Multi fuel wood burning stoves

There seems to be a lot of variation in price, for the same kilowattage. Would anyone care to recommend a make, in the 5-8 kW range? What is the Miele of multifuel stoves?

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster
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Reply to
Ian

We have a Super Demon Boiler from the Hellfire Combustion Company.It produces 60,000 BTU/hr on wood and 75,000 BTU/hr on solid fuels. It has a back boiler and will heat up to 15 (I think) radiators. Excellent machine.

Regards

Jonathan

Reply to
Jonathan

I've got a Morso stove in the living room, marvellous - well built and seemingly efficient as these things go.

Rob

Reply to
Rob

If someone asks for a recommendation for a small runabout car for urban commuting and shopping, please bear in mind that it's not going to help the enquirer much if you tell them how happy you are with your 4x4 with a tow hook that will take a trailer in which you can carry 15 weeks' worth of shopping.

So here we have someone asking about stoves in the 5-8kW range, and you wax lyrical about a stove which gives 60-75 kBTU/h, which is around 20 kW. Duh.

Someone else mentioned Morso, which I would endorse. They make a range of multifuel stoves from just under 5 to just over 10 kW. Many of their models are named after animals, and I used to have a Squirrel, which is the baby of the range. Very happy with it. They make a variant of this which is approved for the burning of wood in smoke control areas.

Don't know about the "Miele" aspect, but they're pretty rugged.

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

Fire bars used for multifuel are more expensive as they are said to need chrome steel.

Heat output to the room is seriously diminished by back and side boilers.

We have a stove from Clearview (Shropshire), welded steel, underfloor draft option and airwash.

In my experience, airwash does work. The glass accumulates a grey finish over several weeks constant use. This can be readily scrubbed off with washing up liquid and sponge. Dry, mainly hardwood fuel. Previous experience with glass doors was black soot requiring pot scouring.

regards

Reply to
Tim Lamb

Thanks (with one obvious exception) for the replies.

I've been sort of offered a Stovax Sheraton in need of refurbishment, which on the face of it looks plausible if the price is right. I won't be using a back boiler. I'm intending to use it as a backup to our bottled gas central heating boiler (no mains gas out here). Next winter if I can avoid using the boiler so much, maybe it'll cost me less than the =A3400 quid I spent on gas in December just in keeping the house warm.

Then there's the question of fuel - where do stove users on the list get theirs from? I suppose it would be handy to make friends with a few tree surgeons. I've considered turning half my garden into an ash coppice, but from what I've read on the amount of land needed, I'd be very far from self-sufficiency, though it might make a contribution.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

Yeah but then you have heat which you can move to other parts of the house and not just have one room a Death Valley temperatures and the all the others with ice on the windows. B-)

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

join the club mate. Bottled gas is however bloody expensive.

Buy oil ant much cheaper these days y'know.

Aye, there's the rub. With what estates do provide wood now running out on a regular basis, and the smell of woodsmoke a lot more prevalent than it once was, wood is no longer a cheap fuel.

The average output of land used for biofuel is about 100mW per square meter. Given you probably need about a KW for a house on average, that's something like a hectare.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Ronald Raygun ( snipped-for-privacy@localhost.localdomain) wibbled on Tuesday 04 January

2011 10:06:

On that note, I'm happy with my Aga Little Wenlock Classic.

Technically it burns most fuels, except for house coal (too tarry) and petrocokes (too hot).

But in reality, it is best with anthracite, or better, high quality manufactured fuels (eggs) as you can't get much wood in it so it needs refuelling extremely often compared to burning phurnacite where it will burn flat out for a couple of hours or upto about 10 hours on slumber.

Thus, to the OP, I would recommend the biggest stove that will fit with a decent sized grate and ashpan so you can get a sensible amount of wood in if required.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim Watts

A lot will depend on your installation. Do you need a freestanding or inset stove? What age is your house and what style will match it? I've had 2 stoves in different houses. The first was a Clearview. That was great. I used it as my main heat source and worked it hard. I replaced the usual consumables (door seal, firebrick liners and a baffle plate) after about 6 years although some weren't really necessary. My current stove is a Stovax Riva 55. It''s an inset stove of about

8kW. It needs 2 baffle plates a year and isn't a patch on the Clearview. I suspect it's built more for style than function. You say you want 5-8kW. Where do you get this figure? If you look at the standard calculation used by the majority of suppliers, it simply uses the room volume to work it out. This ignores insulation levels, draughts, etc. It also assumes a max achievable temp difference of only 20C. In other words, that's the best you will get after the stove's been running for ever. We've been dropping to -10C easily recently. I installed a stove that was double the calculated room value. Admittedly it was into a 250 year old house but I never regretted going up in size. You can always turn it down or do what I did and open the doors to the rest of the house.

John

Reply to
John

Local distributors.

Perhaps, but the beauty of multifuel stoves is that they don't just burn wood. Wood gives a nice pretty effect but has a low specific heat which means you need to feed the stove quite often. If you want heat with less fuss, the stuff to burn is one of the manufactured solid fuels, like Homefire or Phurnacite, then the stove will keep going 24/7 while needing attention only 2-3 times a day.

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

I read somewhere recently, in one forum or other, that you;d need about 10 acres to be completely self-sufficient for a 3-4 bedroom house. Fortunately I' not aiming to be self-sufficient. With the space available I reckon I could grow 100 trees and still have some garden left, but on (for the sake of argument) 5 year rotation for ash, that would mean I was only coppicing 20 trees a year - say 100 poles if I was lucky.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

I calculated the value needed for the room at about 2 1/2 kW, but the room is open to the hall and has the stairs in it as well, so I want the heat to heat more than just the room that the stove will be in.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

Another vote for Morso - they are massively better than anything else we've tried in terms of ease of lighting, ruggedness and reliability. Clearviews look really good too, but are much more expensive.

A
Reply to
andrew

Ronald Raygun ( snipped-for-privacy@localhost.localdomain) wibbled on Tuesday 04 January

2011 11:54:

Anthracite - DJ Davies of Wales, tonne at a time.

Phurnacite - Fergusson of Scotland, tonne

Both are shipped on a pallette of 40 x 25kg or 50 x 20kg bags and works out rather less all in (50-70 quid) less than the "local" coal merchants.

Only downside is unloading a pallette but even I can do that in an hour and bags are handy of you don't have a bunker - pile them up all over the place whereever's out the way.

Reply to
Tim Watts

Now the wood burners have turned all the spare wood into CO2 they want to burn cheaper stuff like oil and gas to make even more CO2 instead of buying wood grown to burn. Typical I'm alright sod everyone else attitude.

Reply to
dennis

Fergusson *is* my local distributor. :-)

I do have a bunker, so get my phurnacite delivered in open 50kg sacks which they empty into the bunker, and take the sacks away to re-use. It's not a huge bunker so I can only take 300kg per delivery. At that quantity I'm currently paying £417 per tonne.

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

I would say that is about right.

poles don't make very good firewood. Best is mature trees and they take many years.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

You're right, coppicing as a source of fuel will never catch on.

Cheers Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

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