Using a wood burner

sounds like you've got a Villager - they're still made, in Axminster, Devon.
You shouldn't be able to see up the flue, the angled baffle plate should be in the way. Have a mess about with it - see if you can move it.
Woodburners work best with a good fill of ash and need emptying seldomly.
They do get very hot but only if you have good dry timber. Leave all the doors open and they'll heat a four bedroom house!

I remember melting the bottom of my DMs resting them on our old stove ! Happy Days!

One thing to watch for is blowback if the wind is in the wrong direction - a couple of times we had the room full of smoke when trying to use it.

We used to get a tin of black stuff from the local village hardware shop to specifically blacken up the stove, as some bits got rusty in the summer months.

Great fun.

DS

ITC - Various Artists - A tribute to Current 93

I've just had to open my own windows, phew!!!

The plate gets hot as part of the 'heat storage' for the burner I suspect.

The outside of some is enamelled (like our Jotul) which just needs a wipe, if your is traditional cast iron it needs something special. 'Stovax' seem to make a range for various cleaners for the outside (and also some spectacularly caustic stuff which is needed occasionally for the 'window' on ours).

One tip if you live in a modern draughtfree double glazed house-don't forget to open a window to let it draw, especially when getting it lit. Thankfully (?) our home does not have this problem!

Bruce
Bruce

We've had one for a year or so now, used during the winter months every day. This is what we have found from experience:

* Only use wood that is really dry and seasoned. In practice this means wood that is at least a year old.

* As already mentioned, the grate should be closed to allow a good build up of ash for the wood to lay on.

* It is most important that the throat plate you mention is in the right position. Find out the make of the burner - there should be a nameplate somewhere - and get the operating instructions off the makers. We've got a Charnwood and all their details/operating instructions are on their website.

* If you have a problem with blowback or the glass blackening too quickly you can have a special cowl fitted. We had this problem and this cowl worked wonders, the fire operates perfectly in all wind conditions, even gales.

* Sweep the chimney frequently. It is recommended that this is done every 6 months for a burner in use every day. A chimney fire can be very dangerous, I know, I had one years ago and it done a surprising amount of damage.

* You can get a special paint to restore the case from most burner shops or off the web.

Have fun. We love ours and they are claimed to be environmentally neutral as well.

Andy

Hi Garyi
You have done right thing by having the system swept and inspected. You should have this done yearly.('tho I've had some dirty burning customers who needed it several times per burning season)

You can check out the stoves at WWW.villager.co.uk assuming j8hn is correct in his ID of the appliance. I live in Washington State, USA and am not familiar with the make.

The metal plate in the stove is a baffle plate. The idea is to block the hot gasses from shooting right up the flue. Slowing the exit of the gasses allows more of the heat to be radiated into the room. Most baffles contact the back of the firebox, leaving an opening at the front top of the firebox. When the gasses rise from the burning wood, they are drawn forward, through the opening and then back over the top side of the baffle and up the flue. It is important that the baffle be seated properly. If the hot gasses can shoot between the dislodged baffle and the firebox back, a hot spot can be created that can damage the stove. The baffle will be either bolted in or have some way to index the placement(tabs and notches, tounges and grooves etc...).

You should use wood that is good and dry. Cut and split cordwood is best. Here in the states we have "presto logs" which are manufactured by extruding sawdust (more or less) from a hammer mill, resulting in a roughly 4 inch diameter by 14 inch tube that looks like big rabbit food. If you have these, they are fine to burn, but be aware that they are kiln dried to a low moisture and dense and it is possable to overfire if not carefull. We also have "fireplace logs" over here. Fireplace logs are paper wrapped and designed to be burned one at a time in a masonry fireplace. They are a composite of wood dust and wax. Never use this type of log in your metal stove as the temps generated would very likely damage the stove.

