Wood / Solid fuel burning stoves

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 14 Mar 2008, 12:05

snow hope wrote:I do take the nails out although it is time consuming. If I were to leave the nails, either me or more wife would no doubt get a nasty scratch - that's the only reason. Oh, and I keep the good nails for re-use.

Thanks. I don't bother with the nails, just hammer bad ones over. I find it too time consuming and, as I said, there are so many pallets, so little time. Are the nails any good? I'd imagine they wouldn't be much use. Could they be re-used after being in a fire? At the moment, they go into a bucket which is then emptied at the recycling centre.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 14 Mar 2008, 15:09

snow hope wrote:Oh, and I keep the good nails for re-use.

Good nails! In a pallet? You must have top quality pallets in NI. All I get out of ours are machine driven nails which double up as soon as they see a hammer.

Post by **adam2** » 15 Mar 2008, 09:47

snow hope wrote:I do take the nails out although it is time consuming. If I were to leave the nails, either me or more wife would no doubt get a nasty scratch - that's the only reason. Oh, and I keep the good nails for re-use.

Friends with a multi fuel boiler burn old pallets, these are cut with an electric jig-saw and the pieces burnt without removing the nails.

To avoid the hazards of protruding nails, any wood with such nails is burnt promptly, wood without any such protruding nails being stored for future use.

The wood ash is sifted to remove the nails, mixed with manure and applied to garden. This has greatly improved the soil which was otherwise very sandy and not fertile.

The appliance in question is a large multifuel boiler intended for central heating and hot water, the output into the room is limited as the boiler is insulated.
The heat output into the water is variable from 20 KW up to 70KW (wood) or 100KW (coal) The heat output into the room is about 4KW.
Such an appliance has too great an output for a normal family home, it is installed in a very large house occupied by a family of about 15 (mainly foster children)

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 15 Mar 2008, 21:28

As I have only recently started to burn pallets, I think I will take on board your thoughts regarding nails and just hammer them flat - will be much quicker. I will have to watch out not to damage my saw though.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 15 Mar 2008, 22:34

Pallets are a very cheap source of heat! I wish I could store more.

What saddens me is the amount that are landfilled. Obviously, soon none will be burnt until late September. We receive around 20 to 30 a week at work.

The ideal fast solution for cutting them up would be a bandsaw (run via pv + batteries?!). The nails are usually pretty obvious.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 16 Mar 2008, 13:50

emordnilap wrote:Pallets are a very cheap source of heat! I wish I could store more.

What saddens me is the amount that are landfilled. Obviously, soon none will be burnt until late September. We receive around 20 to 30 a week at work.

The ideal fast solution for cutting them up would be a bandsaw (run via pv + batteries?!). The nails are usually pretty obvious.

Do you have workmates with stoves, that you could share the pallets out with? That way you could all keep sawing all summer, each person keeping some for the winter, and fewer pallets wasted. Just a thought.

stumuz · Post by **stumuz** » 16 Mar 2008, 13:58

Even though wood has a waste catalogue number 20-01-38 there is still a huge amount that still goes to landfil.It is still not difficult to get free wood all year round for your wood burner.

To get the nails out of the ash I use an old car speaker which has a powerful magnet on the rear. Hold it above the ash and whoosh the nails and bits come out of the ash.When you have filled a bin full weigh it in at the scrap metal merchants and you will get ?15!! Buy Cava, eat lobster, feel smug.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 16 Mar 2008, 14:02

Cool. What size bin is that?

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 16 Mar 2008, 14:31

RenewableCandy wrote:Do you have workmates with stoves, that you could share the pallets out with? That way you could all keep sawing all summer, each person keeping some for the winter, and fewer pallets wasted. Just a thought.

Only one guy at work has a stove and he's not bothered about wood - he lives virtually next door to a coal merchant.

All the rest use oil, so maybe these pallets will get used up in years to come!

A neighbour also takes some pallets but not many really.

Dan McNeil · Post by **Dan McNeil** » 16 Mar 2008, 22:24

Has anybody come across Dowling Stoves?

http://www.dowlingstoves.com/

They're hand-built to order, and apparently the customer can be involved in the design. They also come with boilers. Prices seem reasonable.

From what I've read, they seem pretty good - anybody have any opinions? I'm going to call them this week and see what they're about.

