i need some advice can you help?

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charlotteh

New Member
Hearth Supporter
Apr 12, 2007
4
im lookin to fit a wood burning stove into an old unused fire place it is 1100mm wide 1400mm high 550mm deep. we had th chimney cleaned about 3 years ago the sweep said there were no probs just a bit of damp. what do i need to go with the stove? what is a flue? how does that work with a brick chomney?
 
OK, its approx 34" X 44" X 17" (sorry.... Tough for me to think in MM's).... are you looking for an insert or a free standing stove in front? I'd be a little concerned about it being "a little damp" unless its currently just open at the top now. Can you describe the layout a little more, and about what location you are in?
 
i would like a free standing stove, the chimney is openish at the top we do get rain down it on very wet nights. i live in blighty so its quite wet a lot of the time.
what kind of info on surroundings do you need? room size etc?
 
Translation:

"Blighty" = The UK/Britain/England
 
yes thats true i do live in the uk. could you help me? please
 
i woulk like a crystal 5>7kw cast iron stove if that helps at all or a orchid multi fuel cast iron stove
 
charlotteh said:
i woulk like a crystal 5>7kw cast iron stove if that helps at all or a orchid multi fuel cast iron stove


5-7KW is about 17,000 - 23,800 BTU/hr....

1) What size room in sq ft or sq meters will the room be in?

2) What other rooms do you expect it to heat and what are their sizes?

3) How many stories in the house?

4) How well insulated is the home?

5) Do you currently have a forced air heating system and if so I assume you have vents in all rooms and a few cold air returns. Is this correct?

6) Does your heating system have a manual fan setting on it so that you can turn it on without having the furnace come on?
 
GVA said:
I was looking for a crystal freestanding on crystals site and couldn't find one...

while searching I ran into this, factory seconds......... just wondering what the pro's thought about the decription of the flaws..... Would you burn this?

http://www.naturalheating.co.uk/crystal-cast-iron-multifuel-stove-slight-seconds-p-819.html

Hmmm... well not from a Pro's point of view, but " They have been untidily assembled...the tops are a little higher on one side than they are on the other, and some of the rotating dials spin in a rather strange motion when opened" would probably make me walk away from those... and I would not even consider buying the brand, if they let something like that out the door to be sold as "seconds" with their name on it.
 
Hi Charlotte,

Welcome. On this side of the pond we don't have the broad selection of English made stoves available to you. We are mostly see the major imported varieties such as Jotul and Morso. You won't go wrong buying these stove in England either. But regardless of brand, you do want to get a stove that is sized correctly for your needs, well made, efficient in extracting maximum heat, and clean burning. Look for proper capacity and at least a good secondary burn system.

From what I can see, the Crystal stove is very basic and low priced. I suspect it won't have the better burn characteristics or quality of a Jotul or Morso. Both are sold in England and are excellent stove makers. I would also consider Dovre, Esse, Stovax and Vermont Castings stoves. But most importantly, I would find a good dealerthat you can trust to sell and service the stove correctly.

The flue is the pipe that the stove exhausts into. In some cases it is safe to exhaust the stove into an existing, tile-lined chimney, if it is in good condition and sized correctly for the stove. But often, it is advisable to continue the metal piping all the way to the top of the chimney, particularly if the chimney is not lined with tile, or in the best shape or mis-sized for the stove.

Is the room where the stove is to be installed open to other rooms, or is there only a doorway connection? In other words, is this going to be a room heater or a whole house heater? What are your fuel options? - wood, briquettes, coal, gas?
 
Seems like an awfully small firebox compared to the size of your fireplace, at least by US standards. I may be biased, but my gut reaction to looking at that Crystal Stove home page was that those folks looked like they were more into selling decorations, than they were worrying about selling heat... (nothing wrong with that, but make sure it's what you want)

What are your goals in getting a woodstove? Replace your current heat? Supplement it? If so, how much? Or do you want an occasional fire to sit in front of, with the heat as an incidental? - This is something that will impact what we would suggest.

What is your wood supply like? How much does it cost? We don't have many active UK members, but my impression from the few that I've seen is that wood in England tends to be expensive and / or hard to get - is this something you've checked into?

What we generally find most useful when comparing numbers is to look at the firebox volume, as manufacturers can play all sorts of games to get the numbers they think look best in their adverts. For instance, that stove claims to be 7KW, but also is a multi-fuel unit - is that 7KW with wood, or with some other fuel (i.e. coal) that burns hotter?

They only seem to give two dimensions on the firebox, but it seems like well under a single cubic foot. Here in the US, the most popular stoves seem to be in the 2-3 cubic foot size. If you look through the forums here you will see LOTS of people with 1-2 cubic foot stoves wishing they had gotten something larger. Typical complaints include not getting enough heat, and short burn times - our users tend to want 8+ hours between needing to reload. This isn't a big deal if you just want a "decorative" fire, but is an issue if you want to do serious heating...

Also that stove seems to be designed as a coal / multifuel stove, but your original post said you wanted to burn wood? If you need multi-fuel, then that stove might be OK, but if you are only going to burn wood, I'd be inclined to look for a pure wood stove - IMHO multifuel stoves have to make design compromises to get the multifuel capability such that they don't burn any one fuel as well as a more specialized stove would. (However coal and other fuels usually don't do well in a wood stove.

Good luck in your search,

Gooserider
 
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