Log burners - who's got one?

[Walesy 0]

Hi all,

 

I installed a wood burner in my house a couple of months ago, after doing a fair bit of research and taking advice from 3 seperate 'experts' I didn't put a solid liner all the way up the flue, just 1m of it up to the register plate.

 

Anyway, over the last week or so I've been lighting it a fair bit earlier than previously, and getting it raging hot due to the cold weather outside. I was lighting it at about 4pm until 10pm(ish) whereas over the last week I've been lighting it at about 10am until 10pm(ish) - since having it lit for longer I've noticed that the chimney breast in the room above the room with the burner in it is getting REALLY warm, as in almost as hot as a radiator to the touch. Having done a bit of reading online (always the worst thing to do!) apparently hot chimney breasts (thank god Dinkus doesn't come on here any more, he'd have a field day!) are a sign of damage to the mortar in the flue.

 

So onto my question, those of you with wood burners, how hot do your chimney breasts get in the room above the fire? slightly warm, or hot to the touch?

[16VG60 1]

Careful how I respond to this thread to avoid double entendres! Our chimney breast becomes very hot, just as a radiator, when the stove is running.

 

 

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[Walesy 0]

Excellent, thanks for that! like I say, we've only had it installed for a couple of months so i'm still learning my way around it, I was surprised at how hot the chimney breast was last night and was a tad worried! I'll stick another few logs on and get it stoked up again now! :D

 

EDIT - just to check, do you mean the chimney breast in the room with the fire in, or the room upstairs, our chimney breast directly above the fire doesn't get that hot, it's the one in the room above that does.

[tentonhammer 10]

I don't own a log burner but I do work in construction / maintenance. From what I can tell log burners should send 25% of the heat up the chimney and 75% to the room transfering very little heat to the mortar and brick work in the chimney breast, as opposed to an open fire sending 80% heat straight up the chimney and 20% to the room warming the chimney breast up considerably more than a log burner.

 

A build up of heat further up the chimney breast suggests a blockage to me. Have you had the chimney swept?

 

Probably worth fitting a twin wall stainless steel flu liner as well. Would certainly be a darn sight cheaper than repointing your brick work, assuming of course mortar in the chimney breast has perished or is beggining to perish. A flu liner will sort this / prevent it getting any worse if it has.

 

Ten Ton

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Interesting. I have an open fire and sometimes I find bits of mortar in the fire place the next morning. How do they repoint chimneys internally? Drop some kind of tube down and fill around it with cement? Bloody houses are more work than our Corrados, and more expensive! :lol:

 

My friend recently put a large wood burner in and he put a flu in right to the top of the chimney, and packed around it with some fibrey stuff. His chimney above is cold to the touch. As for the radiated heat vs wasted heat ratio of woodburners, I find that's true providing the door is open. If the door is closed, it can be a good few hours before you can really feel heat in the room, whereas open fires by comparison, seem to feel warmer sooner.

 

The only difference to that I've seen so far is those free standing Jotul stoves. My god do they pump some heat out!!

[Walesy 0]

Yeah I've had the chimney swept and the sweep said there was no problems whatsoever, if anything there's too much draw due to the house being in an exposed position on top of a hill! I need to fit a baffle to the flue so I can control the draw on windy days really. I knew about the heat in the room to up the chimney ratio which is why we went for a burner as opposed to open fire, and it kicks the heat out almost instantly, although granted it certainly gets hotter with time, a few times we've had to leave the room due to it being too hot after a few hours! :lol:

 

I'll be pulling the burner back out in the summer and doing a few jobs to it and fitting a solid liner all the way to the top, I just threw it in on the cheap a couple of months back because my missus wanted it in before Christmas (well, she actually wanted it in for Christmas 2010 but that never happened! :lol:) - now it's in I don't know how we lived without one, it provides so much more than just heat!

 

As for the open fires and repointing the inside of the chimney, yep, you need to poor it down from the roof, it's not cheap! I would suggest you're better off spending the money on fitting a burner and solid liner all the way up if your chimney is buggered.

[jamiehamy 0]

I'm i the process of fitting a burner. Sweep came last week and told me chimney was shot, so need a liner, only 5m thankfully. I can't wait, I'm a bit of a pyromaniac! :)

[Toohottotrot 10]

A liner is now required to meet building regs, very hot brickwork is not good, you will get damage. There has been a massive increase in house fires the last few years due to wood burners, get the chimney swept regular. Wood burners/ multifuel stoves are around 75% efficient........Open fires are around -15% efficient, YES THEY ACTUALLY COOL THE HOUSE!:shocked!:

 

Oh and you must have an open air vent and carbon monoxide detector.....for new installations.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Toohottotrot

[Wendy 0]

I have a Multi fuel burning stove, installed about 3 years ago with no liner and I spoke to the Council Planners about this.

