How to use a Wood Burning Stove [Superhome59 part 13]
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- Опубліковано 24 січ 2015
- Describes the use of a Wood Burning Stove in an ordinary 5 bed home in the UK. Part 13 of a series of videos by Superhome 59. Superhomes are super-energy efficient retrofit homes with very low carbon footprints. We show you how to use a wood burning stove, how to clean it, how to operate it, how to light it and how to fuel it. Applicable to the Dovre 250 and similar models in the United Kingdom.
By way of added explanation: I was born on a remote farm at the end of the 1960s. My father had to dig out the snow drifts that blocked the narrow country lane, that lead to the farm, so that the mid-wife could attend to my Mother. My family all still live in deepest darkest rural areas. I didn't move to a suburban area until I left home at age 18. My earliest memories are of my father lighting a solid fuel fire with paper and firelighters. In those days we used coal and had it delivered to the bunker by lorry. Dad would send us down to the bottom of the garden with the coal scuttle for an evening's worth of fuel. For us this was normal. It remains sad to this day that people feel free to mock the work I do today at Superhome59 - as if it is some kind of amusing joke that us "townies" should play with our "country-lifestyles", don our green wellies and drive our kids to school in an enormous four-by-four off-road vehicle. None of these stereotypes are true of myself nor my family. Even the family I have that live in the middle of nowhere don't use SUVs of this nature. We are country kids born and bred. For us to adopt wood burning stoves at the edge of modern suburbia is simply normal. As is growing vegetables. That is the way our Fathers brought us up - my wife too. Sometimes burning wood is just something you do to keep warm. When I go and visit family I watch my brother-in-law light his log burner using exactly the same techniques described here. This isn't a game for us. We are not pretending to be anything other than the people we were raised to be. Those who wish to judge us and scoff at our willingness to share our sense of normality are missing the point. We are where we are. And everything must change.
really informative and useful to help is use the log burner in our rented acommodation. thanks for sharing!
Very informative. Great little tidbits of information - thank you.
Thankyou for watching.
I enjoyed watching your video. I have two recommendations for you to consider though. One, look into the top-down method of fire starting. Its way less smoky. Two, for cleaning the creosote from stove glass, newspaper moistened with plain water and a bit of rubbing is all you need. Seriously, its that easy. Save your money, don't buy the products.
another trick to clean the glass damp piece of kitchen papers dip it in the ash from last nights fire and clean the window. works perfectly no chemicals and perfectly clean.
I always use top down its the only way to light a fire.
great video I enjoyed it so much thank you.
Hi, I have recently installed a 5Kw stove in my house and I'm still playing with it to get the optimum setting. The handbook says once the fire is going - about 5 mins after lighting - to close the lower vent off completely and to regulate the airflow using the top vent only. This allows air to come in on top of the wood rather then below it. Playing around with that top vent does change the colour of the embers from bright red to nearly out, so it is doing something.
Like you I was brought up with a traditional coal / wood fire and I light it exactly as you do, but apparently the Top down method is preferable. I've tried it once and it did light but it doesn't get going as fast as lighting it from the bottom.
i like this video, well explained especially since i am new... very good
Very good walk through,i especially enjoyed the” burning of the daily mail before you’ve read it” funny guy🤣🤣👍
I have had to remove a troll comment this morning by somebody who could not spell the word "logs" or the word "firelighters" before making an incomprehensible comment about a "proper log store built not using sheets". I have literally no idea what this person was on about but this sort of thing will not be tolerated. The installation was done by professionals and the usage shown in this video is best practice. You may have opinions about improvements but I will remove comments by any person who clearly has not watched the video and who clearly have not a single clue about how to use a wood burning stove.
Nice video 👍🏻
I'd love one in my council upper floor flat in winter to supplement central heating
The problem of cold bedrooms is easily mitigated with a wireless thermostat. Simply move it to the bedrooms. The heating will remain on until the bedrooms are warm, and thermostatic radiator valves in the living rooms will prevent overheating there.
