A few wood burner questions...

[Brizzol]

Hello
I am toying with the idea of having a wood burning stove installed in my house.
The amount of information i have read about them has made me more confused than when i started!
So if anyone has any experience in either fitting one or having one fitted i would be grateful for any information you can pass on.
So its just gonna be for occasional use, probably just at the weekend, so i'm thinking around £500 for the actual stove itself?
Now the installation costs i've seen range from £700-£2000!
We have a 1930's house with a chimney which just has a unconnected gas fire sitting in the fireplace for show.
When i pull it out the actual space behind it at the base of the chimney is pretty big, despite only having a fairly small entry into it.
As I have a chimney do i just need a single skin flue to go up the chimney?
Can the flue be fitted from the base or does roof access/scaffolding need to be factored into the cost?
When choosing the actual stove to fit in the hole, how much space around the stove do you have to have?
The enclosure around where the stove is going to sit, what does this have to be made from? Is this something I could do myself to keep costs down?
Thank you to anyone who can answer any of my questions, or give me some nuggets of information to help me move forward with this project.

 

[dontbelieveawordofit]

1930’s house? most installers will insist on a liner inserted for your own safety.
roof /chimney access is required to drop the liner in and connect the gubbins up top.
scaffold? most likely , depends on height and how mental the installer is.
stove size and output is determined normally by room size.
5kw or less are generally small enough to fit most openings and don’t require an external wall vent in the room.
the whole fireplace needs to be constructed from non combustibles.
the space around the fire is less important than the materials used.
yes it’s perfectly feasable for you to build the fireplace and employ a registered installer to install the equipment,
or apply for building regs and even install it yourself.
you can expect to pay £2000 easily with scaffold and decent fire and liner etc.
that’s with you building the fireplace.
avoid cheap steel fires, try and stick to cast iron.
also if your paying for a woodburner, may as well get a multifuel, they burn briquettes all night. just my opinion.

 

[lee666]

I've had 2 stoves fitted in my house, yes you could get away without a liner but you'd likely have to have a smoke test done to check the flues are suitable.

I had liners installed on both of mine, can't remember if they were single or double skinned though.

Both my stoves are around the 5kw range and they pump out a lot of heat, if you have open plan living then you'd probably want the next level up in terms of kW, pretty sure there are calculators you can use to give you an idea.

Off the top of my head you can't have anything combustible installed within a foot of the stove, it is also a requirement to have a carbon monoxide alarm installed too.

Both of my stoves are multi fuel but I only ever burn kiln dried hardwood logs, you'll also need to get it swept every year if you use it enough.

With regards to installing the liner, I was lucky enough that no scaffolding was needed, they went on the roof with ladders. You could probably do some of the work yourself to keep costs down, such as opening up the fireplace but some installers will also do the final finish like plastering etc plus they'll also sign off the building regs.

 

[conny]

Anyone you use should be OFTEC registered with a current valid licence. These are the solid fuel equivalent of Gas Safe or the electrical type of scheme such as NICEIC.
I think most flues need to be double lined to reduce fire risks by heat transfer at vulnerable points such as in the loft where it may come into contact with flammable materials.

 

[dontbelieveawordofit]

single liners are fine in most instances,
but they do come in varying degrees of quality. something to look out for.

 

[Brizzol]

Thank you all, lots of good advice there.
I'm still a bit confused as the liner issue, some things i've read seem to refer to the metal flue itself being the liner, but other things i've read talk about physically lining the inside of the chimney?
Thanks again

 

[RrogerD]

My research, I'm in the same boat as you, seems to suggest a single skin liner when running up inside a current chimney and a double skinned ie keeping it's external temp down, when it is exposed. The latter such as you'd see in a cafe running vertically up from the stove and into the ceiling or, the very large shiny pipes stuck onto the outside of a building.
When fitting into a existing fireplace I would have thought that you'd have a flexi-liner running up the chimney which connects directly to the coupling (with short solid vertical section) at the rear of stove.

 

[Mr Chibs]

Have a butchers on here, you will get an idea of what's what.

https://www.stovefitterswarehouse.co.uk/

In my old house it didn't have a flue liner, new house does... I would never run a burner without it now.

It's also funny how scaffolding is mentioned, when I see all the registered guys dropping the liners, they have scrambled up with ladders/roof ladders.
That said you can't beat working off scaffolding. And it you have some repairs to make to the stack, it's a must.