Author: Alex Hayes

Dunsley Avance 5 installation. The fire surround is an 18th century reclaimed piece. Absolutely beautiful.

Today we installed a beautiful Herald 6 in one of the amazing Holday lodges at THe Hollies Farm Shop & Holiday Lodges in Tarporley Chester. The Lodghe is undergoing a full refurb and this installation is part of the overhaul.

Following on from this weeks posts about burning your stove correctly, here’s a few basic tips to help you avoid bad burning.

• Read your stove handbook thoroughly (honestly, you’d be surprised)
• Learn how to effectively control your stove ( eg the difference between primary and secondary air controls, if your stove has them)
• Know what the recommended fuel load is, so you don’t ever over fire the stove.
• Never burn wet wood – always look for the Ready to Burn sign.
• Don’t skimp on kindling – this quickly creates flames and the vital heat that produces an efficient updraft.
• Use smaller logs at the start until the fire is established before you begin to add regular sized logs.
• Don’t reduce the combustion air supply until all of the log surfaces are burning (they should look grey).
• When you eventually turn your stove down, make sure it’s not to the point where you can see smoke rising off the fuel.
• Never add regular or other sized logs to embers as these big, cold logs will quickly reduce the fire chamber temperature and create smoke.
• When refuelling sometimes it’s better to add kindling and effectively start again.
• Always provide the maximum amount of combustion air until all of the new log’s surfaces are burning.

Ecodesign Air Quality Benefits

As well as Carbon Monoxide (CO), now emissions of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), Organic Gaseous Carbon (OGC) and Particulate Matter (PM), which also contribute to climate change and air quality issues, will be tested.

The EU Ecodesign limits for these emissions are actually very difficult for new stoves to achieve and many old stoves, particularly all-cast iron stoves, simply won’t come close enough to passing them to warrant manufacturers putting them through the expensive tests. Sadly, this will also herald the end of traditional high-output boiler stoves. Very old stoves, inefficient open fires, burning deadly wet wood and smoky old coal are amongst the biggest pollution threats to cleaner air.

This is definitely not the case for environmentally friendly Ecodesign stoves!

Burn bright and burn right

There are a couple of important things that today’s environmentally-conscious home owner needs to know about getting the best out of their stove: How not to waste fuel and how to avoid producing smoke which damages our air quality.

Wood logs are virtually carbon neutral and when they’re fully seasoned and burned correctly in a modern stove, they will also produce significantly less particulate matter (PM).

Smoke indicates inefficient burning and the main difference between it and flame is temperature. When lighting a fire you need to get the temperature inside the fire chamber as high as possible and as quickly as possible.

This is critical when it comes to creating a good ‘draw’ within the flue system, especially when it is particularly cold outside. The higher the temperature, the less smoke is produced and more of the harmful particulates are burned away, so less of it goes into the air.

Stay tuned for part 2 of burning your stove correctly!

Another day, another installation. We have a great offer on these lovely Turner & Wilson 5kw Cedar Stoves. Yours for just £520. Get in touch for more details.

For a professional installation of your log burner / multi fuel stove / real fire, please get in touch.

Maintenance is key to an effective log burning stove / wood burning stove / multi fuel stove

An effective stove is a clean stove… said nobody ever! But it is true. Efficient burning requires the correct amount of air and fuel. Your chimney creates the ‘draw’ that sucks air into your fire. So if your chimney is blocked or the draw is reduced by soot and tar then your fire ain’t going to get enough air to burn efficiently.

Chimney sweeping

You should get your chimney swept twice a year in order to ensure appropriate ‘draw’ is achieved. But, much more important than this, a clean chimney is a safe chimney. Dirty, sooty and tarred chimneys will eventually lead to a chimney fire. And that’s not going to be fun at all.

We sweep chimneys and service log burners and stoves. We also install wood burners / log burners / multi fuel stoves.

Get in touch to discuss your requirements.

We install wood burning stoves and multi fuel stoves throughout South Cheshire and North Staffordshire. We are based in Nantwich and Newcastle under Lyme but we install stoves in all areas up to and including Lymm and down south as far as Stafford.