+Spencer Wilton I understand you mean a single thermostat that you can move around? If you simply moved the single thermostat to the cold bedroom then that might be an improvement despite the inconvenience. You would rely upon the living area TRVs to shutdown the local rads whilst still pumping heat to cold bedrooms. There is a risk of waste and overheating but your idea is worth trying. The only issue is that our Thermostat is a digital one linked to the KWB Biomass pellet boiler controller. Unless these things can be retrofitted to such proprietary systems then this is not an opportunity open to us. But thanks for the idea.
It might be an idea to place a plastic bag around that ash tray when carrying it out of the house 🏠
Thanks for the suggestion. In practice this is unlikely to work as placing the bag over the tray is likely to send the dust flying. Secondly, if the tray is still hot then it could be disastrous. In reality we find there is no actual problem is walking the ash tray out of the house. Best wishes.
very surprised how much wood that little thing uses. i have the equivalent of a 24 kw (80000 btu) stove hearthstone mansfield soapstone. That basket would last all day in my stove.
Mark, do you have a log splitter? I've got plenty of logs if you want them. They are a bit damp though.
Daily Mail joke was priceless
Pity council removed covered up the old fireplaces as they are a godsend in cold wet weather winter
Hi great instructive video.
Why is your air gap around the stove so small ?
I'm fiting one and the stove says 150mm gap all round
The Dovre 250 was shoe-horned into the space available. The slot it is in was designed for a small gas fire. It would not be possible to make it bigger without removing bricks that hold the house up. The installer never mentioned the lack of space would be a problem and none of the chimney sweeps have ever commented upon it. Since it is close to masonry and this is not flammable then there really is no immediate danger. Expansion and contraction may cause wall cracks but we haven't noticed any in the plaster (after years of use) - so there is no apparent problem. The advice to leave a gap is new to us and we were not aware of it before. It may well be a precaution to avoid singeing a wood surround? It may well also be good advice for stove maintenance? Who knows. A masonry stove is actually built into a brick surround. As is any Pizza oven. Hence this is not likely to be of any real-world concern. Certainly we have never had any actual problems and do not expect any. Thanks for your feedback and thanks for looking!
Thanks for the reply ,
Just dont know if they would sign it off if I fit one that dont have a big enough air gap.
the one i want to fit is 20mm to big to get me 150mm air gap at the sides.
Depends what you mean by "they" and "sign off". There may well be Building Regulations but an inspection is unlikely. Air supply is critical to avoid creating Carbon Monoxide. You will need a Carbon Monoxide alarm in the room. That could be life-saving. But air-circulation AROUND a fire sound like nothing more than something you do to avoid heat damage to the surrounding structure and to allow maintenance. Hard to imagine that being subject to a hard enforcement by the building Inspector. May depend upon which country you are in I suppose! Anyway.. Thanks again for the feedback. Interesting.
Thanks for the reply.
Cant wait for the install for this Christmas.
I'm from UK BTW.
Your fitter has ripped you off, of course they could of made it wider, just used a concrete lintel,
Hope video. How should I stack my wood when refueling the stove?
I throw my logs into large wicker baskets and store them as close to the stove as possible. They are not "stacked" there as such but there is plenty of warm air circulating around them from the adjacent stove. With two such baskets, either side of the stove, we will burn through one basket load in an evening then refill the empty one. So each basket has been next to the hot stove for 24 hours before burning - hence the wood there is warm and dry before its turn in the stove.
@@Superhome59 thanks for the reply. I meant how do I place the logs in the actual stove?
@@mattseymour8637 It is quite a small space and the logs fill it quickly. I just open the front door and place a log on top of the burning embers. There is no real art to it.
what should i know about being safe if i get a wood burner ? Can i use wood logs from trees or wooden pallets for the wood burner ?
I think I do cover most of these points in the video. Get a professional installer in and ask them these question for your particular property. Wood Burners are perfectly safe with your only real concern being adequate airflow so as to prevent carbon monoxide build-up in the living space. Hence you will need a carbon monoxide detector and get a professional to install the wood burner. You can burn pallets, we do! You can buy logs too (as we do) but they will need to be seasoned. This means they should have been dried out for at least a year before you burn them.
