fionamw

I'd give my right arm to get my living room to 26 - how many cubic metres is the space? I'd guess I use about a tonne & a half for a winter season, but that's for one room, which we've now added a hot/cold aircon unit to to supplement....

poshnbucks

I see what you mean about amount used in a month, I think I was a little over the top re usage I tend to pile it in, But last year we had a grate within the firebox put in as the box is about 5feet x 4 feet just to contain the fire and is rather large. The metal chimney goes in from each side to about 14inches wide in the middle which goes out though the roof. The sitting room is 44 feet X 21 feet.
The fire in the bedroom does have secondary burning but that is blocked at the moment as I have to replace the black pipes for the ones with secondary insulation. This stops the tar from leaking when the pipes go outside. That bedroom is about 20x15 foot. I am not concerned about the rest of the house because after leaving the dining room or kitchen we don't use them after 7pm We are either out or in the sitting room until its time for bo-bos.

sapper

If i had to buy wood Would i use it the answer is NO.I have a large new build house in Campo.When planning the guy who help said cental heating ?I laughed what in spain? Well at least pre plumb ? ok. We arrived in July 6 years ago by October the wood burner was going, wonderful. November bit cold December Can he fit the rads ? yes, wonderful.
I use about 1200 litres of oil which costed then 540 eu now 1020 eu but that heats all the 320 sq metres to what ever temp i choose and hot water in abundance.
The wood burner is a supplement in the periods when its warm enough and for effect we love it .All my wood comes from the Finca prunings and tree removal with over a thousand trees there is always a few die or big limb removal .Also the Forestry guy here has a soft spot for the brits and always tells us where he is thinning out local forests.Trailer loads no problem provided you are prepared to go and collect it .
Fire Wood here in Malaga province is about 50 eu Cubic meter which would last me just over a week that would cost me about min 1400 euros to heat lounge dinner kitchen the rest of the house would be freezing.
Wood is to expensive .If in these days anyone is considering building a house pre plumb for central heating its cheaper and more efficient in the long run

scampicat

We've been very lucky with wood.

Inherited some with the house.

Then a friend of ours cut about three poplar trees down from his land before he went back to France and gave us those.

About a month ago, our neighbour Miguel knocked down his extension so that he could build a new one and gave us all the wood from the timber framing. We have enough to last at least this winter.

This will be our our fifth winter. Hope we get lucky next year as I think it is really expensive if you have to buy it.

We don't light the stove every night, it is not our sole form of heating; it depends what room we are in.

big wheels

€80 per tonne for dry olive wood around here.

Mitzyboy

€15 for a heaped wheelbarrow full here .... I dont have anywjere to store it so I cant take lots at a time

correveidile

I'm heating about 60 square metres (150 cubic metres). I lit the fire today at 6pm. It's midnight now and still at 24 degrees in the living room (7 degrees outside). This is as low as I can run it. I guess in January and February we'll burn about double the amount of wood (between 16 and 20 kilos/day). My wood burner is efficient though, absolutely zero smoke, so it's burning everything. Wood is our sole heat source and we love it.

If you have trouble getting to 26 degrees maybe you are doing something wrong. It is a closed woodstove isn't it? If so how are you using it? Do you fill it right up, or are you adding one piece of wood every once in a while. In my experience they don't work right unless you stuff them to the gills.

fionamw

No, I'm doing nothing wrong - in different houses in the UK I had Villager, Hunter & Franco Belge freestanding cast iron wood/multifuel burners & was a bit of an ace (if I say so myself.) The problem is the fire (one of these flatscreen TV type things with a now-defunct fan built in underneath)... the chimney breast is concrete of some sort so gradually becomes a nightstore heater but essentially radiant heat from the front of the fire and that nightstore effect is it. The room is about 7.5 x 4.5m x about 4.5mhigh at max, so a lot to heat. I get it burning fine, have a handle on which woods burn fastest/last longest etc....sure you can stuff it to the gills, but with a child running in & out every 17 seconds you soon lose heat. I think it just isn't man enough for the job. Hence fitting an aircon unit the other end of the room. We'd had enough of huddling around the 'wrong' end of the room to be near the fire & straining to watch TV! I think the max I've got to at the moment is 21.5 deg - and that's nowhere near as cold outside as it will be in Jan

correveidile

Sound's desperate. I've got kids too, 3 and 5. I just leave the doors to the rest of the house open so some heat leaks through to them and the kids can run around freely. 4.5 metres sound's a high ceiling.

