Rob_the_Sparky

Note: in "the book" it does refer to softwood as "Kitchen wood" but I didn't take that as meaning it is not as good as other wood but that it was different. For cooking you want a faster burning wood and for heating you want something that you can put on and forget for a while. It is not saying that softwood is bad, just softwood is different. For me though wood that is dry is wood that is dry. My wood is arb waste so I get what I get and it is almost free so I don't complain.

I suspect that if you could find the source data for the studies then the real picture may be found. In the bits of cherry picked data given it is reducing the burn rate but also the fire temperature, no indication is given that there is any improvement in efficiency. If you burn less fuel and you get less heat then I don't see what is gained. I'd guess there is no proof of an efficiency improvement as that would be a key number to use in advertising if it existed. You won't find me buying unless you can show an efficiency improvement. Edit: A search for the papers quoted gets no hits on Google so no way to see what the independent reports in full.

I will always be sceptical until proven otherwise. The independent tests would be interesting to read but there are no links to the complete data from their sites and snippets by a manufacturer can be misleading. The pretty picture at the start rings alarm bells as it shows air coming in from below the fire, which when burning wood on a stove should be minimal.

The press coverage is certainly trying to panic people, headlines are all about wood burning stoves but what detail there is does not actually seem that focused on wood burning stoves. In fact it seems to be more focused wet wood and coal. IMHO the devil is in the detail and we don't have the detail yet. I think it is interesting that they might tighten wood burner emissions (by design of new products) but do not mention banning installation of new open fires. Seems to me that someone is targeting what is easy to enforce rather than what is going to make a significant difference.

The one I have (cheap) uses an electrical measurement between a pair of probes so if the outside of the wood is dry but the centre is wet then it will read dry. I have read that the way to test properly is to split the log and then measure the newly exposed timber, but I have not tried this.

Will be interesting to see if they try and regulate for people selling wet wood for logs (unprocessed) rather than logs. I suspect that there are quite a lot of people who process their own logs out there from arb waste (I'm one of them and I know of several others where I work that do it). In my eyes arb waste is not fire wood/logs until processed so I'd hope that this new regulation would cover only the sale of processed logs. I've only been doing this for about 3 years now but I'm using local arb waste that is dropped off as my contact is passing on his way home, processing by hand and air drying so almost no carbon footprint to produce it and I now use less gas to heat the house so it is reducing the amount of CO2 produced to heat the house. In the process it also reduces the heating bill and I get some exercise and satisfaction from swinging an axe. Also learnt a lot about how to/not to sharpen my chainsaw last year

TBH from the limited amount said so far logs aren't going to be affected very much. New wood burners will have to meet stricter standards, coal may be banned, logs have to dry. The pain may come in the finer details of how logs are ensured to be dry enough and what "dry enough" means but otherwise I don't see too much to worry about. As this is politics they conveniently have picked the stats on local air quality and ignored the bigger picture of global warming as a full and balanced discussion does not make headlines...

Does this help? Particularly this bit: When to consider controlling ivy If the branch canopy becomes thin and allows sufficient light to enter, the ivy will develop into its arboreal form. Fraxinus (ash) and Larix (larch), are both trees with a naturally thin, open crown so may suffer heavy infestation. For this reason ivy on ash and larch trees is often controlled

When I needed some for home use I rang my local tree surgeons. Some understandably use the waste wood for their own log businesses but not all do. I had an arrangement for last year where one of the locals will drop off a load on his way back from site if he is passing, I got about 5 cube (after I processed and stacked the as logs) from him last year and he was happy to deliver more. You just have to not be fussy, all wood burns...

There is a thread on stove top fans. I think it depends on your situation whether they are worth while or not. My opinion is that in my situation where the burner is in a fairly small recess (what would have been a fire place) then it helps move the hot air out into the room. Not so sure they do much if the burner is more out in the open, anyway best to go look at the thread.

Ever considered building your own? Depends on what size you are talking about but I have built myself one from old fence posts (rotten bit cut off) and planks recovered from pallets. It cost me a few nails and some paint.

The x27 is described by Fiskars as "Splitting Axe XXL X27". The XL is the x25 "Splitting Axe XL X25" and according to the Fiskars advice probably as big as you should be using: https://www.fiskars.co.uk/products/gardening/axes/how-to-choose-the-perfect-axe

I've been using a cheap 6lb maul from screwfix for the last few years, bought as a set with a hand axe and a "wood grenade". I also have a 12lb sledge, a Fiskars wedge (one with a twist in it) and recently bought but not used yet x27. My experience is that the maul needed some work with a file to get it to work but I'm pretty happy with it now. I modified the shape a bit as well as giving it an edge of sorts. The hand axe is OK just needed sharpening but I don't use it much. Both are made from pretty soft metal though. The wood grenade is pretty useless but if desperate I can use it as a wedge in a crack already opened by the fiskars wedge or maul. Otherwise it just acts more like a giant nail and is a so and so to remove from the wood once it does split. The fiskars wedge is great for really knotty stuff but is a bit of a last resort as it is slow. The sledge I use on the maul and with the wedge, it is a bit OTT but it works Looking forward to trying out the x27 this season.

Sounds like someone needs to read Lars Mytting's book "Norwegian Wood".

I get a little ash on the glass on my CLearView, which has air vents similar to those described. Bit of damp paper and ash though and it wipes off very easily and builds up again fairly slowly.

A local tree surgeon drops off wood at my place on his way home for a small donation if he is doing a job locally. I only have one stove so he alone can deliver more than I can use in a year. I get the stuff he does not want himself so mostly softwood and stuff that is hard to split. I then cut, split and dry it all myself. The exercise and satisfaction of hitting lumps of wood with an axe is as much of the interest in the wood as the cheap fuel and enjoyment of the fire itself.

Clearview Pioneer 400 on 6" legs - very happy with it. Thought it looked a bit small for the room when specifying it but that was as big as I could get into the space I had. Actually about the right size, I don't have to throttle it down and the room can get really warm, sometimes too much so, and I keep the door open all the time to help heat the whole house.

Agreed, I'm getting arb waste (small quantities for home use) and my logs only did this outside in wet weather before I split them into rounds. They had the same pattern as well (mostly just under the bark) that I guessed was because this was the sap wood so wettest. I'm guessing that these logs are still wet under the bark.

Just to get people back to the real world for a moment about particulates and cars, exhaust emissions are only part of the picture: "Electric vehicles emit no NO2 but do produce small particle pollution from the wear on brake discs and tyres and by throwing up dust from roads. A recent European commission research paper found that about half of all particulate matter comes from these sources." From: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/04/fewer-cars-not-electric-cars-beat-air-pollution-says-top-uk-adviser-prof-frank-kelly and anyway particulates are only part of the overall picture.

Mine works well but then my (small) burner has a flat top and is in a recess in the wall ~600mm wide, 1m high with the front of the burner level with the wall. I clearly need to get the air out of that recess and into the room so got a fan a few years ago. Not sure if it makes any difference to the efficiency but you can clearly feel the hot air being moved into the room.

I'm amazed how often photographers taken photos showing wood stacked up around wood burners. For example: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/michael-goves-stove-ban-is-a-direct-attack-on-country-life/ and even worse: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/12170394/Why-my-wood-burning-stove-will-be-the-death-of-me.html Little wonder you get people doing this if the main stream press uses photos like this. Particularly the second one...

I drive past you on the way home bu as I'm always on the way to collect the kids or other goblins have got there first never collected any. I do know others at work here in Guildford though that get their supplies by collecting from you. When you are splitting for home use time is not so much of a problem and using a maul on the tough stuff is good exercise for us office workers :) Free is free after all.