New Woodburner

[PABLO123]

Ive been saying we should get a wood burner for the last 3 years. After last year being so cold and living
in an old house with no cavity wall insulation and 3.2m high ceilings, and giving away so much timber to people
with woodburners. I thought it was time we should get one. I had no intention of fitting it myself so we booked
a guy from a local firm to come out and do a survey he rang 3 hours after he should have turned up saying he couldnt
find us, Bad start straight away so we rebooked for 3 days later he came, i seemed to know more than him, anyway he sent us a quote i nearly
fell of my chair, just to fit the new flue liner and wood burner nothing else was £1500 it would take 2 men half a day,
if they couldnt do it from a ladder then it would be another £600 for scaffold. I reckon if i re trained as a HETAS fitter
i would only have to work 3 months a year. That was that, i`d decided i was going to do it my self. I did lots of research
on the net and found out you could fit it yourself and then get your local council to sign it off for you.
here are some pictures of how i did it.

Original fire Surround, never really liked it came with the house





Removed fire surround and put new lintel in, found a gas flue liner





chopped it all out to required size




replastered




Fitted new flue liner




Fitted supalux fire resistant board all round £101 + vat 8 x 4 sheet!!!!!!!!!




fitted new register plate made from 40 x 40 angle iron welded together by my dad
and fitted the supalux to it



New woodburner and stone surround fitted and running super warm now, and the other half is happy



All i would say is it wasnt that hard to do, but do your research its all there online
better get back to the workshop now im running a bit behind on my latest kitchen

[woodworker]

I like that Paul, very nice.

[jfc]

Ive been thinking about converting my open fire to a wood burner mainly to burn the spindle moulder and planer shavings . Is a flue liner a must with these or can you use the existing flue ? Built in wood burner not a free standing one .

[tusses]

it depends on the state of the chimney.
A good gas tight chimney doesn't need a liner.
If you can tell you have an open fire / wood burner from upstairs, then you probably need a liner.

Ours probably wouldn't pass modern building regs, but our chimney is 200yrs old, and we are on the outskirts of the city limits (in the sticks) , so we get left alone. Also there is a canal on our boundry with smoky canal boat chimneys (they're exempt) , so we just blend in

you ought to check on smoke emissions in your area.
Shavings can burn very smoky with the wrong burner, or they make burners specifically for shavings / saw dust !

I think you may be in a smokeless zone.

Just stuff to think about.

Do you use your open fire ? what do you burn ? you may be OK !

[PABLO123]

YOU DONT HAVE TO HAVE A FLUE LINER BUT MOST NEW WOOD BURNERS WORK BETTER WITH THEM, AND THEY ARE
EASIER TO SWEEP. THE STOVE THAT I PUT IN IS A DEFRA APPROVED MULTI FUEL STOVE FOR SMOKELESS ZONE.

PAUL

[modernist]

If you burn softwood slowly, which you will with a decent woodburner, you can get problems of tar coming through the porous liner of an unlined flue. I would always line it for that and the reasons above.

[mtr1]

Looks really good, and it looks like you were using your L/N block to plane down that fireboard......nice job

[PABLO123]

Thanks Mark am in there now finishing the decorating
Just the new timber floor to go down now

Paul

[stevep]

Good choice for the fire surround. Much more in keeping with the house than the repro one you ripped out.

[albram]

Yep I did exactly the same had local council regs guy , showed him the components and spec sheets of materials I was going to use . I installed it with help of semi retired builder ( he did the high bits on the roof) , I don't like heights .it. Was signed off successfully no problems . The whole thing cost about £1800 including stove at £600 ...If anyone wants to deal with a good on line company the "stovesonline" are absolutely excellent....free advice , good quality liner etc etc .

[Caleb37]

It definitely looks better now. Glad it's working well too!

[Mr Plank]

Ive been thinking about converting my open fire to a wood burner mainly to burn the spindle moulder and planer shavings . Is a flue liner a must with these or can you use the existing flue ? Built in wood burner not a free standing one .

A proper liner greatly adds to the fuel efficiency and safety of a stove installation. You should be able to get a defra listed stove which are highly fuel efficient and will produce less emissions than a bog standard gas fire if its properly installed with a flue (generally 5 inches diameter rather than the usual 6 inch) I believe there are 1 or 2 manufacturers who make wall mounted stoves designed to fit inside a standard british fire opening. I dont know if you can safely burn shavings/dust etc in them, and any way youd be surprised how much fuel you need to keep a stove running. I guess in London the supply of logs will be a hassle, and if your local council are green zealots?

I just had an old clapped out villager stove removed-badly installed to begin with and mis-used by the prevoious house owner and replaced it with a Woodwarm 6KW. I paid a hetas installer, but his prices were very sensible...! It was an education to have a look up inside the pots before the liner was led in-vertical runs of black oozy tar, this despite the fact that it was swept in June-and not used at all since then....The installer will usually infill the space between the metal liner and the clay pots. If you get a proper insulated twin wall flue its one piece top to bottom, only joined at the top of the stove pipe, no internal leakage. And you dont get problems with condensation and cold spots in the chimney which affect the quality of the draw.