Does the stove intake air from the room it is in or is there a pipe connected to an external wall bringing in air from outside?
It takes it from the room. This is normal and for a house of this age and construction this is of no problem. However you should fit a carbon monoxide sensor in the room if you do so. Personally I would have preferred it if it drew air in from outside but you do have the problem of have to block that hole up the rest of the time! [I would like to have some kind of ventilation system that drew cold air from the furthest part of the house and used that. Warm air would be re-circulated back to give whole house warmth.]
Any fire rated at 5kW/h or under, does not need to have an external air supply.Some burners have this feature from behind the stove to draw in cold air.
I've been advised NOT to use newspaper or paper in a wood stove as the paper can cause blockages in the chimney area?
+Dave Alan Paper is only used to start the fire and is under a layer of kindling. I think you may refer to the general burning of paper in a stove as a method of incineration & in large quantities. In that case I agree - it is not wise because small pieces of burning paper can get sucked up into the flue and become lodged. I have seen this happen and it can get a bit hairy. Only use paper to light the fire.
Small amount of paper is ok
Thansk! very very useful video...
I have couple of questions,
1. How many logs do we need to actually burn at a time? I have 3KW smaller burner so I try n burn only one at a time?
2. You mentioned it is actually provding heat to your almost entire house? Is that true? how long do you keep your burner ON? and I am assuming you have open chimeny.
3. Honestly speaking currently I am struggling to get my one room heated and I know doing something wrong... please please help n advise. ta!
Sorry - I seem to have missed this comment from late 2016. To answer your questions
1. The Dovre 250 will take logs up to about 280mm long if you shoe-horn them in diagonally. So there is no real answer as it depends upon the size of the log. Assuming the average 250mm long log then I would say that we can get three in at a time. Or you can get in just one really big one. Or you can get in five smaller ones. Hard to be precise.
2. We have an open stair-well so the heat will circulate through the entire home. This is not quite the same as heating the whole house because the living areas will be toasty and warm, a couple of upstairs bedrooms are OK but two rooms (at the far end of the house upstairs) will feel too cold in comparison. Usage depends upon the school/working day. Typically I will light the fire at around 5 to 6pm when I am home from work and we will keep it going until 8 or 9pm. If my wife stays up and watches TV she will keep topping up the logs until 10pm. Some winter days, like weekends, we could light it in the morning and it will be alight all day. The chimney is lined.
3. How warm your home feels does rather depend upon your insulation and may have nothing to do with your heating appliance. So all the usual caveats apply. Our home has cavity wall insulation with full double or triple glazed windows. We draw the curtains at night and have a full 300mm of loft insulation. One side of our home faces south and is unshaded so we get a lot of solar gain. All these can influence how warm your home feels. Difficult to know, without seeing your home, what your issue could be. If you feel it is a problem with the wood-burner maybe consult a professional. I don't know what the problem could be in that area as they are quite simple and there is little to go wrong.
the glass on my tiger woodburner gets dirty very quickly on the edges. im not sure why. it only has an air intake valve at the bottom, not at the top.
i do tend to start a fire just as you show (paper, kindling, then i add a log) but i also like to mix in a bit of smokeless solid fuel.
this way i usually only need to burn 3-5 split logs for an entire evening and maybe 10 smokeless briquettes.in the end i end up with a medium sized bed of smokeless with logs going nicely on top.
i'm not sure if the smog is something to do with the air supply, the wood moisture content, or the burning of two fuels together.
thanks
We just use regular dry logs. The stove model we use has an air vent that blows fresh air over the inside of the glass. It helps to evaporate any condensate. However if anything burns close to to glass it will get a smoky residue. That is normal. I simply give it a wipe over with window cleaner every couple of days. For a deeper cleaning use something like the Stovax Glass Cleaner (I think I show this in the video?) - it is foul stuff but it does the trick. Good luck! Thanks for watching.
thank you for the reply. i use kiln dried logs so i think they're pretty dry. i tend to dry them out a bit more by putting them near the fire (but not too close).
i think i need a fire that also has a top vent. what model is yours? looks v nice.
