Fitting a wood burning stove
I thought someone might find the following information useful if they are thinking of getting a wood burning stove fitted in London.
Fitting
The whole wood burning project cost us £1702 including VAT, fitting, building hearth, accessories, hearth slate, chimney plate, chimney pipe and stove.
We used...
Croydon Fireplaces Ltd.
2 Campbell Rd, Croydon, Surrey CR0 2SQ
2 Campbell Rd, Croydon, Surrey CR0 2SQ
020 8684 1495
Compliance
Before any fitter will come over with the stove, they will insist that you have a certificate to prove your chimney is sound and the fireplace is the correct size.
Despite what the guys trying to drum up work say, you don't need to have your chimney lined unless it has sustained some sort of unusual damage. Only properties with 2 stories need this.
Otherwise you need a 'Soundness & BS 5871 test'. Which consists of a geeza with some smoke and a meter to test that your chimney is drawing properly. They should also ask to go into your adjoining neighbours property to check nothing is coming through their walls, but the didn't bother with us.
Most chimney sweeps seem to be able to perform this test when they come to clean your chimney. They will get on the roof to check that everything is ok there too. I think that cost us £90.
Fitting
The size of stove is dependent upon your room size. Our stove is almost too big for our house. It really puts out the heat. This is a problems as the most efficient burn is about 300 C. Logs slowly smouldering away might be romantic, but they pollute, and soot up your stove and aren't being efficiently converted to heat.
If you go too small it's a pain as getting logs to fit into your stove is difficult. You should look for something about our size unless you are going to run a boiler off it.
They insist that there is a dafe distance around your stove. I think it's 50cm from the front.
You need fitting...
> A hearth stone - something that can bear the heavy weight of the stove and is heat proof
> The inside of your fireplace making good with fireproof cement and painted with special paint if you want it black.
> A 'reg plate' which forms a cover to the chimney and has a hole for the stovepipe.
Stove
We purchase a Morsø squirrel stove (1430) which is 71% efficient. It gives out 4.6Kw http://www.morsoe.co.uk/
They are one of the best in terms of efficiency and build quality.
Our stove isn't DEFRA approved, but there is a very similar one that is certified to use in smoke free zones: http://www.morsoe.co.uk/Morsø-1412-344.aspx
Although ours is a 'clear burner' the reason many stoves don't get a certificate is that the approval process is lengthy and costly for manufacturers.
Nobody has complained in our area as you can't see smoke from our chimney. The airflow system ensures the wood burns cleanly and is practically smoke free.
We haven't tried coal or any of those types of fuels yet.
Fuel
The thing to remember is that wood shouldn't have more than 20% moisture content. Anything more and the burn rate is poor, your chimney will soot up and you will generate smoke. You can leave 'wet' logs outside in a stack for 6 months to dry them out. Moisture level can be measured with a small device you buy at any fireplace shop.
We burn waste wood that is all over our garden. Although that is running out. Yesterday we purchase large bags of wood for £6 a bag at the local farm.
For a while we burnt fuel logs, which as a waste product from the saw mill industry. These were the best http://www.woodpelletsupplies.com/pages/homepage/products/category/default.aspx?CatID=2
They seem expensive, but they only have 2% moisture, are very dense and supply a calorific Value approx. 4.7 MWh / ton (Greater than 17.0 mj / kg), which means one log will take 1.5 hours to burn.
