Wood burning stove?

[ziplex]

Anyone fitted a woodburning stove and liner? Our gas fire is next to useless in the winter so was thinking about getting a woodburner but it seems i'll have to fit a liner too , like to hear from anyone who's done a DIY or if you may have some contacts to get a quote for fitting the liner at least?

[digit]

Do you mean liner in the chimney?

[smokingdragon]

I'm looking into this at the moment!

 

From all accounts you will need a twin wall s/steel liner, if the existing flue is big then you will have to have insulation around the liner to keep the temps of the smoke up as it disappears up the chimney.

 

Costs seem to be around £700 if straight forward to £1400 if they have to remove the colapsed volcanic flue that i have!! - This includes fitting the burner!!

 

Simon

[col s10]

got one about 5 years ago.great bit of kit.no liner,no probs,got the chimney swept everey year.the last fire of the year probably about feb.disaster,chimney fire.

[racingfrank7]

I have just put a wodburner in the winter just gone, i bought a charnwood, did it all myself start to finsh, it was a head ache and a half but well and truely worth it, the heat that they kick out is mental (and i was brought up with having a open fire, don't even compare!) mine wasn't as easy as just lining a orignal chimney, i didnt have one so had to knock hell out of the wall and then run twin wall stainless steel selkirk flue up the outside of the house which is £100 per metre , from what i can remember you dont need twin wall, but you need a plate at the bottom of your chimney (sorry cant remember proper name) followed by a liner running full length of your chimney which just slides in and its about £50 per metre then some sort of pot or top hat.

 

But no amount of head ache it gives you and cost's you (with in reason) they are the nuts and you won't regret it esp if you can keep getting wood for nothing my heating bills have halfed and i will have one in every house i own from now on.

 

Hope this helps

[Dougy]

did mine last year, check out www.firestove.co.uk.

 

all you need from them

 

 

 

 

 

I dont know were £100 per metre came from for liners

Edited July 19, 2009 by Dougy

[miniwizard]

if you have a chimney,you dont need a liner,just a blanking plate up the chimney and a single skin stove pipe,about £60 a metre,if your gonna burn coal,make sure you get the sweep in now and then,if you burn just wood,you wont need him but dont burn and sort of pine,this will clogg the hell out of it

[Plumbob]

you should find the facts here, http://www.hetas.co.uk/index.html

 

Regards Plumbob

[sbald]

Did mine myself took about an hour so easy, got all my bits from here.

link

 

Believe me you wont regret it

[Dougy]

as far as the liner goes it depends on the state of your chimney, (internal) any loose bricks, cracks, decayed mortor due to gas fires you will most probably need a liner.

 

Have you thought of getting one with a boiler for your radiators and water extra £200 for the stove approx, and thermostat

[pegasus bridge]

if you have a chimney,you dont need a liner,just a blanking plate up the chimney and a single skin stove pipe,about £60 a metre,if your gonna burn coal,make sure you get the sweep in now and then,if you burn just wood,you wont need him but dont burn and sort of pine,this will clogg the hell out of it

 

 

 

i took out an open grate fire and replaced it with a wood burning type stove a couple of years ago - i had a local metal works cut me a blanking plate with the hole in - it works a treat really strong pull on the flue - half the fun of these is tinkering with the settings to get the burn just right. and the best thing to clean the glass is wood ash (from the burner) mixed with vodka it rubs the stains off in seconds

[Conygree]

You need to check up but I'm sure you need a stainless liner as wood soot will corrode the mortar in an unlined brick chimney and can cause a gas carbon monoxide leak, normally between floor boards, this is also true for many other countries.

 

I had an old gas fire with its 5" pipe up the chimney, I fitted a Stovax Sherriton - needed to cut the brickwork out to fit it in. I connected it to the 5" pipe althought he book said 6". Worked ok for say 8 years but he pipe was too small and would need cleaning twice a year to get a good draft. In the end the pipe broke near the top of the stack, fumes came back. So I sent off for a new 6" pipe and fitted it myself!!!