It is a Dovre 250.
it's lovely. thanks for sharing.
btw, i found an easier method of glass cleaning. just take a piece of wood ember out of the fire when it's burning, let it cool down, and next morning rub it on the glass. it will cut through even the most stubborn soot stains! no products required
Yeah, think I have seen that somewhere before: carbon/soot has good abrasive properties and can be used to clean things. Just be careful in that the stove manufacturers prefer you not to use an abrasive. That might apply to bathroom or kitchen cleaning products so soot might be benign. Good tip though! Cheers.
No worries. I mainly burn wood. But occasionally coal. Have you burnt housecoal on it before and or coal at same time as logs?
No, never. Never considered it. It goes against the whole principle of the operation here!
@@Superhome59 ok whys that? What does it go against?
@@mattseymour8637 We promote a post-carbon life hence it would be against our principles to burn a fossil fuel.
Do you mix wood and coal at same time or do you just use 1 or the other?
The stove is dual fuel capable but we only burn wood. It would rather go against our mission statement to be low-carbon if we were to use any fossil fuels.
@@Superhome59 ok no worries does it burn ok on just wood with a grate?
@@mattseymour8637 Yes it burns wood alone just fine.
@@Superhome59 do you not find the wood falls through the grate too quick and loose the bottom?
@@mattseymour8637 No, this has never happened.
use ash from the fire on a damp cloth
Thankyou for watching. I assume your comment refers to cleaning the glass? This is advice we have heard before and we know many stove users endorse this. Although I am sure it works I always offer just one word of caution: the ash/soot is carbon which works as a mild abrasive. It has no chemical interaction (that I know of) with the creosote deposits on the glass. Stove manufacturers warn users NOT to use abrasives.In which case it may lead to the glass breaking or makes the creosote harder and harder to remove. So I still recommend the use of a chemical cleaner designed to dissolve the creosote chemically (a solvent) to increase the life of your stove glass. But I am sure there are few real problems with using ash or soot and this caution may stem from the manufacturers being ultra cautious about indemnifying themselves from the harm done by stove users trying to clean the stove with a bathroom cleaner.
A scrunched up sheet of newspaper into a ball-like pad. Quick dip the face of the pad into some water so it's wet but not soaked through. Dip the wet face into the wood ash in your ash pan. Use that to rub away at the inside of the glass. Not too hard so as to stress and possibly break the glass, but firmly enough to clean. I use about half a dozen such pads to clean a glass approximately 13" wide x 9" high.
When all of the black deposits are removed, use a final one or two paper pads, as above, but dampened and without the ash. Finish of with one or two completely dry newspaper pads. Maybe an old polishing cloth to finally remove any streaks on the glass. The whole business takes about 10 minutes.
What's occurring chemically is that the dampened paper plus the ash is making a basic type of lye - caustic potash, but not enough to harm you. If you are concerned use a glove o the hand doing the cleaning. It's never harmed me though.
Wait, hold on. It's only a 3kw stove and you're burning that whole basket of wood in only 2-3 hours?? We have an 8kw and only need one basket for a whole day to heat up the entire floor here (bedroom, kitchen, living room) up to a steady 22°C. I'm not talking about a little studio with not much space to heat, I'm talking about a full sized floor of a house with no additional heating.
