When I tested it, it did seem to be very well sorted on “clean glass”

It’s a conspiracy, I swear they’re working against me 😆😆😆 At least you’ve found us again!

@ looks like things have probably moved on with his 2022 thing So when I go back through all the screenshots in my tens of thousands of photos to find the ones that I decided to choose, they probably out of date now are they in city center ?

I doubt it. 2022 stoves were being introduced from around 2017. They called them Eco-Design Ready, but what stove have you got?

A blow torch is perhaps the best idea. If that fails the only other solution is a drill and re-tapping the hole.

This is definitely one on the cards!

@TheTortoise brilliant looking forward to it

Welcome aboard! 😅

I like that for those of us who know about it, cutting, splitting, drying and using wood to heat our homes is nearly impossible to stop. And in a world where alternatives are becoming cripplingly expensive, less green, and bullied onto people, I suspect the industry will get busier. I hope so, anyway.

Typically you want to go bigger with the fire. Open the vents, leave the door ajar, and if spillage persists, open a door/window for 2 minutes whilst the fire lights. Once things are properly warmed through, you should notice a big improvement. You’ll also find, that as you get used to lighting with a bigger fire, you’ll find it becomes easier and faster every time.

People often worry about this, but it’s really a non issue. Either a draw issue will appear or your sweep will find it, when you service it. There is no need to be searching for this, as it’ll be a slow process and in most cases the beginnings of it breaking down won’t cause any issues anyway.

Hi, Well at “passive” levels of specification, you are best with smaller, so I would lean towards the Aire 3. You can still run it hot (with more fuel) or turn it down with less fuel, but the box being smaller will mean it is easier to keep clean and cheaper to run too.

@@TheTortoise , Thank you Gabriel!

Your neighbour should be banned! What a nuisance. You’ve gotta speak to him, because 15 minutes is obscene. Either that or buy him an ash hoover for Christmas 😅

Yea it’s a strange one. Previously all anyone did was fit 6” because it was, and still is the best option in most cases. However in 2011 (from memory) DEFRA approved stoves were introduced, and with it, they banned the use of 5” with any stoves that weren’t DEFRA approved. This created unusual interest, as there was now a barrier to overcome. If someone bought a DEFRA stove, they would typically have paid more and they wanted the benefits including 5” flue. Now clearly 5” flue is not actually a benefit for anyone but the shop, because they cost less and are easier to install (there are some cases where smaller flues are an advantage, but that’s another subject), but the barrier, mixed with the sales patter of the industry caused a massive increase in 5” sales. Things like: It’s cheaper to buy It’s easier and cheaper to install You can have it if you buy the upgraded and more costly DEFRA version. Your chimney is short, so will benefit from a smaller flue. Your chimney is tight, so we may be forced to use a DEFRA stove and a 5” flue. It became a big talking point in shops, so sales went with it. I remain an advocate for 6” flues wherever possible, and suitable, but it is slightly more costly and trickier to install due to bigger weight, trickier to carry up a ladder and to shove down a chimney.

Recommended ventilation regs are designed to be interpreted by the installer. So if an installer can demonstrate that the required amount of air is already coming into the property, then no extra vent is required. In most places that age, this is an easy process, as there is no requirement that the vent be specific type, it could be a poorly fitting door, a gap in floor boards down to a vented sub floor etc etc. Obviously the proof in the pudding is in the eating. If when you light the stove, it works well and is t struggling to draw, then you know you’ve got enough air coming in.

Free standing stoves are typically better from a performance, heat output and effectiveness point of view. The inset can have some aesthetic advantages though. Given you burn 90% wood, I would strongly recommend a woodburner. This won’t prevent you from burning solid fuel, but buying a multi-fuel stove is a bit like buying a tractor rather than a car, because you might go off road, it’s literally madness. Having said that, multi-fuel stoves are easier to light because they have air beneath the fuel, but you’ve got to consider that this also causes some of the wood to be wasted. Wood stoves are still easy enough to light, and it’s likely that the only reason you use 10% coal is to keep the stove in for longer. And the only reason you need that is because you’ve bought something with a grate. So it’s a self fulfilling prophecy of “you need coal to keep it in”, it’s not true unless you’ve bought the wrong stove. If it were me an excellent bang for your buck stove is a Hunter Allure 4. It’s cheap, controllable, burns for a long time and entirely focused on wood. You can also look at the Woodford Pankhurst and other small wood only stoves we’ve tested. If however you wanted to retain a grate and still achieve high levels of wood only performance (like the Allure), then you’ll end up spending considerably more on things like: Clock Blithfield Compact Woodwarm Phoenix Or Heta Inspire 40 You could consider many other lower cost things, but this would seem a mistake, as they will perhaps cease to offer you real advantages over what you already have.

@@TheTortoise Thanks a lot

Höta is a fireplace manufacturer, or do you mean Heta? There are several Heta stoves that we’ve tested if you search for: Inspire 45 Inspire 55 Ambition 5 Scan Line 8 Scan Line 1000 Scan Line 900 Icon Line Eclipse All of those are from Heta

The fuel is probably the issue. Dry pine weighs very little, so 5 logs perhaps have the same calorific value as 1 oak log. Therefore if you put 2-3 beech, oak or ash logs into this stove, you’ll get it to temperature and run it potentially for hours. You would perhaps need to burn as much as 3X with pine. Perhaps try adding much more fuel, or re-loading it twice as often, as this should drive temperatures up. I very much suspect it’s a calorie issue, more than a stove one.