 

Have you ever had a service manual that states 'lightly remove bush with mallet' but you end up using a sledge hammer - well thats how it went.

 

The old liner came out easy enough I was worried about putting a larger liner in but went for it - I borrowed a roof ladder and rigged my self with a loop of hose with climbing rope taped to it, to loop over the chimney so I could 'belay' myself with a climbing belt etc to the chimney. I'm not that good at heights but standing on the house ridge tiles pulling up the 6" pipe was only the start. With a cone fitted over the end of the liner and a rope dropped down the chimney for my wife to pull - we started but only got 8 foot down before I hit the double bend and it jammed. Standing on the chimney twisting it for ages untill it went down - slowly it went down untill it hit the next double bend above the fireplace, thought I would have to open up the wall but managed to get it down far enough to connect the vertical stack pipe from the stove. I made it off ok and its worked ok for the last year.

 

I use say 10-15 tonnes of wood a year which I cut from the estate I work on. In the winter the stove is on for weeks at a time - relighting from embers is quicker than boiling an electric kettle. Its a good stove but after 10 yrs of heavy use I have burnt out 4 cast iron 'smoke deflectors' and two sets of tiles it does make the house dusty but we would never be without it.

 

one tip for ventilation is to have say a cat flap, as with all the windows shut and a kitchen fan on you can draw fumes back down the chimney. We have wooden floor boards down stairs so I bored some 30mm holes in the corner of the lounge to draw air up.

Edited July 20, 2009 by pigeon popper

[al4x]

 

been there and done it as well!, as said unless you have a chimney liner in there you will need one, this would be a clay type liner put in when they built the chimney, don't use the gas fire one as its not suitable for the heat. You need a twin wall stainless steel type which I got on ebay for about £200 and fitted myself Then you need a connector at the base and the fitting kit to secure it at the top. All you do is take the pot off and fit a cone to the end and drop a rope attached to said cone down the chimney and one pulls while the other feeds the liner in from the top. Its not that simple but not too far off. You're meant to tip a mix of cement and vermiculite down to insulate it. I didn't as my house is listed and I wasn't meant to fit a liner without getting listed consent but it draws fine. The only other thing to add is if you fit a stove over 4kw I think it is then you're meant to have an air vent into the room and also you're in theory meant to get building regs approval if you've fitted the stove etc yourself

[Conygree]

I think mine is about 11kw, I was a bit concerned about air quailty - memories of parrifin stoves as a kid, I always had cold symptoms all winter, now I know it was stove fumes with sealed windows.

 

For ventilation I left the old cat flap in and bored 6x 30mm holes in the floor boards , with a raised grid over ( with the log basket on) to draw air in from outside via the outer air brick vents. Beside we tend to leave all the inside doors open plus a few windows all year, plus we vent the whole house every day to freshen the place up - no probs the wood is free. I cut it the wood springtime before to allow the summer to dry with some oak from the last winter

 

The old 5" gas flue pipe worked ok and it was only a joint that failed near the top, I used to clean it hard to test its strength which caused it to fail in the end, must have been a heavy grade. I used to best grade of 6"liner as I don't want to do the job again. The house is an old semi with heavy built central chimney with a large mass of brick which allowed me to chip out the fire place to fit the large log burner. When it runs well in winter the whole stack is warm heating the whole house. I run the gas central heating for hot water only and winter hols, I worked out a twin pump system just to run hot water with a min temp for the house central heating, from the old gravity system. I didn't want the hot water on from the log burner with memories of boiling hot water from some old coal hot water systems - not with kids etc. My gas bill is about £15 per month - thats hot water and cooker top.

 

I like your scaffold system to fit your liner, much better - did you have any help fitting it in

[al4x]

hired the tower as tried a few ladders and its about 8m up and far too high for me to be comfortable on a ladder

 

Fitted it with my brother it was simple worst bits were finding the chimney had been part lined in the past with an asbestos cement pipe which we dis lodged while pulling the liner through. Fortunately I heard the whistling as it fell down the chimney and got out of the way other than that fitting the pot back etc was simple and all done in a day and working and has done for the last two winters. Have a 16kw fire in the room and it struggles to keep it warm but it used to be the village hall so is a huge room

[gixer1]

Ziplex,

 

Did mine about 3 months ago, you need a stainless liner, the cowls for top and bottom and bags of stuff called vermiculite, i still have 2-3 full bags left so if you want it PM me and you can have it (it'll just need postage but it's not that heavy.)

