dougyzf

hi,

With the cold weather now upon us im looking to install a wood burning stove!!

Can anybody recommend a good company to do this work?

im down in benalmadena.


Doug.

pwwm

We did our own, cant help with someone to do yours sorry as live way away from your area. hope you get it sorted soon though, we are snug as bugs in rugs lol

bil

Whichever route you go, my advice is as follows. Get a free stander, pass the pipe out thru the wall as high as poss, no 90 degree bends, flexible heatproof seal around the pipe where it passes thru the wall, get the flue pipes the right way up so that the last joint at the top is a female.

By a good quality stove with big thick rope seals, no metal to metal ones.

Any questions feel free to ask.

angiescarr

Agree . I finally bought the bigger brother to the "rusty bucket" stove I was given. Freestanding is definitely more efficient. Ours isn't pretty (I.e. no nice glass door) and is probably more designed for an outhouse than in-house. But it heats the whole upstairs of a big house just about adequately.
@ Bill, How do I join a 12cm pipe into our chimney which is more like 16. At the moment I have it stuffed with Aluminium. Don't laugh! We're poor and ignorant folk

bil

Not laughing at all. It's a very real problem. Technically it's near impossible to create a permanent effective seal, so just do a temporary one. Wrap it in glass fibre, so it hlods it in place reasonable firmly.

That can be surprisingly effective.

angiescarr

Cheers bil. Presumably we have to 'form' this wadding so that there is a slope from the larger to the smaller pipe? (like a funnel) otherwise we're going to continue to get a snow shower whenever the smaller tube is moved, or worse a catastrophic blockage??

bil

Black snow? well, yes, there is a bit of a risk, and it's likely that when you remove the plug you will get a shower.

However, forming such a shape will be a hell of a job. I'd just make the plug as far up the outside of the metal pipe as I could. You can hold it in place with a couple of twists of wire.

angiescarr

Aye, OK then. Good idea. I'm a great fan of the sensible bodge! Maybe we'll have to buy another piece of chimney pipe as well. It's not a tall roof, being complex and made of many sections, but the present fire tube only goes half way up the chimney tube. There's maybe another metre or so to go. Best way to plug the other hole would be fibreglass wadding as well I guess?
I have two chimney holes, but only one stove at the moment. When we ran out of money the fireplaces were the first thing to chop off the project. Now I'm glad we did because fireplaces seem a waste of heat. (As discussed in other threads).

bil

Yeah, a wad top and bottom would work fine. Remember to get the pipes in the right way up.

If you wanted, fit all the tube so it goes all the way to the top, with a plug around the base. Wedge that in good and hard, and then go up to the top with a pail of light mix cement, ie runny but with a high % of vermiculite, perlite etc and pour a pail or two down. Not too much. Then when that has set hard, fill the rest of the flue up to the top. That's effectively relining the chimney. Remember to smooth it off with a slope at the top so that water won't sit there and put a chinaman's hat top on.

angiescarr

Just a thought. There may be a few on here who'd like to know the price of the 'ugly but efficient' stove I'm using.
Just 107 euros from local ferreteria! Plus a 'codo' (90 degree corner piece about 15 euros) and 3 tubos which I already had from a previous stove.
Not a lot of money. If you're on a very tight budget like us. Highly recommended until you can afford something prettier!

bil

Not a 90. No no no no no. Get a T so that the open end points down. If you can't buy a cap, get a paint tin, or soup can that fits over it, lift that up until the can bottoms on the tube and build a stack of bricks under it, using slates if necessary to get a good fit.

It's safer and allows for easy in situ cleaning.

Best of all is a stove with a top exit. I don't like rear exits, they are more risky.

HBG

My 30-year old house has an open fireplace which has never been used. During a really cold spell and if the electricity and gas supply stopped working, could I just stick some logs in there and light it?

bil

Probably, providing nothing has blocked the flue. Hold your hand in the flue and see if you can feel a flow of air. If you can. light a twist of newspaper, and when it is half burnt, shake it out. That will give you a torrent of smoke to see if the flue is functioning well. Always test with the hand first so you don't smoke the house out.

Finally start with a small fire. If the smoke from the newspaper goes up, but the fireplace smokes, reduce the opening. You can do that with a wall of bricks across the front. Never try and bring the top down, it's a mug's game.

Always bring the floor up and the sides in if necessary. If you are going to use it long time, build up a good bed of ash and never take that away as a good one takes ages to grow.

Light the fire upside down, big wood at the bottom etc, and never use paper to start it as the paper ash can choke it. Just stick a piece of a firelighter in amongst the small stuff at the top.

If you have to resort to pulling small sticks out of the hedge for kindling, only use standing stuff as it will be dryer.

angiescarr

Yeah I know. We've had this conversation before. This one has a 90 degree rear exit. Apparently these are reccomended by the company who made them for woodburners, and anyway, was all the ferreteria had. But they put 45 degree rear exits on multifuel stoves (which may be the same stove) At the moment we have the 90 degree one but it's not out of reach for cleaning. We Brits are more used to coal burning and I'm sure you're right about avoiding 90 degree bends further up.

HBG I used the fireplace in my rental without a grate for 5 years not often because we weren't there a lot.. I was happy to do so as long as there was a good draw up the chimney. But you can buy a grate for about 35 euros from Leroy merlin. Check the size before you buy.
I found it inefficient compared with the stove though.
interesting the upside dow fire building. I have been having this argument with my husband for ages. I keep telling him it seems to work better to get the heat going up the chimney quick, to create the 'draw' but that he needs a big log in the middle. I hadn't realised that it was that simple though! Makes absolute sense at least in my woodburner.
Don't understand the ash-bed thing though. That wouldn't apply to us but I'm interested to hear why. esp as it would seem to preclude air flow... Bil?

HBG

Thanks Bil and Angie, I feel re-assured now.