PowerSwitch

General plea for advice here... does anyone out there habitually cook on a wood-fired stove, Rayburn or similar, instead of on a conventional gas or electric?

I am seriously considering this, but realise that it would be (a) another learning curve, and (b) potentially another timesink. OTOH it will also be reliable so long as I can find something to burn, and I believe it might suit my style of cooking anyway - lots of soups, stews, casseroles, and plenty of baking.

I'm home much of the time. I've never lived with one of these. My current set up for cooking, inherited when we bought the house, is a gas hob which is mostly OK and a gas oven which I can't trust to be hot enough when it's supposed to be (moderate sized casseroles just nor gettign hot enough to cook through, so I mostly use the hob these days).

Alternatives would be a woodburning stove designed for heat but with room for a pot on top, in the parlour, and keeping the conventional set up here. Or, I suppose, some other combo I haven't thought of.

Anyway, darn it, I like the things! I've always wanted one! ...and I suppose I want to know how much of a curse and how much a blessing they are?

Alternatives would be a woodburning stove designed for heat but with room for a pot on top, in the parlour, and keeping the conventional set up here. Or, I suppose, some other combo I haven't thought of.

I got one of these, with an internal oven, small but perfectly formed.

http://www.chillipenguin.co.uk/products.html



And I'm going to put in one of these...

http://www.esse.com/main.php?ePage=cook ... =woodfired



word of caution, you'll use A LOT of wood.

Tattercoats -

We're also looking to primary reliance on wood, but, with conversion to wood gas
to be able to avoid running a large woodstove in summer.

The v. large stove we got is from China, and seems solid and effective with enough decoration to avoid being blockish,
and will heat rads for an 8 bedrrom farmhouse, and take cooking pots on top.

I'm now trying to trace the Chinese household wood-gasifyer, which will convert anything from plant stalks to billets.

Getting a good woodlot is probably a wise early acquisition.

Regards,

Bill

tattercoats wrote:General plea for advice here... does anyone out there habitually cook on a wood-fired stove, Rayburn or similar, instead of on a conventional gas or electric?

I am seriously considering this, but realise that it would be (a) another learning curve, and (b) potentially another timesink. OTOH it will also be reliable so long as I can find something to burn, and I believe it might suit my style of cooking anyway - lots of soups, stews, casseroles, and plenty of baking.

I'm home much of the time. I've never lived with one of these. My current set up for cooking, inherited when we bought the house, is a gas hob which is mostly OK and a gas oven which I can't trust to be hot enough when it's supposed to be (moderate sized casseroles just nor gettign hot enough to cook through, so I mostly use the hob these days).

Alternatives would be a woodburning stove designed for heat but with room for a pot on top, in the parlour, and keeping the conventional set up here. Or, I suppose, some other combo I haven't thought of.

Anyway, darn it, I like the things! I've always wanted one! ...and I suppose I want to know how much of a curse and how much a blessing they are?

Just get one and you will get used to it in a couple of weeks. I have lived with wood stoves for some five years and they are great. Take some 10-20 minutes more than an electric stove to get going but the difference is petty. The cast iron wood stove is a HUGE leap compared to it's predecessor - the open fire, while electric and gas stoves only provide incremental advantages over the cast iron wood stove.

Do any manufacturers spring to mind, MacG?

Ballard wrote: I got one of these, with an internal oven, small but perfectly formed.

http://www.chillipenguin.co.uk/products.html

I like the look of that a lot!

For several years we ran all our heating off a wood burning stove( that was meant to heat the rest of the house but didn't so we had one warm room!)

However using A LOT of wood is one thing - the other is time and energy taken up preparing, stacking, and moving all that wood.

Wet wood is useless. I know we got given a gift of a wet load one year and could't at the time buy more - I spent half an hour or more every morning with the hand bellows getting it lit! & then it burns cooler. Seasoned wood is preferable, so you need a lot of storage space to allow some wood to be drying while you use the already dry stuff. Ideally a roofed area but with open sides to let the wind blow through

If you're buying wood already cut and split, great, if not then this is very labour intensive for the volumes required.

The daily moving of wood to the burner is also a bigger chore than you can first imagine.

