[Goldcraig]

Hi..we have a coal fire in our cottage at present but are due to renovate, therfore I was wondering what is considered the best source of heat?
I like the coal fire but fear we may be losing most of the heat up the lum, a friend prefers wood burners any day...

[deepinthewoods]

i installed  a woodburner in autumn, in anticipation of a cold winter, it makes so much difference, you lose 80%of the heat up the chimney with a coal fire.
there are sites where you can work out what heat output you need for the size room you have.

[lachlanandmarcus]

WOODBURNER! it's so much nicer to deal with and altho I love open fires you will really relish the extra heat and the ease of leaving it lit all safe.

[MAK]

We put a log burning stove in last March. It runs 8 radiators over 3 floors with some of the circuit going out into the barn and returning into the house upstairs. The pump is behind the stove/wall in our utility room and we have an expansion tank in the loft ( vented to outside).The stove has a thermostat that you can adjust- this controls the flow of  air into the back of the burner. This is OK but if you have no fuel (wood) then despite lots of oxygen it will not heat up.
Essentially - don't expect the instant heat or temperature regulation with wood that you get with gas or oil and keep the stove on all day for the building to soak up the heat. We are very pleased with the system and the heat output is great.

Key point - have you got space near the house to store all the seasoned logs and can you stack about a cubic meter of wood next to the fire to keep it going all day.

There is lot to consider when buying a stove but others on this site have previously discussed this too. Size of stove vs room size and space to heat. some have backboilers for hotwater with other fuel used in the summer months. Key is the need for a header/expansion tank if the stove is running rads.

Hope you have a good supply of wood and it is not too expensive there.

Cheers Martin

[Cinderhills]

I do love the romantic idea of an open fire.  We have a woodburner which throws out the heat, especially if you use some coal on it too.  And from a safety point of view it's good to know you can go out and not worry about it.

[deepinthewoods]

 it mines 14kw and i can run all day on about a third of a m3

[MAK]

yes I ex agerated about the space needed ( woodt burned a day)  for an indoor wood store but it is worth considering.

[FiB]

Both!  We have recently replaced both our stoves and found  its a struggle to buy dedicated woodburners - most are multifuel so you will have that flexibilty if you choose.  Saying that we made sure that we chose ones that were more suited to woodburning (large firebox, fine low great to allow accumulation of ash if needed).  We have one clearview (Fab, highly adjustable, VERY meagre on log demands, Very expensive at £1050) and one Prity boiler stove (huge, not very adjustable, bit industrial loking, but absolutely fabulous as a main cental heating boiler stove and a real bargain at £400).  I have a couple of bags of coal ready which I will use if we ever get a winter here and I need to keep the fires in overnight, but both been running lovely on wood all 'winter'.  Fitting was a fortune though - to have our chimneys redone and central heating plumbed to the stove (plus new tanks radiators etc)was ove £5K. ouch.

[Goldcraig]

This is what I love about this forum...quick, worthwhile points of view...fantastic..
We have oil heating for radiators and water, coal fire is not essential and more "cosmetic" than anything, but still want it to be efficient...like the idea of wood burners and coal...

[deepinthewoods]

half a scuttle of coal in mine lasts about 8hours with it shutdown. so nice to get up to a warm house.

[jaykay]

Certainly a stove will give you much more warmth than an open fire.

I burn both wood and coal in mine. I like wood in that I like the flame, I like the ash and I like the fact that I have a great heap of it from chopping down an old rotten tree.
But. If I really need to be warm, I need to put coal in the stove, at least for some of the evening - it puts out way more heat than wood.

[Small Farmer]

Wood

We've got two, and they don't cool down overnight and do make the place cosy which the radiators don't.  When it's cold we get through 20kg of wood a day, recently about 8kg.  I buy compressed sawdust logs for stock and then scour the area for stuff to cut. 

[little blue]

please ... recommend me an affordable place to look at woodburners

[deepinthewoods]

its not the burner that costs its the fitting of the flue, you can get a good 14kw burner for 400. doubt you could get the flue done for less than 1k, unless you did it yourself of course.

[little blue]

we would perhaps be fitting it where there is currently a gas fire, but used to be an open fire. the chimmney is just capped I think..