lulu122

We have a large tiled stove in our house, the ones that are almost the height of a room and tiled all over, just wondering what we need to do before winter comes other than checking if smoke draws out of the chimney. Do these things have to be swept every year? I'm assuming they do but wanted to check if anything else needs to be done before we light it. Thanks

PaulinEger

As far as I'm aware, don't heat it up too hot too quickly or the tiles can crack and they should be dismantled and rebuilt every few years.

Peter_in_Hungary

Used properly tiled stoves should last many years before needing a rebuild. The reason for a rebuild is usually that the internal fire bricks are worn out, but can be needed because of mis-use.

Somewhere on the stove there are usually a couple (depending on the design) of round plugs in a tile, these are removable to clean out the fly ash that has accumulated within the stove. This has to be done with care and using the correct mortar for replacement.

Tiled stove must only be used with properly seasoned wood (preferably 2 years drying) and the correct operation is to run the stoves on maximum and never shut down to slumber. If they are shut down to slumber combustible gasses can build up in the stove and when the door is opened there will be a woomph as the gasses ignite with the oxygen supply and the top of the stove can lift off. - Then you need a rebuild !

The stoves are a wood fired storage heater They are actually very efficient and have been measured with efficiency ratings up with the best modern wood gasification boilers (around 90%) The way to operate them is to run them on maximum until the stove is (very) hot and then when there are only a few embers left the doors and/or air vents should be shut and the stove will give its stored heat off to the room for the next hours. With ours when hot last thing at night they are still warm at breakfast time. Apart from the danger of blowing the top off, if the stoves are run slumbering then the wood will not burn properly and the stove and chimney will tar up choking the stove and chimney. This will then necessitate a premature rebuild which is a messy and expensive job. The doors should shut properly for maximum efficiency as badly fitting doors will allow air flow through the stove when the fire is out which will take heat up the chimney prematurely cooling the stove.

lulu122

Thanks for the tips Peter, how long do you need to run it at maximum before shutting all the vents? Were used to a small stove that you keep topping up all day so it's totally new for us.

Peter_in_Hungary

You run it as long as you want. when you are down to embers you can put on another log so you run a small fire but with sufficient air so that it burns properly. To do this you can close the air vent a bit. If you leave the air vent fully open then no problems except that the wood will burn quicker and a bit more heat will go up the chimney. The key is to provide enough air for the fire to burn properly without loosing too much up the chimney. What you must not do is to load it with wood and then shut the air vent so that it slumbers. It's not a science - more of an art. Alternatively when the stove is hot, that it too hot to touch, and when the fire is reduced to only embers you can close up the stove and let the stove give off its stored heat and you relight it later when the temp. of the stove has dropped and you want to top up the stored heat.

If you have replaced your windows and doors from the traditional type to new and efficient double/triple glazed units then you will have to take care that there is enough air coming into the house to support the / any stove(s) The old type of windows and doors generally leaked enough that ventilation for stoves and gas cookers was sufficient, new efficient windows are so good that some sort of (controlled) ventilation will be needed for class 1 fires and gas cookers.

wolfi

Very important remarks, Peter!

To add to this:

be especially careful if you have a modern kitchen and a Dunstabzugshaube (ain't that a nice german word?) aka range hood that also takes air away!

That might get dangerous if you have no open window e g!

lulu122

Thanks again Peter, I assume that we need to get our chimney swept at the beginning of the cold season too

lulu122

Oh and to add we had double glazing fitted in our house in the 90's so we will be mindful of ventilation and we also have carbon monoxide detectors in the house.

Peter_in_Hungary

Once a year is the law here and the sweep is supposed to call and inspect / clean ALL chimneys even unconnected ones, although we have never seen the sweep (in 22 years) and I have always cleaned my own.

The cleaning frequency depends upon usage and the quality of fire wood used. Once a year is a good start and it doesn't matter when, midsummer is a good time as the sweep won't be too busy then. At the beginning of the cold season is OK - along with everyone else!

Smoke detectors are also a good idea to complement the CO detectors

wolfi

A bit OT:

We have a separate gas boiler for our guest apartment and this summer our young ones thought they felt some "gas smell" - so to quiet the girl (actually she's the mother of a three year old now and a bit over-afraid) we bought and installed a CO detector which gave no alarm. Then one day my wife smelled it too - outside the house!

And then we realised that it came from our neighbour's gas meter so they had to exchange it.

Btw smoke detectors are now the law in Germany - don't know about the UK and Hungary however.

We've had them for many years - the downside is:

The number of false alarms in Germany has risen - the fire brigade often gets called when there's just some smoke, easily extinguished ...

fidobsa

I don't know about Hungary but in UK it is against the regs to have forced extraction in a room with a solid fuel fire. I remember some friends in Somerset were building their own traditional style cottage and they wanted a solid fuel cooking range in the kitchen. They were told to fit an extractor fan in the kitchen to meet kitchen regs but to not wire it up so they could meet solid fuel stove regs!

wolfi

In Germany it's even more complicated:
We have a "kandaló" in the living room and were told that the fan should be connected via a switch that tells it. the kitchen window is open, so there's enough air ...
In the end we decided on a "recirculating" fan, not as good but ok.

Of course safety is important - often people do something without asking a qualified opinion - in Germany last winter a family died because of carbon dioxide