betris

I suppose you could try a pouring a gallon of petrol on it.

poshnbucks

what's a gallon My ceilings are about 14-15 foot or 4.5 metres The house is old. I have hectors of orange trees and the whole property is surrounded by fir trees to protect the oranges, Its just that I am rather lazy with regards getting the wood from my own land, Much rather buy it all cut but I know I take the risk of sap ridden wood etc. Central heating not interested.

sapper

Yes each to his own.If i had to make a stark choice of one it would be the Central heating.
The wood burner is lovely and we have it on every afternoon/ evening, but if you look at cost its a non starter giving heating in the room its in and maybe a little heat into upstairs ,ok you can have the chimney stuck up into the upstairs .The ceiling in our lounge is 6.5 metres with a mezzanine a third across .Thats where most of the heat is for obvious reasons. I spend dec jan feb pruning the trees and thats where my wood has come from .As time goes on there is less as i manage the once neglected trees,and age gets the better of me .
I have listened to the brits here in our village who tell me about their wonderful woodburners and how cheap they are to run .They are only cheap to run if you have access to free wood.Also i have sat in the room its in which is boiling but the rest of the house freezing.
The only worse situation is an i open fire which is disaster many newcomers have these for the first winter inheriting it from the previous owner of the house . Amazing how nuch conversation you get from a wet pile of wood

correveidile

Man, that's bogus. Heating oil costs 88 cents per litre (or thereabouts, depending on the current state of the oil market) and each litre contains 11 kWh of energy. Overall cost 8 cents/kWh. Cut, split and seasoned hardwood contains 4.5 kWh per kilo and each kilo costs 14 cents. Overall cost 3.1 cents/kWh. That's less than half the price. If you get wood for free even better. Efficiency of a modern woodstove compared to oil fired central heating is similar (about 75%), and the real negative of central heating is you heat most areas of the house too much while only heating the living room to a miserly 20ºC.

In my experience most people who burn wood and complain about the cost either have an old fashioned, inefficient, broken, or poorly operated wood stove, or a chimney that isn't drafting right.

As for the point about the high ceilings how about a ceiling fan. My ceilings are only about 2.5 metres but when I turn the fan on (in reverse so it works with natural convection) the room temperature jumps up about 4 degrees in a matter of minutes.

sapper

Hi Correveidile.

Yes i agree you cant beat a wood burning stove for effect and general good feeling.Mine is a Dovre in perfect working order ,after 5 winters just serviced it with the new rope ect. But my friend there is no way a woodburner would heat this house its 300 square metres on two floors ,on the side of a mountain 450 mtrs up, the mountain behind is nearly a 1000. All rooms are on stat valves controllable to whatever temp you want, in the other bedrooms/bathrooms tonight we have them turned off, the lounge /diner 9 x5 x 6.5 high.There is a point allocated for a fan central ceiling/ light which we have considered and may fit when we decorate next year, this would push the lost heat back down
I am not knockin wood burning i do it every night in winter i am saying in my particular situation it would be insufficient to heat this house in winter to a temperature where you could walk out of the living area to a bedroom without freezing your nuts off .I enjoy collecting the wood all spring /early summer from my own Finca.But when you come in after being out all day and you walk in to a heated house from the central heating you cant beat it.

Dick Dasterdly

I was also very fortunate to inherit 2 huge piles of wood over 4 year ago, which Ive hardly made a hole in yet.
Probably enough to see my time out and fix my cremation as well.

However did find a problem getting heat through the house.
Having some cheap low power fans which I used to pull cool night air in the windows in Summertime, I put them to use in the Winter to help push or pull warm air from the hot room into other areas and rooms of the house.