You might want to keep in mind that 1 kilo of wood is about the average of 4kw (more or less, depending on the kind of wood you are using). Having to much heat inside the stove reduces its lifespan, as I been told by the company just today (Dovre). ;)
+TheOpelkoenjas Thanks for your interest & comment. You have an interesting perspective but we are probably comparing apples and pears. There is great no utility in measuring the energy content of wood by weight. It is done by volume. I have conducted research into this question in 2012 and found that dry hardwood has a per cubic metre energy content of 3000kWh. Dry softwood has a per cubic metre energy content of 1100kWh. But the moisture content is only that low if oven dried so assume 20% moisture content changing the numbers to 2200kWh & 900kWh/cubicM. What sort of wood are you burning?Our original SAP rating suggested that the Gas Fire that the Stove replaced consumed 3320kWh pa. So I did a rough back of the envelope calculation and found that 3 cubic meters of logs (approx our annual consumption) is somewhere between 3000kWh and 4,500kWh assuming the stove will be about 65% efficient. There is a big margin of error on these numbers but they work out in the same ball park as the SAP rating.I have been used to solid fuel burning (coal and wood) since childhood and see nothing unusual in the consumption of one small basket of small logs per evening in such a small stove. With 8kw you can perform space and water heating for a well insulated four bedroom house. That is an annual heat load of around 21000kWh. That is between 5 & 7 times the useful output of our tiny Dovre 250. So yes you can do what you do with an 8kw appliance but any differences in your perception about fuel consumption could come down to the size of your log basket, the type of wood burnt and its moisture content. The likelihood of you genuinely be able to burn so few logs is outside the range of stove efficiency improvements therefore there has to be another natural explanation. Superhome 59 is a five bedroom house hence it may have a higher internal volume than the one you are working with. Do you kiln dry your logs? As a useful experiment I could weigh a basket of my dry logs and let you know the numbers. They will be crude but an interesting comparison. Our baskets are really very small and only contain an armful of small logs.In addition the figure of "2-3 hours" refers to peak burn time, not the heat utility that lasts longer than that. The Dovre 250 is keeping one half of this large house at optimum temperature for probably six hours or more. I have pointed a thermal imaging camera at the stove area after 12 hours and can still see the heat signature in the surrounding wall so it is keeping the area warm for many, many hours after the initial burn.Thanks for your interest.
Low Energy Retrofit South Bucks - Superhome 59 The kind of wood that we use is oven dried birch. For our Dovre (35 CB3) we can use (split) logs with a max. of 30 cm of length, and up to 3-4 split logs stacked - depending on their size when split of course. I have to admit, our basket might somewhat be bigger, it can hold about 10-12 split logs per fill. Yes, our wood sits next to our stove. And the humidity of the wood is 15-17 percent, which is perfect.
+TheOpelkoenjas Yes, that may go some way to explain the differences! Cheers.
Low Energy Retrofit South Bucks - Superhome 59 I guess every stove is different in its usage. I just was amazed by the amount of wood you were using in such fast tempo to warm up your house. Which clearly we don't have to do here. ^^ Maybe it's because we don't have an upper floor (I should have listened a bit more careful to your video), but you could compare our floor with the space of a good sized loft. ^^ Cheers, mate, and enjoy the warmth of your stove, specially now that T°'s outside are dropping radically. ;)
+TheOpelkoenjas Hmmm, just a thought, yes Superhome 59 is a large five bed house with open stairwell hence it has a large joined up volume. But that doesn't mean we run the Dovre full wack. It is turned down to minimum air flow as soon as it is up to operating temperature. That only takes about 15 to 20 minutes. So your heat demand may be less but it also sounds as if you are able to operate your stove at a lower burn rate. This coupled with the drier hard woods, larger basket and larger logs probably accounts for our perceived differences. I think the volume difference largely accounts for the fact that you operate a room temperature at 22C whereas we are at about 20C.Thanks for the chat! Cheers. Have a great winter.
The first thing I see is the wood burner in not out in the open, being tight in that space the heat cannot radiate up from all sides, a lot of the heat is contained and goes up the flue. You're heater looks much more than 3kw. My wood burner is 6kw and smaller. I honestly think you are losing out with the burner being in that recess.
Thanks for watching. It is what it is. 2.9Kw is the rating and the recessed option was recommended to us. The Dovre 250 sits inside a pre-existing emplacement for an old gas fire. The space is quite small. Installation there saves space and was more child friendly. To be fair the only heat "loss" is that backward through the wall to the garage of the neighbour next door. Embedding a stove like this in brick is similar to a "masonry stove" where the heat is intended to be stored in the thermal mass of the masonry. Hence it is slower to react in heating a room but it stores the heat for longer. I have taken thermal-imaging photos of this wall in the morning after a previous evening's burn (hours after the fire has gone out) and found that the surrounding wall is a couple of degrees warmer. It is still radiating heat out into the room. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, all the brick surround does is slow it down.
