we have just bought a woodburner. I also bought a 3ft length of black pipe for the top. I was told that as long as there is a sealed plate around this, then we needn't buy pipe all the way up the chimney. The chimney is in good order.What do you think?
This sounds like what we've got - you need your chimney sweep to check it out, though, to confirm that your chimney is in good order. Our woodburner has a pipe leading into the chimney, and a sealed plate around it. The chimney was fine once it had been swept, so it didn't need lining or a pipe going up it.
We have recently moved house and took our wood burner with us - in the last house we had a pipe going up to the sealed plate and that was all - now we have been told that Building Regs changed at the start of 2006 and you need to have a liner added to the chimney - our sweep won't fit the wood burner into the new house without the liner. More expense I'm afraid. So, best check with your chimney sweep.
Ouch, I hadn't heard of the new regulations. We had ours installed without flue last January and our chimney sweep didn't have a problem with it at all. We have all of the certificates and stickers etc. I would keep asking around. Our experience is that they all want to cover their backs, and recommend flue liners. We got a quote of £1500 from a stove shop, ended up paying £200 labour + £100 materials (register plate, pipe) and commissioning by chimney sweep.
We put in our woodburner 12 years ago and were advised then that we should definitely not exhaust into an unlined flue, as the acids from the wood eat into the mortar. My brother was told the same thing when he put in a woodburner into his georgian terraced house even longer ago than that. Luckily ours was already salt-glazed pipe lined. With a woodburner you need to clean the flue at least once a year as there is far more tarry muck accumulates than with coal. Judging by the amount of muck that comes down when the chimney is swept I can believe it. I don't fancy the thought of all this cr*p collecting on the top of a blanking plate.
Apparently most thatched roof fires are caused by faulty mortaring on brick or stone stacks setting fire to the inside of the roof, rather than external sparks.
So regardless of regulations - definitely put in a liner.
Originally posted by velvet: NACS (national assoc of chimney sweeps) recommends having a woodburner flue swept every three months if in daily use.
Well they would wouldn't they !!
But you can at least take from that recommendation that woodburners need the sweep's attention more frequently than if you burn coal/smokeless fuel.
Indeed - although having thought about it that doesn't make sense.
A well installed wood burner that draws properly and burns effectively will emit far less deposits than say an ordinary open log / coal fire, so the flue SHOULD be cleaner and require sweeping less...
Originally posted by velvet: I thought the issue was that logs, especially if they are not properly seasoned, leave more deposits than coal.
Very true - unseasoned logs don't burn as well thus giving off more smoke and more deposits... but again, this would be true of an open fire as well as a wood burner.
I'm just hoping I can get one installed in the house we're buying as I love them ... had one in our last house but had so many problems with it we had to take it out.
We've been very pleased with our Dovre 1800 - you can use it with doors closed and get staggering heat output or open the doors and have it as an open fire. Windows in doors get a bit sooted up - I believe the larger Dovres (2000, 2400) have airwash doors.