Yet I was very sad the day the wood burner eventually was removed. But it was highly inefficient and yes one day we hope to put in a new one that can be properly linked to our radiators... perhaps soon.......

However using A LOT of wood is one thing - the other is time and energy taken up preparing, stacking, and moving all that wood.

Absolutely, I have put in a system of efficient gas condensing boiler, wood stove with back boiler and solar panel, all linked to a triple coil cylinder by Newark cylinders.

Summer = free hot water by solar power
Winter = efficient gas powered hot water and heating, with back up and reduced fuel costs by wood stove / solar panel.

http://www.newarkcyl.freeserve.co.uk/

Newark made me a 220L triple coil cylinder to order...

Tattercoats,

Put the wood stove in last year into the living room, heats the water or 3 rads but not both. When we originally got it we thought it would supplement the gas central heating, however, it has almost replaced it, and the gas bill is now about ?1.50 a month!!
As for the cooking it is almost made for stews, casseroles or anything that has a high liquid content, in the winter when I?m at home in the morning I put a pot of curry, minestrone, boiled ham etc and when the girls get home from school or college a big steaming pot of something to warm them up. In addition there will be a full tank of hot water; it will have dried some clothes during the day and with the super insulation the house will have been getting warmer all day. It cooks, dries clothes, heats the house and gives you hot baths and cheers you up, all for a few bits of wood which you can mainly get for free,
There is a downside to them. I am sure there is something in our genes that makes us (or is it just me) sit and stare at them for long periods of time, this is not good if you work from home a couple of days a week!!
Personally I would not be without it, if it broke down tomorrow I would be straight out for a new one.
If you are going to get one, make sure you plan to couple it up to solar panals.They are not so cheery on a sunny day!

Tracy cooked up a good chilli and rice on this twin burner stove I built in the wood!


And it can even be adapted to make toast:

I like it!!

...

Mike -

One of the best of 101 Uses for a dead coat-hanger

(they're all dead but most don't know it)

is as follows:

pull the hook and the middle of the crossbar apart and straighten the old corners

until you have a long narrow loop of wire with a hook at one end,

then bend say 6" of the loop end down 90 degrees,

then bend 3" of that 180 degrees back up,

then drop a slice of bread in the slot, (adjust wire to it grip gently),

then hold the hook end and present toast-to-be to good embers . . .


Happy toasting !


Regards,

Bill

I've been working on (pie in the sky) plans for my 'electric-solar-boat'. One of the main issues is how to heat the boat and cook in the winter when solar power output is negligible. The recommended solution by solarboat.co.uk is indeed a rayburn solid fuel stove/water heater.

Having lived with a woodstove last winter though I know that I ended up using coal all the time and the boat was freezing for the first two hours after I got home from work.

The alternatives are a propane-driven (gas) system or a kerosene (oil) system. Both very convenient, efficient and controllable (no more having to keep the fire going continuously) but of course ultimately unsustainable, increasingly expensive and rather defeating the point of having a KW of solar panels on the roof.

Ideally the rayburn would take solid fuel OR propane/kero, and then I could start with convenience and switch to wood as time or expense dictated. However, none of the rayburns will do both. It's either/or.

I have to admit it's a difficult choice. Short term (and let's face it, still very affordable) comfort vs the more righteous but uncomfortable version.

I heard somewhere that solar water heating works quite well even in winter. But is it good enough to transfer enough warmth into a couple of radiators to bridge the gap between getting home and getting the fire on? Anyone got suggestions?

While I'm plugged into the mains of course I can just put electric heaters on timer/thermostat. Job done. But that's cheating. I like being off-grid.

Wood should give you a quicker heat return than coal.... I think. And the dryer and smaller the better. (Well okay not sawdust but small sticks).

Then don't add the coal until half hour + later.

Just a suggestion... (from one who knows from past experience what it's like to fan a fire, with a drip on the nose, on a regular basis....)

Also keep a thick dark-coloured woolly jersey by the door to pull on over work clothes (and wool socks too if your like me.... ). I bought a lovely long one in a charity shop for ?4.

On another tack, fire bricks in the back of a wood burner can hold some heat & keep the chill off a bit after the fire is out.