Thank you. Makes sense and I’ve certainly noticed that more is more with the pine.

That is unfortunately a near impossible thing to answer. Obviously the size of the stove and system will have a huge affect, and also your fuel source too. Having said that, it’s probably useful to add that if you’re planning on running your whole central heating system with a stove, then it is important that you have a cheap/free fuel source. When I was young we would buy entire trees, and then go and chop them up ourselves (with ash dieback this is very easy now, as many people have trees coming down across the whole country). That way we could buy huge amounts of fuel for next to nothing, and we ran all our heating and hot water for perhaps as little as £300 per year. You can buy fuel, but if you’re willing to do some work, then this is where some big savings will appear. If you intend on buying pre-dried fuel, then then a boiler stove becomes an economic non-starter. As you’re paying for all the work that could be done by you. I’m a big fan of these types of systems, and in a future project, I plan to potentially put one in and film the process. But it’ll be a big project and will require some nice big trees for me to cut, log, split, dry and then load into my boiler every few hours 😅.

Not sure what you mean? House insurance will get involved if a problem has arisen, which will have (in the vast majority of cases) been caused by a mistake by the user. If it was caused by negligence by the installer, then their insurance would be liable, but that is an incredibly rare occurrence (certainly I have never encountered this, in 10’s of thousands of installations my family has been involved in). Interestingly many thousands that we have done, were done before regs were introduced.

The house coal of old is no longer sold, or recommended. But typically you would treat it much more like wood. It burns hot, needs to be dry and is less acidic. It was actually all round a better fuel for the consumer, but sadly it is no more.

Different stoves have different focuses, so if you test a Ferrari on practicality it will score very low, but in other ways I’m sure it’s wonderful. My figures aren’t dissimilar, in that they’re all quite performance focused, but this stove is much more focused on the look, and creating an ambiance. The double doors are all about look. The little de-ashing grate, we know will negatively affect fuel economy and control, but again it is there for convenience. I perhaps need to add another section, that I can rate, but I’m not sure what to call it? 😅

@@TheTortoise I think your categories are fine - any additional ones will probably go too far into subjective territory, the scores just didn't quite match what you were saying, but that might be a me problem. I might be a bit bias because I really like the aesthetics of this stove, so I wanted it to rate highly in all areas, but having fuel economy at a 5 has kind of made me think of going back to the drawing board. It will be my first wood burning stove and I don't want to get it wrong. It's a bit of a minefield and finding your channel has been a great help.

I like the stove too, and I don’t necessarily think you should be put off by it being the average. If you want it as a back up and focal point for the evening, then it’s literally perfect. Even with a stove that scored 10, if you use it in this way, then you’ll achieve roughly the same. The only time fuel economy becomes relevant, is when you’re planning to keep the stove going for long periods. Think like a car. To and from the shops, fuel economy is pretty much the same. It’s when you get on the motorway that you can benefit from a more economical car.

@@TheTortoise Thanks for taking the time to respond in such detail. I think I'm somewhere between this one and the Clock Blithfield 5 even though I'm only planning on burning wood.

No worries at all! You know me, I’ll push you towards a stove with no grate 😅

You could if you fancy, go for the steel version, and then cut a small block of vermiculite to sit on top. But generally if you’re burning wood, it is always best to avoid a grate and an ashpan. Their estimate of a 2% drop in efficiency seems very likely and reasonable, when you remove vermiculite boards.

@ The choice is either vermiculite or steel panels. Adding some vermiculite to the steel panels version sounds like a good idea! No grate and ash pan then. Thanks!

May be worth looking at loosening the baffle off, taking the bricks out and then putting it all back together again. From there, check that the pipe on the stove has not jammed itself against something and it is very rigidly stuck. Sometimes moving the stove forward and back (without scratching your hearth) can loosen things off. Once you’ve released whatever tension it is under, the tick will disappear too.

@ thanks for the reply I will try your suggestion and go from there appreciate it 👍

We’re in Somerset, but we don’t run a stove shop, we just muck about online 😆.

Here it is: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y3W5q5mbh9Noj7csi=sDVjTUos6qNJ8gsX

@@TheTortoise Thank you

Excellent point 👌

Yes, it’s just wise to ensure your fuel is dry.

​@@TheTortoiseto avoid the risk of moisture so you don't get acid eating the liner?

That’s it!

😬 pink ??? I’m really bad at that, my wife chooses colours and then being a cheapskate, I then try and get it mixed in Dulux. 😅

@ haha you sound like my husband! It’s such a warm pink

😂

That’s a great idea. I’d love to! The intricate nature of those would make a great video too!

They are, and I know one of the importers quite well.

I’m with you, I don’t want cheap and flimsy. And this is what to look for, rather than just focusing on the grade of metal. Definitely worth going into your local shops and seeing what they have. I always prefer seeing it in person.