Our central heating is broken and so we're currently using our woodburning stove.
I'd like it going when we get home, but don't want to run it all day. Ideally, I want it to light a couple of hours before we get back in the evening.
I can't find any gadgets to do it, and can't think how they'd work anyway. My only idea so far is a long candle, lit in the morning, that some hours later burns down enough to light the kindling.
seriously - an unattended stove will probly have gone out after 2 hours - assuming you need the dampers/airwash etc fully opened to get it going in the first place.
If your stove is properly installed and you are using good quality dry seasoned wood then it should stay in overnight with everything closed down and then come back to life when you open the draught.
This suggests that it should also stay in at 'tickover' during the day and then come back to life when you get home.
This seems a far more sensible approach than a potentially expensive and dangerous combination of highly inflamable fire lighting substances and a timer to ignite them.
The long candle does sound a fun idea, but apart from general timing constraints you would have to have enough air flow going through the stove to keep the candle alight and also ensure that the kindling catches when the candle burns down far enough. This would probably be enough air to get the stove really roaring once the wood catches. This leads to a situation where you wouldn't want to be unexpectedly delayed on your way home.
Even a fan heater on a timer sounds potentially dangerous, if slightly more practical.
Oil filled electric radiator on a timer, to take the chill off the room?
Employ a pensioner to come in and light it for you? This could be cheaper and more reliable.
Agreed - I would think it possible to tend to it in the morning and have it in a state where it can be quickly brought up to temperature when arriving home, with enough heat supplied during the day to take the chill off things (and that's speking from experience of wood stoves in an area where the outside temp can easily be -30).
Yes, leaving them unattended is a little risky anyway - and unattended with some sort of homebrewed lighting mechanism sounds like a good way to end up with no house :-)
On Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:04:16 +0100, The Natural Philosopher had this to say:
Embed a bit of nichrome wire (the sort of stuff you got on electric fire elements) into a firelighter and power it from a transformer fed via a timeswitch.
Very little over a year (=A35/month). I've assumed 2hrs no thermostat (you may find 20mins is enough).
Failing that, who is for the first wood-burner-storage-heater-combo ? Heat passes up thro magnetite bricks, ok for 920-980oC? Ok, probably worse than the firelighter on a timer.
OP - You sure there aren't easier ways to burn the bank down BTW? :-) Like elect Gordon Brown for another term (or even elect him at all come to think of it).
Arrange angle grinder on a pivoting arm, such that the blade is resting on a suitable piece of steel. Timer plug for the angle grinder. Aim so the sparks go into some suitable tinder. Easier for an open fire than a stove though.
Ours will stay in for much longer but it's a waste of fuel if the house is unoccupied.
Our Dunsley Yorkshire takes not more than four minutes to light, the door is fully closed with the 'dampers' fully open during that time then they're closed, after putting some 2" logs on the flame. Larger logs are put on later.
We're very impressed with the efficiency but I wouldn't light it before we went out, it's not worth it, being so quick and easy to light and give out more heat than we need.
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