and not the actual burning of wood... so you can buy it all certified and nice in September, leave it outside till March and you are OK even if you can wring the moisture out of it. If you are not buying it then it is not relevant? Might be something in it in the future if you buy unseasoned logs but for now your OK

Why are you posting 2 very similar adverts right after each other again by the way?

of course, depends where you site the pallet a wooden one - often available for free - can last several years. My raised beds were not treated and the internal wood from pallets lasted about 8 years buried in soil (I had partitioned them to stop the mint spreading to much). If you are going to potentially gong to move the log store by the way? If you would move it by hand then it won't matter much what is under it, and at the end of the winter when it is empty you can replace any rotted and free wood pallets easy enough, but if you have a machine to help then try the plastic pallets.

I would have thought that a corded hedge trimmer would be lighter, no battery to carry, however is it an issue of strength or ability to grip the hedge trimmer? Certainly anything that can take the weight off your hands will help though. As for the other part of the discussion, I am assuming you have maintained this hedge yourself or years and have a level of competence doing so to achieve a standard you are happy with. Granted a team of professionals will be quicker, but there is nothing to say that they would be better at a job you have done for so long.

So being similarly tight... based on what I use, 80m3 is going to last a while so well worth making the most of it. It would be a different answer if you said 20m3, or 3 or 4 years worth,. Fire in the morning and then fire in the evening - morning fire to help out the other heating systems - my view that a smaller temperature variation is the best in the house, whether it is is between 19 and 22 deg C or 10 to 15 deg C, however you like it... but letting the temperature drop while you are out is the most efficient and cheapest though you suffer an hour or so of cool when you get in again. Stove.... go bigger if you have space and the regulation air supply (air supply plumbed direct to the stove is a good option). Stove top fan to get some air circulation, maybe 2 if you want to be flash. The next step I would go for is insulation and some insulation... the powers that be will insist on a minimum but while you are doing it be worth while getting the best you can afford, or the thickest layer of the cheapest that your space allows for. If the floorboards are up... ideal time to do under them too (else you will end up crawling under the floor to upgrade later if you want to and cutting holes in your floor to do so). You probably know that. And windows, again, for the costs of any new windows you put in, the step up to extra insulated might be worth it. Then a couple of cans of expanding foam or silicone sealer to seal all the gaps too (at a £5 each?) Then look at the what to put in for the rest of the heating. In the next few years gas boilers are going to be going out, in 10 years whatever fancy systems are installed just now will be replaced with electric boilers. Would it be worthwhile putting in an emersion heater for hot water (or maybe an instant hot water for the kitchen and bathroom sinks, plus a tank for a bath) and do away with a boiler all together? Electric under floor heating. Just to throw in an curved ball here too, one I might look into in the next few years is an air source heat pump.... but pumping out warm air and not hot water. Simpler and cheaper. Air source pump outside the house somewhere, and a duct into the house for the hot air to a simple wall unit? It might be that by ditching the LPG boiler (what £4k?) you might be able to install 2kW of solar panels? daytime heating if the sun comes out and a summer earner Just a couple of thoughts anyway... big stove, insulation and consider electric heating + solar panels

are these regs retrospective by the way? If they are and the installed stove doesn't meet the then you'll need to sort it - probably before the house is next sold and the home buyers report picks it up, if it isn't then all it has to do is comply to what they were when the stove was installed. By way of an example, the wiring regs changed the cable colours, blue and brown from red and black but you didn't need to rewire every property in the UK when they changed, just comply afterwards. I don't know if the same applies to stoves. I would be sure things like having a working CO meter is retrospective since it is an easy fix but not so sure about the actual hardware - stove, flue, and so on

Or.. take out the oak mantle and put in a concrete oak effect one? Cheaper than a stove

If it is that offensive (I am OK with mine)_ perhaps an option would be to call Victas who make a castable refractory ( a cement) and see if it would be suitable to put in a cement colouring, far cheaper and longer lasting than I think paint would be. Noting that in my stove I am replacing the fire bricks every couple of years.. casting then out of refractory is a bit more work than cutting them but it is the cheapest option and seams to last me a little longer than buying them. You'll need to measure what you use just now and make a suitable sized mould, and the right shape and then away you go. Noting to do this in the summer in case you don't get it right and have to make another set. -Edit- Thinking about it, I might try this!! Green or blue I think just because I can! No, sorry, 2 tone like landscape - hmm going to experiment

Just wondering if you need to post the same message in the same forum next to each other? Save yourself some time, post it once and use the time saved to grab a mince pie?

You might look to industrial suppliers rather than 'stove paint'. It's not cheap, this one is a bit over £100 a litre but sold in a 5 litre tub... or the cost of a stove as an example for you, but suitable for 1000 deg C Jotatemp 1000 Ceramic - New Guard Coatings NEWGUARDCOATINGS.COM Two component titanium catalyzed inorganic ceramic copolymer. It complies to the generic type Multi Polymeric...

