Care to do the maths?, Take away the gas, leccy and coal.............................

[Lightspeed]

How do you mean Morty?

I just read this thread as discussing the amount of fuel that will be needed.

I guess you have an accurate knowledge of your annual requirements, derived from actual experience. ( Me too). But for anyone living in a normal UK home with their family, estimating the amount of solid fuel needed to meet heating and cooking needs is something that needs advice from those with experience.

Adding to this discussion now that its been revived, its important to scale the size of multi-fuel stove to the size and degree of insulation of the house its going into.

The big Aga and Rayburn stoves, tend to be quite high power (hence fuel consuming) as they usually have boilers for central heating systems incorporated. We need to remember that these central heating systems don't just need heat, they also need electricity to drive pumps and control units. As preps, stand alone stoves are a cheaper and more frugal on fuel alternative.

For what its worth our main stove is rated at 8 - 12Kw. Last year it was our primary method of heating and cooking. We remained very comfortable even with outdoor temperatures a long way below zero. Our home is an ancient single story cottage, approx. 100sqm floor space, no double glazing, and with 30-40cm glass fiber insulation over the ceilings. During the trial period, the stove consumed between 3Kg and 8kg of well seasoned spruce and compressed sawdust brickettes per day in the winter period, and one or two Kg per day when just on cooking duty.

In all 1.2 tons of fuel were consumed in the year.

This year we have an "efficient" multi-fuel furnace feeding conventional central heating radiators. Same house, same insulation, and if anything milder winter conditions. Without the cooking capacity of the old stove, this new system is on track to consume more than 6 tons of fuel for the year. So the conclusion is that central heating provides a very much more comfortable living environment, but does so at the cost of a huge amount more fuel.

Have we gotten rid of the old stove? Absolutely not. Its our primary fallback and one that we will never abandon.