 

Regards,

 

Gixer,

[miniwizard]

 

i took out an open grate fire and replaced it with a wood burning type stove a couple of years ago - i had a local metal works cut me a blanking plate with the hole in - it works a treat really strong pull on the flue - half the fun of these is tinkering with the settings to get the burn just right. and the best thing to clean the glass is wood ash (from the burner) mixed with vodka it rubs the stains off in seconds

that is just what i did,nothing wrong with an old chimney

[al4x]

there can be, if your wood isn't completely seasoned then a woodburner will create a creosote type substance and firstly it seeps through the mortar joints and gives you unsightly stains on the paint on the chimney stack and secondly it can cause chimney fires

[miniwizard]

not if you burn the correct wood,a none "pine" type,like oak,this will not clogg your chimney up,

[al4x]

it has to be dried for at least 18months to be next to no risk and still swept yearly. With a flue you can get away without sweeping generally as they self clean and all the bits end up in the section at the base of the flue

[ziplex]

I'll say thanks for all the replies guys and read them fully later when I get to sit down for an hour! , I'd read somewhere that i'll need a flexible flue liner ref' the problems with chimney fires etc. so I guess i'll have to get it looked at to see what type I have, it's an ex council 1930's built house so who knows? I have to get something sorted tho', the gas fire we have now is nigh on useless, the Pointer feels the cold a bit and lays more or less 'in' the fire to gain a bit of warmth in the winter, it really is hopeless with all the heat pretty well flying up the chimney. I have a source for free wood, (as long as I don't push my luck), so it makes sense. Since posting about this i've found an installer who lives about a mile away so i'll let you know what he suggests, my plan would be to buy all the needed bits and get a quote for just the fitting of the liner/insulation only, i'll do the rest......I think

[njc110381]

I've got a burner fitted and it was here when I bought the house. I had some trouble with it at the end of winter though so I removed the liner from the chimney to check it. It really is simple if you're DIY minded!

[ziplex]

I've got a burner fitted and it was here when I bought the house. I had some trouble with it at the end of winter though so I removed the liner from the chimney to check it. It really is simple if you're DIY minded!

 

I am DIY minded to a degree but the thought of getting on the roof is a bit worrying, the brother in law has all the ladders needed and he isn't worried about that sort of thing, he can't say 'no' to helping anyone either so there lies a plan I did get a quote earlier on the phone for the flue liner to be fitted at a cost of £800-£1300 so the DIY route might be the only option anyway, I am planning to get some more quotes though, those sort of figures make it too costly for me at the mo'

[ziplex]

Gixer, Thanks for the offer...........very kind and I may take you up on it depending on how things pan out

Edited July 20, 2009 by ziplex

[Conygree]

When I did mine I thought I could kneel by the chimney but I had to stand on the ridge tiles to get the liner high enough to curve it in - then it jammed

 

My tip is to buy a climbing harness and a few krabs and a length of rope get some trainning in, as you can't use the old sailing ship tip of ,'one hand for the ship and one for yourself' you need both hands for the liner. I tied all the ladders through the windows to secure and the roof ladder to the chimney and belayed myself. If not go for some pro scaffolding for safety.

 

I found if the fire runs hot most of the hard soot is near the top of the liner where the smoke cools.

 

As a kid I remember a chimney fire in our road - typically a firemans home, the kids were playing inside totally unaware. One well posh lady came along and put a large packet of salt on the fire and it put the stack fire out.

 

One friend had a breast place come loose and blocked the flue and put his room on fire.

 

I must admit when I first lit my logburner it seamed maddness to lit a fire in the middle of my house. I wouldn't fancy leaving a house with an open fire. At night I check the fire with the lights off to check for any embers before going to bed.