1kvt396k · Post by **1kvt396k** » 25 May 2008, 21:10

1kvt396k wrote: We got the chimney swept a couple of days ago and grilled the chimney sweep about the state of the chimney. He reckons it's in good nick (and this was confirmed by another person recently), he also gave us a couple of stories about chimneys that have been lined and only a few months later the flues were non-existant, he said that the soot had 'eaten away' the flues!

We really do need a good kick up the backside on this one. We're still in exactly the same situation as in Feb, ie old fireplace removed and boarded up. No woodburner as yet, but we are building up a nice supply of logs that are currently drying out. The latest person we've spoken to about fitting/not fitting a flue has checked the chimney and he says that over the years there's been building work done on the roof and chimney and that it was/is common practice to chuck cement down the chimney. He says that ours is no different and that there are quite a few chunks of cement up there. He reckons it'd be virtually impossible to get a flue up there with all the rubble blocking the way. So I guess it's no flue then! Next step is to decide if we want to knock the dining room and kitchen into one room so necessitating the need for a bigger burner or leaving as it is and going for a smaller one.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 25 May 2008, 21:23

1kvt396k wrote: We really do need a good kick up the backside on this one. We're still in exactly the same situation as in Feb, ie old fireplace removed and boarded up. No woodburner as yet, but we are building up a nice supply of logs that are currently drying out...

May I offer a little encouragement (our Clearview in action!)?

MrFreeze · Post by **MrFreeze** » 02 Jun 2008, 17:49

I am so happy for the people here who installed woodburners and are toasty warm.
I installed 2 stoves in my house. An Aarrow TF90b boiler which is the largest they sell and they say is 30kw of which five is to heat water and 25 to central heating. And a crappy villager in the front room 14kw, just for those icy weeks.

I am NOT impressed with Aarow. The thermostat has never shut off properly and I had to remove the plate at the side and close by hand. The door is mounted wonky due to the drillings on the body of stove (had the engineer to the house to confirm this) The seals regularly go (every couple of months, the lower door wears them away at the hinges).

The glass has broken and has never fitted properly, there is a gap between top of glass and top of casting. So the seal blows within hours of fitting. The trim falls off. we had to remove the lower door locking mechanism due to it seizing, and the body has warped.

2k well spent then!

Just to rub salt in the wounds. It don't heat the blooming house either! rads only get hand hot, same with water. I shovel 10 tons of logs through it every winter, That is refilling on a 1-2 hour basis,day in day out. Never keeps in. Cost me around 200 plus per month to stay around 50 degrees in the house.

Chimney has been checked in case of excessive draw but has been showed to have low to medium draw.

Crappy villager heats entire front of house, has no poxy pipework to leakor corrode, or worry about in the event of powercut (frequent).

Next time I am thinking about a good basic woodburner to replace the Evil Aarrow.

30kw my ****. Only if you use anthracite at ?300 a tonne. Tried it, lasts a month.

Where did I go wrong.????

I now spend 25% of my income on logs and I am still cold and have to use an immersion heater.

Just bought a calor fire for the cheapness and warmth (not the damp though)

Boo hoo.

Keela · Post by **Keela** » 02 Jun 2008, 18:25

Thanks for the warning Mr.Freeze! And for taking the time to explain the problems. Did you ever think of asking for a refund of some sort as it wasn't fit for purpose?

We are still exploring all options - cautiously! Quite some time ago we had a local man make us a wood-burner that was supposed to run all our radiators! Ha! Like your experience it was useless. Eventually we gave up trying to heat anything but the living room with it.

Wishing you well in your search for an improved system!

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 02 Jun 2008, 19:02

Blimey MrFreeze I feel cold just reading that! Welcome to the forum, and sorry I can't give advice based on direct experience about woodburners/multifuel heating up anything but the room (and indirectly the stairs and party wall).

I can only say that, depending on how big/open-plan/insulated (sorry we've no idea yet how new you are to this game...) your house is, you might not need a rad circuit at all.

I can only agree with Sally about attempting to get a refund, but it might not be possible if you've had it for so long. I'm wondering if house insurance would cover it, or, if you bought with a credit card, whether the card company would deal with it? Good luck anyway and keep us posted.

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Wood / Solid fuel burning stoves

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