Due to the fact I was replacing a open fire with the stove, it was agreed a liner was not required, but essential I had a room vent.

The chimney is swept annually by a very 'Must follow all regulations' Chimney Sweep.

He would prefer I had the chimney swept more often - but this is obvioulsy usage related.

He also always checks I have not covered over the vents.

 

If burning the stove night after night and fully stocked up the chimney breast does get very hot.

Surely this is logical though, the bricks would heat up in this way - Is this not the same as old Night Storage Heaters ?

I do not get mortar coming down into the fire.

 

The room directly above also gets the benefit of warming but not hot.

 

Best thing I ever did, house is oh so cosy now !

[easypops 8]

I fitted a multi fuel stove a few years ago and I lined the chimney with a double walled SS flue, such a good thing to have . My chimney breast stays cool when the stove is blasting out the heat. I lined the chimney after I got someone out to sweep it, he smoke tested it before sweeping and informed me that the smoke was coming out all 4 pots, which meant the internals were corrupted somewhere. He advised lining it and to get a carbon monoxide detector. Which I did. Still never get round to putting a vent in, I just make sure that I always have a window downstairs open a wee bit(note to self.......fit the vent!). Also fitted an anti downdraught cowel. Recently helped a friend to line his chimney too, not a hard job, just a bit if a fiddle :)

[Toohottotrot 10]

Absoloutly no need to follow building regulations, unless you want to sell your house! Then if it gets spotted by a canny surveyor you get it sorted or lose a sale. Bricks in a storage heater getting hot is fine.....no cement holdig em together, hot in building fabric, ok to a point. Too hot and due to thermal differential movement between brick and mortar....it parts company! I have also witnessed massive brick work cracks due to heat.

Hey, but what do I know? It's only my job.

Oh and chimney fires are up a third in the last few years, due to stoves and not sweeping regular, would the insurance pay out if your house burnt down and it was found the stove was not installed properly? We all know how they behave!

 

Not trying to put anyone off logburner/ multifuel stoves, far from it. They give out lots of heat. If your chimney is swept once a year you should be fine. A chimney liner is not expensive and is a good thing on old chimneys, you don't want to kill the people in the upstairs bedroom due to a leaking chimney!

Hot brickwork is fine, its part of the way they heat the house, as with open fires. The bricks of the house store heat, just like a storage heater.

The problem arises with too much heat, wood burns with a much higher temperature than say coal. So just a little common sense, don't stoke it up too much, and beware of paper and card blowing up the chimney.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Toohottotrot

[Walesy 0]

Yeah I have CM detectors both in the room with the burner and upstairs, and the chimney was swept and smoke bombed before lighting it the first time and it's all completely fine :)

 

My burner's a multi-fuel but I only really burn wood because I get an endless supply of it for free, I've used coal a few times, but thought that the coal burnt hotter than wood?

[Toohottotrot 10]

No wood does burn hotter, a good idea is to use a little coke to stoke the fire and to keep it in all day. Sounds like the draw on your chimney is more than adequate and that is why its burning so hot. Best to keep the fire a little smaller, just to be safe.

We had one wood fire so hot I put a glass beer bottle on and it melted!

[Walesy 0]

Yeah, like I said, if anything the chimney draws too much and I could do with limiting it to mellow the fire down sometimes! Im not sure i'll be putting any glass bottles on it though! :lol:

[jamiehamy 0]

Easypops sounds like I'll be calling on your soon for hints and tips! Just waiting to try get my stack remortared first tho. Can't wait to get a stove, but need to get everything else prepped first. :)

[Wendy 0]

The Chimney sweep always does the smoke bomb thing after cleaning my fire too.

I too burn more wood than anything else, but have been thinking more recently about getting some coal. i was aware it burnt at a cooler temperature to wood.

I also don't burn paper other than when lighting the fire, it scares me to think that may have gone up my chimney and set it alight.

 

Re the Insurance side of things, when I installed my burner, I was in contact with building regs and it was agreed that I did not need a liner in my chimney, so surely in this case I am ok ?

I do have cracks in my plasterwork, how would I know if I had cracks in the brickwork ?

 

Really appreciate your comments Toohottotrot - better safe than sorry.

[Walesy 0]

I know how you feel jamiehamy, I was pretty excited to get the fire installed, like I said before they're good for so much more than just heat. We put central heating into the house when we renovated it so we didn't particularly need the burner to keep the place warm but it's saving us a fair bit on our heating oil bill, the one thing I would say though is that if you have no access to free firewood then burners are pretty expensive to run - I was certainly shocked at how much they go through (again, I have to work out a way of limiting the draw in my place, that will make it run more efficiently)

 

We never used to use the room that the burner's in, we fitted it in there because it's in the middle of the house so we thought it was best for dispersing the heat, but since fitting it we all now use that room far more than any others in the house! The added bonus is that we don't have a TV in the room so we'll just sit watching the wood burn and listening to music etc etc, a much better way of spending the evening IMO!