It is important to burn fires that are hot enough to allow complete combustion. To that end, you want to create a nice hot, glowing coal bed in the bottom of the stove. This will generate the temps necassary to maintain combustion of the wood as you add it. Resist the temptation to turn the air down too far in an attempt to hold a fire for a long time. If you turn the air down too far, you will get incomplete combustion, which will cause lots of smoke, which leads to excessive creosote deposits in the flue, which can lead to chimney fires and worse!

We(on this side of the pond) have little stovetop thermometers that allow the operator to monitor the skin temp during operation. The thermometers are made of enameled steel, about .25 inch thick and 2 or 2.5 inch in diameter. Housed inside is a bimetallic element and temperature graduations on the surface. We usually recomend that the temp be 500-700F tested as close to the flue outlet as possable. If you can find one it can help to keep from over or under firing.

All of the matte black cast iron or steel stoves that I have seen in the past 17 or so years are made black with high-temp paint. The stuff that I know about will withstand 1200F. I think Sennotherm is a brand name that some European stoves that I have dealt with were painted with. There is a product generically called "stove black". This is what was used, well...forever, until paint. It is carbon in wax that is smeared on, the stove fired to burn off the wax, leaving the carbon. The stuff is messy and does not last as long and rubs off on hands and clothes. I'd stick with the paint.

I hope that this helps!

DCT

Gary
We don't have a wood burning stove, but we do have a open grate fire place in which I burn wood etc. I use a very old product for cleaning /polishing Grates, Ranges and Stoves called "ZEBO " made by Reckitt& Colman Their address is, Reckett& Colman Products, Dansom Lane, Hull. it's been around since, well, before my childhood, so it is a well and truly tested product the only drawback with it is it's application as it's a bit messy [it's a type of jet black polish]so gloves are the order of the day,and only apply when the Stove etc. is cold I do our grate about once a month if we have the fire going and it keeps it's looks spot on. If you have a Wilkingsons Store near you they stock it, if not, any good old fashioned hardware shop or, Stove/ Boiler/fire place suppliers should be able to help.
oldie.

Many thanks for the response!

It is a charnwood fire and I got the instructions off the web. I think the plate is in correctly, there dosn't appear to be many ways you can do it. The plate meets with the fire stone of the back and two protruding pieces of metal allow you to push the plate up and in, really only giving one place to park. I was only concerned because I took it out to clean and wasn't sure if it went back properly.

What I have learnt from theinsturctions is that I need to immediatly order a grate and ash tray if I am to continue with coal, there wasn't one in there so I presumbed it was not needed, but it is for coal.

The wood I am using is softwood, I know this as I cut it myself this weekend. It is however very well seasoned, which made me nearly shit myself the other night because the fire was running what I thought was very hot (Hense this thread) but judging by what I am reading here and on pink fish is that I am not running it hot enough, hense the build up of shit on the window.

So as I can assertain, its better to run the stove hot to keep shit out of the flu and chimminy. I am not totally stupid so won't over run it, but I can probably go more than one log at a time which fills about 1 quarter of the interior.

I might have to think about burning softwood all the time, its s hame I got a tonne for my work getting five loads out the woods, and I don't want to waste it really. So provided I don's molder the stuff to much I should be alright.

I gave the lot a good clean out yesterday which was the first time in about 4 weeks, there was about 2-3 mm of soot on the flue and quite a bit to suck out on the inspection plate, I know this is not scientific but does that sound about right?

I will lok out for the stove cleaner Oldie, many thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
What I have learnt from theinsturctions is that I need to immediatly order a grate and ash tray if I am to continue with coal, there wasn't one in there so I presumbed it was not needed, but it is for coal.

A lot of stoves are sold as 'mutifuel', but in reality these designs are not optimum for either - woods likes air drawn across the top for efficient burning - coal needs air drawn through it from below....

The 'Rolls Royce' of cast iron stoves are made by "Vermont castings". They make dedicated wood or coal stoves and are the most efficient stoves I know of.

I installed and use their largest dedicated woodburner, which uses a catalyst in the flue, the catalyst gives you 25% extra heat, by burning off the smoke, giving virtualy no CO2 emmisions, no smoke and very little flue cleaning required as a result. It's the dogs danglies!