What's on your PO shopping list?!

PowerswitchClive · Post by **PowerswitchClive** » 30 Nov 2005, 16:43

The LED lanterns give the same light as the fluoresent tube lanterns, but one set of batteries gives 95-100hours use, were as the fluoresent tube versions last for 7-8 hours on the same batteries. I have a mix of church candles, fluoresent and LED lanterns and some light is better than none

Also if you find the light from LED or fluoresent tube lanturns a little harsh, place a thin cloth over the lantern to even out the light, in the same way a lamp shade does.

hatchelt · Post by **hatchelt** » 04 Jan 2006, 09:17

I know we've probably been through this somewhere on the board, but where can I get a decent wood burner from? I'm after something that I can stick in the living room which could be used to heat the house. Any recommendations?
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Bozzio · Post by **Bozzio** » 04 Jan 2006, 09:50

hatchelt wrote:I know we've probably been through this somewhere on the board, but where can I get a decent wood burner from? I'm after something that I can stick in the living room which could be used to heat the house. Any recommendations?

Hi Hatchelt,

Try these...

http://www.clearviewstoves.com/index.htm
http://www.morsoe.com/ukeire/index.html
http://www.aga-web.co.uk/69.htm
http://www.ouzledale.co.uk/main.php?ePa ... =multifuel

A friend of mine travels to Brittany in France quite regularly as part of his work. He tells me there are lots of very good cheap stoves over there - ?200 instead of ?500 for a Morso stove for example. You might want to try.

hatchelt · Post by **hatchelt** » 04 Jan 2006, 10:12

Many thanks for that Bozzio...Brittany eh? Hmmm, I'll be heading over there in the next few months anyway, so I'll have to keep an eye out. I does suppose he's recommended any particular stores out there? Maybe I could pick up a few for fellow peak oil folk..
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Post by **mikepepler** » 04 Jan 2006, 10:40

How many of these stoves draw their combustion air in from outside through a pipe of some sort, so you don't suck cold air into the room? Also, is it possible to get one that uses the flue gases to pre-heat the incoming air to improve efficiency? There's some info on the website that hints at them doing this kind of thing, but it's not clear.

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 04 Jan 2006, 10:50

mikepepler wrote:How many of these stoves draw their combustion air in from outside through a pipe of some sort, so you don't suck cold air into the room? Also, is it possible to get one that uses the flue gases to pre-heat the incoming air to improve efficiency? There's some info on the website that hints at them doing this kind of thing, but it's not clear.

Myth! The very idea with a stove is to enclose the combustion process so that no *extra* air is sucked from the room. An open fireplace is a different animal since it sucks a lot of air not used for the combustion. The air a stove consume for the combustion process is pretty small, and mostly helps with ventilation.

Have been living with woodstoves in wintertime. Know what I talk about!

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 04 Jan 2006, 10:58

mikepepler wrote:
How many of these stoves draw their combustion air in from outside through a pipe of some sort, so you don't suck cold air into the room? Also, is it possible to get one that uses the flue gases to pre-heat the incoming air to improve efficiency? There's some info on the website that hints at them doing this kind of thing, but it's not clear.

Myth! The very idea with a stove is to enclose the combustion process so that no *extra* air is sucked from the room. An open fireplace is a different animal since it sucks a lot of air not used for the combustion. The air a stove consume for the combustion process is pretty small, and mostly helps with ventilation.

Have been living with woodstoves in wintertime. Know what I talk about!

I must admit, in very cold weather I do get a bit of a draught coming through the air vent in my kitchen which was installed with the original combi boiler (using a Morso wood stove for heating exclusively now), but we have stuck a bit of cloth over it, which seems to help.

You can't really use the flue gases to heat incoming air, or anything else (except the chimney itself of course, which is a big benefit to any rooms the chimney runs through), because the flue gases need to be hot to keep the 'draught' going through the stove, and so keep it burning brightly.

