Wood/fuel for multifuel stoves

[pippyd]

We've recently moved house and now have a multifuel stove in living room which I'd like to use to provide a decent amount of our heating needs. The house does have gas central heating but I want that to be secondary heat most of the time.

As a complete novice to this area my first questions are (I'm sure a lot will more follow!)

With it being a multifuel (Yorkshire stove) what is the best fuel to burn?

Without knowing much about the subject I'd like to make use of surrounding wood sources (though I don't have a personal stash). What do people do in these instances - buy from a merchant? Approach farmers about newly wind felled trees (willing to do hard graft if it saves me money and have a lanny plus trailer access). Any advice for local sources (derbyshire/notts)?

People who are using wood or multifuel how do your bills compare to before you had it and what's your setup?

Educate me wise people of BB!

[Basemetal]

Couple of questions that make a difference to answers Phil -
What's the make, model and size of your stove? Max heat outpput? (GIYF)
Does it have a water jacket?
Is the house occupied all day?
Do you want it to burn overnight?
Will you use it in summer?

[XII]

checking out the agricultural retailers around may be an idea, most supply coal/anthracite/hotmax etc, and many have an advertisement board which will probably have a number for local wood supply...

as for the which fuel is better debate, all i can say is try em all and find out for yourself...

[rd6743]

Me local had a wood burner but in and the gas man was coming round 3 times a week to figure out why the gas consumption plummetted.

Any of your friends landscape gardeners or tree surgeons...they often have to pay to get rid of wood. They could leave the wood with you?

[pippyd]

Just diving out the door so bigger answers later

No water jacket
No need to heat the house all day, the dogs don't mind the cold
7.7kW mineral fuel
7.5kW on seasoned wood (2.79kg/h) according to the manual
Model: Dunsley Heat - Yorkshire multi-fuel stove non boiler model

I wouldn't say we'd have high demand in the summer months as we're grab a jumper / blanket sorts

[luckylee]

the answer about a tree surgeon is a good one bud, i have a multi fuel stove in me workshop, and burn what i can get, me dad goes to scotland quite a lot, and he brings me logs nack, and what i have been doing is topping that up with anthracite, which relly helps, when i first got the stove thought it would be easy to get wood, but i soon realised, that you use quite a bit, and was buying a lot to be honest, but topping up with coal has helped loads, where mony is concerned.
take care.
lee.

[fishman307]

Topping with smokeless fuel is good too, Same ammount of heat but will burn a LOT longer, IE get it going as normal then when going to bed bang a couple a shovels of smokeless on top,Have the bottom air just a little open, Top air nearly shut, and leave it, It will burn forever, (just practice) If fitting a stove i HIGHLY recomend a flue damper if room to fit, Allows EASY long burning times. Ideal sitution with wood would be to buy double this year and stash half to dry for next year, Then buy next year for year after! Keeps a nice dry supply ready for use, DO NOT burn all softwood there is no quicker way to knacker a flue, By all means use it, but now and again burn proper stuff and let it really burn high to clear any residue in flue,

[pippyd]

Thanks for the advice so far

What I would like to get to is a good amount of wood stashed over the month in preparation for winter.
The manual for the burner says because of the way it burns (inverted air flow) I can burn wood etc in a smoke free zone (don't know if we are in one!)

I've used the burner for a good few day and leaving the grate gaps fully open (it says that for wood) and closing down the front I can get it through the night on wood and have some hot coals left to get going again.

I have suffered a bit from the ceramic window in the door getting blackened so I'm probably not doing something right there....? Any suggestions on reducing that happening, and cleaning off what is there?

If I do find friendly sources of cheap/free wood is the rule any hard wood YES, softwood generally NO or is it worthwhile being more selective than that?

Keep the advice coming!


Cheers. Phil

[mikew]

For cleaning the glass I use ash from the fire on a damp cloth/paper towel.

We only use wood to get the stove going then we burn ovals (not necessarilly this brand) http://www.coals2u.co.uk/homefire-ovals-25kg-prepacked. They give good heat output and burn slowly so will go for several hours without needing to top up, and they don't clinker like natural coal can.

[rd6743]

If I do find friendly sources of cheap/free wood is the rule any hard wood YES, softwood generally NO or is it worthwhile being more selective than that?

If you've got for example a tree surgeon willing to give you free wood, I don't know how willing he would be if you'll only accept hard wood. Means he's got to sort it out and make two trips to get rid of wood, instead of one.

I don't know the value of burning hard instead of soft wood. But if it's free, does it matter?

[BorderReiver]

I use wood only in my multi fuel; it's a small stove, about 4.5kW but it chucks out an amazing amount of heat. Dry wood is essential for efficient burning; at least a year under cover but exposed to sun and wind; there are lots of examples of self build log stores on the web. Lots of stuff like http://rikravado.hubpages.com/hub/Ho...-Burning-Stove this too.

Damp cloth and wood ash, or ceramic hob cleaner for your glass.

Try to keep a bit of flame showing when you throttle back, or you'll be building up tar in your flue.

[fishman307]

Dont close a cold glass on a hot fire, Condensation couses smoke/soot to coat it, Just keep closing door a little nearer shut over a few minutes wiping as said with ash on paper, Once glass is warm Ok to shut.

