Brick Slips or Hearth first - prep for wood burner

[Ivor Windybottom]

We have a stove. It was already installed when we bought the place. I've been told it's a very expensive modern one.

We've never used it, mostly as I'd like to keep my lungs clean. Also because we're civilised modern humans and I don't really fancy dragging lumps of rotten tree into the house and shovelling out filthy ashes. My other half wiped clothfuls of black soot off the lounge walls when we moved in. You couldn't see it until wiped, then it formed grey smears all over the room. These are the invisible particulates that embed themselves into your lungs.

I found that I just couldn't get this room warm using electric heaters. Then I saw the vents around the sides and base of the stove. After stuffing a pillow up the flue inside the stove and stuffing its vents with foam the place instantly became vastly warmer.

So yes, stoves are essentially very dirty extractor fans. They extract a large percentage of the heat they create, plus a load more warm air from your room, to be replaced by cold outside air. Having one fitted will make you colder, not warmer.

If I walk into a pub with a stove I can smell it instantly. Some mistakenly think it's a nice, cosy, homely smell. Some people think petrol smells nice too. Both are very bad for you.

Please don't believe the hype by the stove makers that there's anything modern or clean about them. They're definitely not. Perhaps they're good for CO2 emissions in the narrowest possible sense, but they're definitely bad in many other ways. The fumes are highly toxic, vastly worse than any modern diesel engine, and a proportion of this toxic cocktail definitely enters the room.

 

[Diyisfun]

Why would they be banned? Wood is a renewable source of energy, and wood burners are very efficient, clean and safe if installed and used correctly.

Regarding the OP's question, either way is fine I reckon.

If you aren't on mains gas supply is cheaper, especially if you can get free wood.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

If you aren't on mains gas supply is cheaper, especially if you can get free wood.

We can't get gas, it's not available here. We've been using electricity, getting a heat pump next month.

I understand that they work very well, despite the opinions of the Daily Wail and their comments section. We'll see. No doubt if I say it works great in a few months then I'll be part of the big conspiracy according to some.

Heat pumps are very well established across the world, and for heating in climates far colder than ours. We're way behind the times, it's sad to see people actually switching to probably the dirtiest, most polluting form of heating. It's also possibly the most expensive if you need to buy wood, and it will make your house much colder due to the ventilation that's needed.

People can't immediately understand how heat pumps work, and it's beyond some being able to understand even with the most patient explanation in the world. So setting fire to lumps of dead tree is the future according to some.

 

[Roberto2019]

LOL... well yes if you are wiping and smearing soot all over your walls then something has gone drastically wrong!

And as a neighbour I would rather the odd bit of burning wood smell (not that it ever happens) than listening to the drone of a heat pump for hours a day. So depends which kind of nuisance you find more offensive.

 

[Deluks]

A heat pump costs around 2 to 3 times the cost of a wood burner, and you'll still get an electric bill to run the thing.
All the time the energy companies are ripping us off, raking it in for the shareholders and paying multi million pounds bonuses to the bosses, burning wood will remain an attractive option.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

And as a neighbour I would rather the odd bit of burning wood smell (not that it ever happens) than listening to the drone of a heat pump for hours a day. So depends which kind of nuisance you find more offensive.

Wood smell is harmful, noise isn't.

Most modern heat pumps are now much quieter than gas boilers.

Don't rely on the Daily Wail comments section for heating advice. The world outside of the UK is advancing and improving life and health. We're going backwards to setting fire to lumps of wood like cavemen.

I'd add that the soot wasn't at all visible. Until my other half started wiping, at which point it congregated together into grey smears. It might be worth trying the same if you have a stove, you might see for yourself what's in the air you're breathing.

The cost of a wood burner is difficult to measure. If you're using legally obtained bought wood that's been dried for 2 years then I'd guess it's more expensive than gas or a heat pump. Obviously if you get free wood then that's different. Free wood is usually not legal to burn and will harm you and your neighbours even more than legal wood.

 

[robinbanks]

A heat pump costs around 2 to 3 times the cost of a wood burner

My heat pump was 4k. My FIL just paid 7k for a log burner. I'm not sure what you claim is always true

listening to the drone of a heat pump for hours a day

Have you ever actually done it? Do you know with your own ears how unobtrusive they are, or is your assertion misinformed hyperbole?

 

[Deluks]

My heat pump was 4k. My FIL just paid 7k for a log burner. I'm not sure what you claim is always true

I'm not sure your anecdotal evidence is true in every scenario.

"How much do heat pumps cost?
 
Joanna O’Loan, Knowledge Manager at Energy Saving Trust, says:

Air source heat pumps are the most commonly installed in the UK. Including VAT, labour costs and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant, you could expect to pay around £6,500 to £11,500 depending on the work required"


Anyway, blah blah insert alternative point of view here. Etc etc

 

[robinbanks]

I'm not sure your anecdotal evidence is true in every scenario

I didn't say it was, I just used it as an example to counter your assertion that heat pumps always cost more than double a wood burner. You didn't provide any conditional/chance element to your word choice, whereas I made a point of calling out that I knew this not to be the case. Had you said "may" or "often" it would have been different.

I don't doubt that heat pump installs can cost more than wood burner installs; my FIL did also have a tiny WB installed in his summer house for £350, a straightforward replacement of an existing, but you also have to consider that HPs are usually central heating systems capable of proving space heating and DHW for an entire property. It's rare that a wood burning stove is the same. I would thus contend that heat pumps represent better value even if they do cost more. Also worth noting that you can get a grant for an HP, but you can't for a WB

 

[Deluks]

I didn't say always, you've filled in some blanks. Yes I could've used more words but this is a simple debate with a stranger in an internet forum, not a legal document.

Pedantry aside, this thread has gone from a bloke asking about his fireplace tiles to a a binary argument pitting heat pumps and wood burners against each other.
I don't know anyone who has a wood burner as their sole source of heat, with the exception of a few rural types that also have a wood fed Rayburn with back boiler etc.

I wouldn't suggest that anyone in a town should have a wood burner as their sole source of heat, but as a supplementary source of heat, as a 'romantic' option (yes, lots of people think of them as 'cosy') plus the redundancy is useful when your combi breaks down in winter. I expect heat pumps, being much more mechanical than a simple metal box would also be prone to the occasional breakdown.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Getting back to the money thing, the govt will give you £7,500 for a heat pump. They're basically free. I don't agree with the concept of subsidies, especially not as we were going to buy one anyway, but while they're flinging free money about I'll take it.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Having a stove installed and sitting there unused will make your living room vastly colder so cost you lots extra in heating, which is why they're not fitted in eco-houses. I know from first-hand experience. You can't make a room warm when there's a bloody great hole in the roof.

 

[Deluks]

Having a stove installed and sitting there unused will make your living room vastly colder.

This is a brilliant observation.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I mean it will be colder than if you didn't have a stove installed, due to the warm air getting constantly sucked out of the room via the flue and its vents.

 

[robinbanks]

Increasingly common to see sealed ones now where they draw the air they use for the burn from a vent connected to the outside world, not the room, but reasonable to assert that such a burner will still have some cooling effect if the world air can flow through it due to wind or thermal siphoning