Post by **mikepepler** » 04 Jan 2006, 16:22

Andy Hunt wrote:You can't really use the flue gases to heat incoming air, or anything else (except the chimney itself of course, which is a big benefit to any rooms the chimney runs through), because the flue gases need to be hot to keep the 'draught' going through the stove, and so keep it burning brightly.

Yes, that is a problem. Many big wood burning furnaces do preheat air though, but these are 100kW size or more. I think some of them may use an electric fan to keep the flue gases moving - I assume the energy it takes up is more than recovered through the pre-heating. I just wondered if any small stoves did it too.

Another use for the waste heat I've seen (again, in big systems) is to dry the wood beofre it is burned, by heating wherever it's stored. Drying with heat can reduce the moisture content well below what is achieved through natural drying. The moisture left in the wood when it goes into the stove requires 4.2kJ/kg/K to heat up, but 2.26MJ/kg to evaporate, and if that happens while it's burning that's a lot of heat lost, so if you can dry some of it off with low-grade waste heat your stove efficiency is much higher.

Joules · Post by **Joules** » 09 Jan 2006, 14:23

[quote="Bozzio"]

Hi Hatchelt,

Try these...

http://www.clearviewstoves.com/index.htm
http://www.morsoe.com/ukeire/index.html
http://www.aga-web.co.uk/69.htm
http://www.ouzledale.co.uk/main.php?ePa ... =multifuel

Hi Bozzio,

I'm till looking into incorporating a multifuel stove into my existing central heating system (in fact I've got a heating engineer coming to see me in about half an hour). I had just about decided on the Clearview Vision 500, but Clearview themselves are not very keen on their stove boilers being used in conjunction with secondary (or tertiary) heating sorces. Although they promote how easy it is to fit a boiler to one of their stoves at any time, it appears that the boiler has detrimental effects on the 'clean burn' abilities of the stove, that it requires up to 4 times as much fuel as a stove without a boiler and will only produce half the amount of room heat (understandable, since the other half is going to heat your water). As Clearview themselves told me "The stoves are brilliant at what they're designed for - heating rooms and looking good - they're not designed for providing central heating".

I'll let you know what the engineer says after he's been, but I think that there may have to be a distinction between the multitude of 'look-good' stoves and the rather more practical/functional stoves that many of us will be looking for. Unless you think Clearview are being a bit precious about their product? After all, it's just another heat source; so long as the plumber does his job properly, the stove should still function? Maybe Clearview are just covering themselves against complaints that their product isn't working as suggested in the literature...?

Since I've resorted to thinking out loud, I'll stop now and report back later

Blue Peter · Post by **Blue Peter** » 09 Jan 2006, 14:58

from Klaus on another message board wrote: the modern woodburner stoves are quite efficient in burning the wood, which translate to burning at relatively high temperatures. Depending on the style of back burner, what you effectively do is introduce a heat sink close to the burning chamber, thereby reducing the temperature and subsequently the efficientcy of the burning process. Less clean burning, more soot and more potentially environmental damaging by-product could be the result.

Wood burning central heating unit tend to solve this dilema by intruducing a second chamber, separated from the actual fire, where the exhaust gases are lead through and where the heat exchanger is situated.

DamianB · Post by **DamianB** » 09 Jan 2006, 15:38

hatchelt wrote:How much are you good people paying for gas bottles?

I had two 47kg bottles delivered for ?67.50 at the beginning of December.

hatchelt · Post by **hatchelt** » 09 Jan 2006, 16:13

DamianB wrote:
hatchelt wrote:How much are you good people paying for gas bottles?
I had two 47kg bottles delivered for ?67.50 at the beginning of December.

who was that from Damian?
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DamianB · Post by **DamianB** » 09 Jan 2006, 16:30

hatchelt wrote:
DamianB wrote:
hatchelt wrote:How much are you good people paying for gas bottles?
I had two 47kg bottles delivered for ?67.50 at the beginning of December.
who was that from Damian?