I'd also go with the logs being a mix of hardwoods, wrinkly barks could be something like oak or willow - as mentioned above and the smooth something like ash or beech. As for moisture content, without preaching to the converted, did you split a log to try the frashly split face inside or just as it was given to you? If they have been in the rain then a dry log will still be dry inside with a wet outside, a few days can dry it if you get some win over the logs too - all depends where the log store is situated. From the pictures I woudl say that they have been recently cut to length and split.. whether they were dry at the time I cannot tell - some people will process logs depending on demand, I would feel more confident if I was buying a seasoned log that looke a bit more aged though. A second check you might want to do is pick them up and from exerience do they feel 'heavy' - not a scientific measure of course but if the feel heavy chances are they are wet, and a second not scientific test, knock 2 of them together, if they make a dull clunk that is wetter than a dryer soundng clink- just rough tests to give you an indication

My 2 pennies in all of this, I have an open fire in the main bedroom upstairs and a stove in the living room, with storage heaters that are never used. If I have cold house, I light the upstairs fire and it draws air from all the drafts.. which are mainly through the downstairs floorboards and pulls warm air upstairs. Heats it up a lot quicker. As for heat output... not very much effect in actually warming up the house on its own though. Efficiency.. my 5kw stove has a 6" flue, the 12" fire upstairs has 12" square flue... working this out about 5 times the area upstairs and then 5 times the amount of warm air can go up the small fire chimney? Hot air rises and if that fire is out overnight warm air from the house is still going up and no heat at all from no fire. I put a board over it when not in use. Efficiency is good and takes into account that a lot of 'room' warm air isn't also sucked up the chimney with the combustion gasses. Stove design helps for a more complete burn, more volatile gasses go up the chimney from an open fire, more get burned in a stove. Both chimneys go through the main bedroom and even with a steel liner you can feel the heat from the downstairs stove. Comment earlier about a couple or 4" drains by the fire for air flow. I have exactly the same, a 5" pipe directly under the stove leading to the crawl space under the floor. Put your hand over it and you can feel the air being drawn up it when the fire is on.

not really rugged but I have a sony-Ericson K900 or something like that, decent enough camera, makes calls and texts and cost about £30. Does me well enough though might not be tough enough

I have a single skinned flu up the chimney, and where it passes though the bedroom that part of the chimney gets nice and warm to touch. A double skinned flu I guess will get equally warm, and i wold be tempted to leave it as it is. You can use a stove with a single skin, like mine up a chimney or a double skin like yours (or also up a chimney), this extra insulation stops the gasses cooling too much and the tar sticking to the flu, chimney needs to be swept less often (though still at least once or twice a year) and a hotter exhaust at the top improves the draw at the bottom,.

I'm not an expert in these things but I guess so long as you arn't holding the chainsaw you can't hear it or get splinters in the eyes... and everything else the PPE protects you from

I wasn't sure till you posted the latest photo, developer wanting to get rid of a tree that was in the way, rip out the exiting lawn and trees, put in new turf at the back, and tidy up the hedge along the front and adds to the kerb appeal for a quicker sale. Wouldn't have got as much slack if you'd posted the last pic as well maybe. Just as a question, how much will it cost to repair the house, I assume it is more than just cutting down the tree, plastering inside and repointing outside? I assume some sort of repairs to the foundations are needed? Wondering if given your valuable time for all the chasing about and paperwork (lets say £25 an hour?), the cost for a tree surgeon to fell the trees, and so on, and I would also assume it will cost more to repair the house if the trees are still there? So what is the difference in cost between repair + remove tree (including all those costs) and repairs leaving trees in place?

Just looking at my stove, where the chimney liner enters the chimney proper they installed a concrete-ish floor to the chimney,sealing it off apart from the liner, just to check if yours has similar or not, otherwise is this somethng you could put in which should stop any leaks through her brickwork nto your chimney getting into your room. Obvousy doesn't solve where the smoke is getting through

Difference is if a steel lintel warps a bit or expands and contracts it could stress the house, cracks or broken plaster, if a loose fitted plate in a stove warps then it will just be a bit more leaky around the edges, slightly less efficient but you probably wouldn't notice. My register plate eventually warped enough that it didn't catch on the supports but plenty of warning this was going to happen. Now as for a steel lintel in front of a stove... my stove has been ticking over all day, not mega hot, but the concrete lintel is nicely warm, 35 degrees C maybe, maybe 40. If it was a steel beam it could expand by 2mm over its length -if- it was at boiling point (100 deg C) (1/2mm at 50 deg C), I don't know these things but unsure if this would cause big problems when concrete would expand about the same

Ask for more details and what the price would be if you collected it since you are reasonably local? If you cay "Coincidence, I live there too" then it is likely that the van will have moved, 'a friend or family member borrowed it for the weekend or something, but for £7k will deliver it back there for you'

I should try this one day soon

I got some stove polish from one of the sell-everything home shops which would work to remove that easy enough, looks like something sprayed on and not wiped off again. Looking at the hinge and the stove serviced 2 weeks ago - did they clean the glass for you? good chance it is the glass cleaning spray

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