(20 June 2013, 22:40)Highlander Wrote: Can I ask why are you thinking of only wood, dont get me wrong wood is great, but wood alone doesnt burn very hot, it fires up good but produces a lot of ash that starts to cool down a fire,..and you use a hell of a lot
Cos I dont have the luxury of just planning for myself, I try and level my posts as often as possible to cover as many peoples plans and needs as possible. Wood is a core commodity that most of us will use as a basic source of heat, some will have acess to peat, sea coal, open cast coal etc, and some folks dont know about mixing fuels.
Then we have to remember that more people have wood stoves than coal or multi fuel stoves so if they burn coal they risk buggering up their stove. Good point though HL and useful info.
(20 June 2013, 22:40)Highlander Wrote: Can I ask why are you thinking of only wood, dont get me wrong wood is great, but wood alone doesnt burn very hot, it fires up good but produces a lot of ash that starts to cool down a fire,..and you use a hell of a lot
I think that the key to making saving here is to mix your fuels, I burn lots of logs, but I also mix it with coal, either lumps or cobbs, this keeps the ash to a lower content and the fire hotter, so you burn a lot less fuel, both logs and coal
If you mix your fuels, you can let your fire drop to a smolder and still hold in heat, if you only have logs, your fire will go out,... we could never keep our fire in all night by just burning logs, but we can easily by mixing the fuels
Just to confirm this guys, HLs advice is 100% accurate and valid BUT only if your stove is designed to burn other materials like coal that burn much hotter. Some of these thin walled steel stoves will burn through or buckle at coal burning temps on prolonged use.
(20 June 2013, 23:55)Gizmo Wrote: At the moment i use a combination of wood and smokeless coal. I use the smokeless coal as I was warned off using house coal in the burner.
You've never had any problems with increased amount of deposits in the flue ?
I need to get the chimney swept so I might get a stock of house coal in afterwards and see if there is any difference, or if there is a difference is it enough to cause a problem.
Coal is certainly easier to store in large quantities than wood, but down here at least wood is easy and often free to get hold of whereas coal needs to be purchased
Another very valid point, 9/10 we folks scrounge our firewood, we have to buy coal.
(20 June 2013, 23:20)Gizmo Wrote: Am I right in thinking that normal "house coal" shouldn't be used in Multifuel burners ?
I just googled burning house coal in a multifuel stove and as usual came up with plenty of contradictory info, some places say it is fine to use and others say you shouldn't because of the high bitumen content, does anyone here burn it in their stove ?
Yup my little wenlock is a multi fuel burner and its instructions are clear, only use smokeless treated stuff like coalite, burnbrite etc not straight coal.
(20 June 2013, 23:42)Highlander Wrote: (20 June 2013, 23:20)Gizmo Wrote: Am I right in thinking that normal "house coal" shouldn't be used in Multifuel burners ?
Multi-fueled burners are just that,... multi-fueled burners, we use everything in ours wood, coal, coke and cobbs,..and sometimes peat blocks,... and that is the key to saving fuel, mix your fuel, it keeps the fire hotter with less fuel
Warrenty is invalidated on my Aga if I use ordinary coal, and my fire is only supposed to burn up to 500 degrees.
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Care to do the maths?, Take away the gas, leccy and coal.............................