GasCo(SW) Ltd
Pen Mill trading Estate
Yeovil BA21 5HR
(01935 420011)

Bozzio · Post by **Bozzio** » 09 Jan 2006, 21:02

Joules wrote:Hi Bozzio,

I'm till looking into incorporating a multifuel stove into my existing central heating system (in fact I've got a heating engineer coming to see me in about half an hour). I had just about decided on the Clearview Vision 500, but Clearview themselves are not very keen on their stove boilers being used in conjunction with secondary (or tertiary) heating sorces. Although they promote how easy it is to fit a boiler to one of their stoves at any time, it appears that the boiler has detrimental effects on the 'clean burn' abilities of the stove, that it requires up to 4 times as much fuel as a stove without a boiler and will only produce half the amount of room heat (understandable, since the other half is going to heat your water). As Clearview themselves told me "The stoves are brilliant at what they're designed for - heating rooms and looking good - they're not designed for providing central heating".

I'll let you know what the engineer says after he's been, but I think that there may have to be a distinction between the multitude of 'look-good' stoves and the rather more practical/functional stoves that many of us will be looking for. Unless you think Clearview are being a bit precious about their product? After all, it's just another heat source; so long as the plumber does his job properly, the stove should still function? Maybe Clearview are just covering themselves against complaints that their product isn't working as suggested in the literature...?

Hi Joules,

Hope the engineer helped you out.

For what its worth, I think you are looking at the wrong model. The Vision 500 will not do central heating although it will provide you with hot water. If you want central heating as well then you need to choose the Clearview 750. I have just fitted such a model and it works perfectly with a dozen radiators. The customer is using coal instead of wood on the coldest days and it's fine. Anything under 10 KW will not do more than a few radiators + hotwater hence why the vision 500 at 8KW gross output is a poor choice. (Gross output actually includes the latent heat in the water vapour + other hot gases released by the wood. Most of this will go up the chimney/flue so the actual output is probably more like 3-5KW per hour for the vision 500. You need about 3KW per hour just to heat up the water).

I rarely take advice from the manufacturers themselves. You tend to talk to either the office junior or the engineer come sales rep, neither of them have touched a plumbing tool in their life.

If you do use a back boiler with the stove then unless you load the stove to the max the boiler will pull a great deal of the heat out of the hot air within the stove. This will cool the gases in the flue and cause creosote build up, hence the reduction in clean burning. Unfortunately, there is very little you can do to remedy this apart from having the flue regularly. In my experience a clean burning stove is rarely seen even in stoves without a boiler because people do not know how to use them properly.

As multi-fuel boilers gain in popularity in the future we will all have to get used to one thing - the cold. No wood burning stove will achieve the results we have all been used to with conventional, oil and gas, boilers. They need to be lit in the morning for a start.

Joules · Post by **Joules** » 10 Jan 2006, 08:15

Well, that didn't go very well.

I gave the engineer a print out of the Albion 'Solar and Multifuel' web page as reference and he pointed out the small print at the very bottom that says "It is illegal under current Building Regulations to use solid fuel appliances with unvented equipment" - presumably something I failed to mention in previous posts as being my system. He was very helpful and said he would look into it further, but clearly thought I was a bit crazy to want to interfere with my existing 'sweet' -meaning smart, efficient, practical, expensive and working perfectly well - system! He said that my existing cylinder was nearly ?1,000 worth and would end up in their skip - 'Did I really want that?'

I think I'll try and find someone a little more sympathetic to the principles of coming off-grid before I go too much further.

I take your point Bozzio about using a more powerful stove and I told the engineer that the bigger stoves should be considered if that's what the sums suggested, but after reading Albion's small print, it seemed a moot point.

I have no illusions about the realities of doing without gas-fired central heating and the relative limitations of burning solid fuel (finding the fuel for starters!), but I am confident that we will be able to manage if I can get over these initial hurdles...