[spandit]

The Scandiwegians burn softwood exclusively so shouldn't be a problem but keep an eye on possible tar deposits in the flue

Old pallets are bone dry, plentiful & give off masses of free heat. Chopping up with a chainsaw is easiest

[Basemetal]

With it being a multifuel (Yorkshire stove) what is the best fuel to burn?

Ash is about the nicest. Seasoned wood of any kind (softwood burns faster). Wood ash is clean and whitish and there's remarkably little of it -empty ash pan fortnightly. Downside of wood is you need a surprising amount of it - buy by volume (which doesn't change as much as the weight does).
Grade A Housecoal can put out terrific heat, but is smelly, messy (both coal dust and soot) and generate about it's own volume in ash (empty ash pan daily).

Manufactured fuels -ovoids, some smokeless etc sort of come in between.

Mixtures of all some or all of the above? There are plusses and minusses. Stove design mattters, as does the length of your chimney and the amount of draw you get. Wood can burn down from the top, coal likes to be fed with a draught from the bottom. Your stove may have an airwash system (Air directed down over the glass door) and a conventional vent underneath. Damp newspaper dipped in wood ash cleans off the window soot in no time.

Without knowing much about the subject I'd like to make use of surrounding wood sources (though I don't have a personal stash).

You need a lot of seasoned wood - even more if it's softwood. So for next winter, wood should be stacked and drying by about Easter if it's going to be useable. Wood that's too green just boils and fizzzes and gives out little heat. So if you can get ahead by a year you can just keep adding when any comes your way. A woodstore should allow you to have a couple of years' wood -some drying, some useable. We have two areas -one for pine and softwoods (sawmill offcuts, pine trees etc) that we use for kindling and mixing with coal or hardwood; and one for decent hardwoods-usually ash or very dry beech, and fruit wood (apple, cherry etc).

Our 11.5kW Clearview 650 multifuel has eaten 1 Te coal, 1 Te oviods, 4 cu.m. of Ash and about 6 cu.m of softwood since October in what has been a mild winter hereabouts.

One thing you'll certainly find... there's a lot of contradictory advice out there. There are different stove designs and diffferent combustion principles in play. Some folk fear chimney cleaning and their advice is biased to avoid this at all costs... others are happy to have occasional unplanned chimney fires and don't care about chimney soot.... others just clean the chimney

The most useful things I've learned are...
1. Your stove can get hot enough to damage itself. Don't let it run full bore unattended. Internal baffles can be distorted and affect its working. Stay below about 600F flue temperature. If you don't have one, get a magnetic stove thermometer -it'll tell you how efficiently your stove is running and keep you out of the danger zone.

2 The hotter the stove, the better it runs. 500F is optimum (some say minimum) flue temperature for efficient combustion. A 'low' stove is very bad for chimney condensation and gets only a fraction of the calorific value out of the fuel. Better to have it on hotter for less time.

3 Flames in a stove are pretty, but pretty much a waste of time for heating. The real heat comes from the bank of red embers (the bigger the better) and you should plan your fire to maximise this feature. There's a website out there that gives all the detail but I haven't found it again-I'll link if I do.

4 Against all advice, I've found that opening the stove doors when the radiant ember bank is bright and there are no flames can give a phenomenal heat output. I use a spark guard in front of the open stove and let it run like this for an hour or two when it's really cold. The house temperature goes up remarkably. This is against received wisdom which says I'm just opening the chimney and all my warm air will be entrained up and out the chimney. But in practice the radiated heat effect wins and it feels glorious

5. Burning wood without ventilation from underneath is effective. In practice this means I let an ash bed build up, close the grate, set a large log fire and build a smaller kindling fire on top of it. Maybe even sneak a few pieces of house coal in there for early hot spots . Then light the small fire and let it burn down into the logs. THis kind of fire can burn for a good few hours on its original charge, and while its hot (chimney 500F+) I can put big logs in it that will catch instantly, flare off flames for a quarter of an hour, then settle down to a steady heat. Keeping the firebox relatively full maximises the ember phase that chucks the heat out. I believe the 11.5kW rating on my stove!

If I think of more I'll add later

[one_rod]

We've recently moved house and now have a multifuel stove in living room which I'd like to use to provide a decent amount of our heating needs. The house does have gas central heating but I want that to be secondary heat most of the time.

As a complete novice to this area my first questions are (I'm sure a lot will more follow!)

With it being a multifuel (Yorkshire stove) what is the best fuel to burn?


Educate me wise people of BB!

It will be interesting to hear how you get on with this Phil, as I'll be swapping my Trianco coke-burner for one of these as soon as funds allow. It will have to be a back boiler model as there's no gas to my house.

Asked around a few knowledgeable people, and Dunsley Yorkshire stoves seem to have about the best rep. of them all. So it looks like you got lucky. Apparently you can burn just about anything on them, hard or soft wood, coke or coal, although if you do burn coal it may not comply with the Clean Air Act.

If you phone the DCC offices at Matlock and give them your postcode they can tell you if that's a problem or not.

I can have all the wood I want for nothing from where I work. A good mix of softwood and manky, ungraded hardwood from packing crates, pallets etc. They have to either pay to get rid or have an illegal bonfire on a Sunday afternoon when nobody is looking. Sure there must be someone near you with the same problem. It will be worth asking around the local industrial estates.
I know at least one guy who does just that. Firms actually ring him up and tell him when they have wood to get rid of. Don't think he's paid a heating bill for years.


one_rod.