First of all why is your glass dirty?..I have a clearview stove and the glass is never dirty!
Thankyou for your inquiry. If you glance down the comments here you will see that cleaning the dirty glass is a regular talking point. So this dirt build up is quite normal and is a regular experience for stove users. The reason why some users have less problem than others is stove size. My Dovre 250 is really tiny hence the fuel load is quite close to the glass. This sends out jets of vapourised creosote and carbon smuts that coat the glass as that is where the dirt condenses before an air current can whisk it away up the flue. If you have a much larger stove then the fuel can be a long way away from the glass. Hence good air circulation will keep the glass clean. That is my assumption.
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We have had some strange feedback on this forum suggesting that this stove is somehow wrongly fitted because of the small air gap around it. For your information this stove was not fitted DIY - we had professionals in to do this. If anyone wishes the know more about the sort of Technical Guidance you need to do a job like this then go to the LABC web site at www.labc.co.uk/guidance/technical-guidance. Specifically download the PDF file at www.labc.co.uk/sites/default/files/LABC.solid-fuel-stoves.DB_.v1.000014.pdf This contains all you need to know about the air gap around the stove and any ventilation you need. We have read the official guidance and can find nothing wrong with the installation depicted in our video. This advice applies to the united Kingdom only. If anyone can point to evidence that contradicts this then please use citations in your post. Otherwise we will delete such postings like we do for any other posts from time wasting trolls.
It's a 5kw burner not 3kw ....
That’s a 250 multi not a wood burner. ..
Yes, it is a multi-fuel stove. It could also be adapted to burn coal. Obviously we would not be burning fossil fuels though. What makes you think that one of the "multiple fuels" is not logs?
@@Superhome59 generally a multi is coal and wood. A wood stove is just wood. That’s why it burns on the floor. Yes ?
@@terrythurston8572 Thankyou for getting back to us with your question. There is no significant difference in the stove between the use of the two different fuels. However, as we are in a smoke control zone we would not have burnt coal anyway. The installers never left us with the alternative front grate that would be used for coal. So the configuration of the Dovre 250 we have installed is ONLY for wood burning., We could not burn coal in it even if we wanted to. I do not believe the meaning of "multi-fuel stove" implies you would burn both at the same time. As they have different internal parts then it is either/or.
There is a significant difference in a 250 cbs and a multi fuel. The baffle plate is different, the back plate is different, there is no grate or ash pan and the complete floor of a wood only is different. , I own both the dovre 250 wood and multi , can assure you the internal arrangement is very different. Hope this helps you. .
Cheers
T
Lighting up your stove from the bottom up is not what I recommend. I light up my dovre 760cb from top to bottom without paper. It generates far less smoke and keep your chimney clean(er)
Looks like you are determined to burn your house down. Ashes into a plastic bin that's left in the house is never a good idea no matter how cold you believe the ashes to be. Also kindling on top of a boiler??
Thanks for watching. To answer your comments I can only direct you to the related videos or invite you to visit Superhome 59. As stated in the video the ashes are emptied when cold so clearly putting them in a plastic containers is fine. I am unsure why you got the impression that the ashes were hot when I clearly stated the opposite in the video. As for the kindling on the biomass boiler. It is a biomass boiler. It contains 225kg of wood pellets. Two pallets of wood pellets are stacking right next to it. It is a boiler: a machine to contain heat and direct it to heat water. It is not hot on the outside in the way that a wood burning stove is. There is a plastic small box on one side that contains the PAPER instruction Manual. There is no fire hazard on the outside of the boiler. If you have further questions please let me know.
Are you a teacher by any chance?
No.😁
@@Superhome59 great delivery 👌 seemed like a teachers approach lol