 

The dog and cat are pretty chuffed with it too :lol:

 

 

 

---------- Post added at 11:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:56 AM ----------

 

The Chimney sweep always does the smoke bomb thing after cleaning my fire too.

I too burn more wood than anything else, but have been thinking more recently about getting some coal. i was aware it burnt at a cooler temperature to wood.

I also don't burn paper other than when lighting the fire, it scares me to think that may have gone up my chimney and set it alight.

 

Re the Insurance side of things, when I installed my burner, I was in contact with building regs and it was agreed that I did not need a liner in my chimney, so surely in this case I am ok ?

I do have cracks in my plasterwork, how would I know if I had cracks in the brickwork ?

 

Really appreciate your comments Toohottotrot - better safe than sorry.

 

When you bought your house, I'm assuming the insurance company didn't come around and check it? they also probably didn't ask if you have a fire/burner and if so how it was installed? If (god forbid) there was a problem then how would the insurance company prove that the fire wasn't there when you bought the house?

 

Obviously with something like a fire, you need to be extra careful that it's fitted properly etc, but a lot of regulations are just ridiculous, people have been using fires/stoves in these houses for hundreds of years without problems, as long as you keep the thing swept properly and the chimney's doing what it's supposed to do I wouldn't worry.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Walesy

[JMC 0]

I had one fitted in septmeber, and have been using it pretty much daily since then. I have a steel liner from the burner to the top of the chimney. I have a couple of spots on my chimney brest in the room the burner is in and the room above which gets really hot. Not radiator hot, but pretty hot. The reason I was given was the insulating packing round the liner isn't even, and in a couple of spots the liner is touching the brickwork. It's not that uncommon really. From what I have learned wood burners burn hot, hence the need for the liner. I wouldn't have considered not using a liner, or only using one that went part way up.

 

And yes, find a source of wood. I work for my local wildlife trust on a weekend, and regularly come home with a boot load of free wood to lay down for next year :)

[tentonhammer 10]

Our dog would love one of these.... Seriously considering getting one in our new property I think

[easypops 8]

Easypops sounds like I'll be calling on your soon for hints and tips! Just waiting to try get my stack remortared first tho. Can't wait to get a stove, but need to get everything else prepped first. :)

 

No worries Jamie, they are really good to have. As for wood , now is the time to be stockpiling for next winter....... Keep an eye on local gumtree as tree surgeons regularly give it away for free, all you need is a chainsaw and a splitting axe :). I also use smokeless ovals, which I think are just compressed coal dust/bits and roughly the same price as coal , they burn for hours and all you need to do is keep adding occasional logs :)

Edited February 10, 2012 by easypops

[Walesy 0]

Wow, you wouldn't get any tree surgeons giving it away around here!

[Wendy 0]

Nor here !!!

I am that sad person though, that when I go for walks, I always take a carrier bag and colletct all my kindling wood.

Then when I have my tree's cut back, I keep all the wood for the fire.

 

Sadly only enough to keep me going over one winter in 3, but - it all helps.

[easypops 8]

Here is a load I got for free last year, round about April/may I think

And here is half of it chopped up....... Don't look too closely at what keeps the rain off :lol:

[Kevin Bacon 5]

As for the open fires and repointing the inside of the chimney, yep, you need to poor it down from the roof, it's not cheap! I would suggest you're better off spending the money on fitting a burner and solid liner all the way up if your chimney is buggered.

 

I dunno about that mate. I got quoted £1800 to just put a liner down the chimney and the woodburner + fitting was on top!

 

And that's what gets on my goat (among plenty of other things :D ). The actual material cost do line a chimney to current BR standards is no more than £450-£800 (depending on chimney height), so why does a builder feel it necessaty to shove another £1000+ on top? It's just ridiculous. If they're charging £1000 labour for half a day's work, I'm in the wrong business.

 

Everything house related seems to be multiples of 1000s these days. Just arbitary numbers plucked out of the air. I'd rather do the work myself and then get an inspector round.

[Walesy 0]

Yep, ridiculous quotes, but that doesn't mean it has to cost that much!

 

I've been recommended to use this company for flue, it's good quality HETAS approved stuff and at half the price that most people want to charge - http://stores.ebay.co.uk/fluestore - you'll probably need about 10m for an average sized 2 story house and they sell it at £14 a meter - then phone around local chimney sweeps, a lot of them will have roof ladders and will be more than capable of chucking the lining down, no problem at all, and at no-where near the price that these fire installation companies. My chimney sweep will do it for £200, so that's a cost of less than £400 all in, whereas a local fire installation specialist wanted 3 times that to do the same job (but obviously they'll give me the HETAS paperwork which the chimney sweep can't).

 

As for the stove itself, they're pricey, I was lucky to be given mine for nothing, although it did need a bit of a refurb which I did myself.