Muddy42

not jesting but its difficult to prove either way unless you can time travel? Lifespan depends on hours of use, style of use, maintenance and a bit of chance. I used to just go for pro saws but even they can fail. Ive recently realised that there is value in having a small cheap saw as part of the collection. I can lend it out and if it fails it doesnt matter as much. I too had a 028 that lasted 20 years until there was an issue with the crank and seals, and an 088 that is still going but I think larger engines always tend to last longer. Im not convinced today’s MS saws are as tough as the 0-somethings , but we’ll see. My piston is already a bit scored after 3 years and Ive had to replace a lot of parts.

More power but also more weight. If you are only cutting small stuff, 35cc is ideal. also will it last 5 times as long? i have owned both. The 161 lasted 5 years, im not sure my 261 will last 25 years.

I find the professional versus consumer saw debate is a tricky one. If just looking at price when new say a Stihl MS162 is £160 versus a Stihl MS261 at £850 (professional saw). You could buy 5 of them for the same price. If you are not good at maintenance, replacing parts and/or wreak a consumer saw, there is a lot less to cry about.

i'll give it a miss then. Nothing drives me mad than proprietary equipment that you can't work on. New cars and dealer only stuff but also I lived in a house for a while where the previous owners burglar alarm company refused to give me the admin code and tried to put me on an annual contract just for changing batteries and vacuuming dust out of the sensors. I won in the end, the previous owner was under contract not me.

I prefer putting a carb kit in a genuine carbs to non-genuine replacement. You could try that. Does the tunning change when you tilt the machine in different positions? That and erratic revving could be an air leak. I'd P&V test.

Not sure, it made no sense. I immediately modified it. Maybe everything was meant to be held in the supplied vice?

There is no right or wrong answer with bar lengths but that sounds a bit extreme. I can't remember if the 365 is 65 or 70 is CC, but the old rule of dividing the cc by 3 is about right, which would be 23, so it sounds like you are already pushing it at 28 inches. Personally for a 36 inch bar id go for a 90 or 120 cc saw. Also unless you are milling, there are very few situations in the UK where 36 inch bars are essential. If you are milling, this is even tougher for the saw and I would still to a 120 cc saw for a 36 inch bar.

I bought a cheap KATSU Bench Drill Press recently that seemed to have two ON buttons, one of which you needed to keep pressed, so two handed operation. Its now permanently cable tied on.

Yes I've often wondered about CHP. Are these things properly serviceable to an enthusiastic DIY-er? One of things I like about simpler burners like ecoangus is you can take the whole thing apart - turbulators, fans, firebricks, pump etc.

Looks amazing. I burn way more than that already. I mostly store in lengths and then have a few days with a log processor each summer.

Sounds amazing! Id love to have one of those. Maybe when I downsize houses. I think this fear of slumbering, or cold water cooling the boiler, low stove efficiency etc is way too narrow a frame of reference. Your experience shows you can burn the stove hot and clean. Plus you are saving on heating oil/gas/electric.

??????? let's leave it here fella, you totally misunderstand me, I would rip up the all stove regs if I had my way.

I can never work out if you are agreeing or disagreeing or talking about something entirely different? As I said 5 hours ago I would be very happy with existing back boiler stove system that was properly setup with many of the safety features above. My understanding is there are two criticisms against back boiler stoves: - efficiency and clean smoke. current regs are pushing higher efficiency wood stoves that burn fast and hard. Introducing cold(er) water into a stove potentially cools it down which makes this hard to achieve. Personally I'm less concerned about efficiency and cleanliness because I have masses of dry wood and live in the sticks. If there isn't the right mixer value, more thinking is required. - safety. there is a risk that a system will either pressurize, boil if vented or run dry and pipes crack. Again I think all of this is possible to overcome with the right design and safety features. The bigger log central heating systems can dump water, pressure, shut the air right down and some can even extinguish the fire totally. I think the current industry, building regs, stove installers and plumbers etc, are being overly safety conscious and just taking the path of least resistance to push everyone onto leccy.

Fascinating, but I still behind my original assertion. I wish there was more R&D into modern stoves that can also heat water safely without the water cooling the stove down. As you know eco angus do this by controlling the burn with a fan, mix valves to control the return temperature and various safety features to stop overheating or excess pressure. Its not rocket science. I don't think pushing everyone onto electric is a good idea.

Not everyone has room for a boiler room or can afford to install an eco angus. I would just like there to be a middle ground between a £500 stove and a £5k eco angus. Modern stoves burn hotter and harder than older ones, but don't yet incorporate fans. Maybe stoves could include fans that are located outside which then pipe the air inside. Current policy seems to push everyone to electric heating/hot water/cooking, which puts pressure on the grid and generation and is not great in rural areas that suffer from power cuts.

Where is the fun in that. If only eco angus made a nice looking indoor version with a glass door and a quieter fan!

I also think its a shame that regulations have gone against back boilers. Ive always dreamt of having a massive 20kw stove that would heat hot water, radiators, towel rails. Maybe I should learn to braze copper.

i agree with the muppet bit. This person trots out all the old wives tales - that you can burn ash/cypress green or its fine if you get the fire hot, that he has found a patch of standing dead wood etc.

Its all about the fuel. One of the dirtiest smoke clouds I have seen was when a neighbour decided to burn some green wood fresh wet from his garden. Yes it was still dirty after burning for an hour, yes it was a modern ecodesign efficient stove.

There is a theory that 50:1 was implemented for environmental reasons in the US. Anecdotally most serious users I come across seam to favour a richer mix. Its very hard to test, the debate continues!

The problem with a government that doesn't have any money is they have to justify their existence by making rules and regulations. Dirty smoke is caused by poor fuel (insufficient seasoning time for wood) and has nothing to do with the device burning it or its 'efficiency'. If you put wet fuel on an open fire or a ecodesign stove both will produce dirty smoke.

You can get or make a device to protect the tree and direct the spray elsewhere. Personally I wouldn't bother and just wait and see what happens. Yes, grass can slow down growth but it generally doesn't grow high enough to cover the guards or kill them like bracken.

Its in all fuel, E5 and E10 to varying degrees. The ethanol is added by the refinery (allegedly at the last minute to avoid the ethanol messing up their systems or attracting water, oh the irony!) and each brand adds their own additives. It would be great if there was more testing and transparency in the UK. Finally its amazing that hydrocarbons retain their usefulness for millions of years underground and humans manage to refine it and add stuff that make it go stale after a few months!

I thought ethanol was the problem in both situations - attracting water but also softening and attacking "rubber" (or what we think of as rubber) flexible parts in carbs and fuel lines. The other junk additives (corrosion inhibitors, de-activators, and stabilizers) can settle in the carb as the rest of the fuel evaporates which causes gumminess and blockages. I'm really tempted to try and separate out ethanol one day to see how pure petrol performs and smells. there are lots of vidoes online about this.

My understanding is that newer twos strokes have better "rubber" or engineered plastics that can cope with ethanol, hence why the manuals say its ok to use ethanol fuel. I'm not saying they pump fuel doesn't cause other issues - water attraction, additives gumming up etc., carbon build up etc, but that carbs and lines are better able to cope with ethanol. I still try and check them for cracks or issues though.