Woodburning stoves

Have you used a local company or service in the P-O? Put your recommendations here/Share your good and bad experiences.

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cufc
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Woodburning stoves

Post by cufc »

We've just had one fitted. Does anyone have details of sites etc to check on how to run them and solve problems? Ours seems to "leak" smoke when we start it up.
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john
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Post by john »

At the risk of (in the words of Basil Fawlty) " stating the bleedin' obvious" cufc,I'd have thought your first port of call should be the people who fitted it for you.

Where is the smoke leaking from, (top,side,door etc) ?

Don't know whose type of poele you've got,but these people are big in that field,so you might get some joy here

http://www.godin.fr/
cufc
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Post by cufc »

Thanks John. We have contacted our fitter but his suggestions didn't work. There are so few expert fitters up here that we had it done by a general builder and now we're not sure if he knows what's what really. We can only find one expert and they seem booked up for months. Will try the site you gave me.
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Post by ryanm63 »

I don't have a number here in the UK, but we used a guy from Ille-Sur- Tet called Mr Lopez, he does fitting, maintenance of woodburners. You may get him through the Int. directory?
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Malcolm
Chris
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Post by Chris »

Most stoves leak smoke when you've just lit them, it's because the chimney is still full of cold air which has to be shifted before the stove will draw properly.
I'm assuming you're a newbie to woodstoves?
If so here is how to light one:
1. Put in a piece of unfolded newspaper and light it - it should quickly burn away and get the cold air out of the chimney.
2. When it's gone out light a firelighter or some balls of paper, then slowly add very small kindling wood (twigs etc) until you have a small fire.
3. Don't touch this until it's blazing, then slowly add some medium wood eg sticks one piece at a time, don't touch this bigger fire until it is really blazing away
4. Finally put some logs on, open the vents so as to make a blazing fire.
5. Then you can start to close the vents down to control the rate of combustion.

If it still smokes with a roaring fire - you have a serious problem and are at risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Open the doors and windows and leave the house until the fire has gone out. Do not light the stove again until you have had it checked over by a builder - it could be that the flue is obstructed. Any wood stove should suck air in vigorously when it's well alight - not leak smoke out.
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john
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Post by john »

Interesting,Chris. The method you describe above is pretty much verbatim the instructions given to us by the man from Godin who fitted ours. Perhaps cufc's fitter did not offer the same explanation,which gives some credence to her idea that he was not too well up on the finer points of woodstoves.

Thinking back,the only smoke we ever had coming off ours was the very first couple of lightings when some sort of protective oil was burned off the surface of the poele.
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sue and paul
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Post by sue and paul »

Make sure your ash can isn't overflowing. Set a criss-cross little stack of kindling in the grate. Place medium sized logs on top at angles, leaving a gap in the centre for good access to the kindling. Squirt fire-lighter fuel ( from eg Weldom) on the kindling. Light with long-nosed gas lighter. Make sure your airvent is open until the fire is going properly, then half-close it. Takes less than 2 minutes. No smoke (unless you have an extractor fan in the room - switch it off for a few minutes, so it isn't drawing the smoke.) The trick is to have a flame going quickly, which is why the paper method works. More flame, less smoke.
cufc
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Post by cufc »

Thanks for all the tips folks.

Our fitter actually came up with the problem which seems to have been ventilation in the room. It is open plan to the kitchen which has an extractor/vent and my hubby had sealed the vents above the doors cos of the draughts when we had the cold, windy spell last month. We sorted all that and it went goodoh without any smoke at all.

We'll try all your lighting methods til we see which is best for our fire.

Thanks again.
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Roger O
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Post by Roger O »

Don't know if this would work for a woodburner stove as we have a fireplace with "insert", but here's how I do it

Take a few chunky barbie charcoal pieces
Fire them up in the grate (about 2 minutes) with this (any make will do!)
Image
When glowing nicely, just put medium sized logs on and bingo!
Total time less than 5 minutes

Need cheap soldering lamp about €20-30 one-off buy (I got mine 3 years ago on a tip from a local artisan!)
Need gas refills occasionally (each will light about 20 fires!) at between €1 to 1.50 each.. Weldom, Tridome, etc.

Tip 1: the same lamp is very useful for firing up dampish compost burning in autumn
Tip 2: the same lamp is extremely efficient for running alone a line of processional caterpillars as it instantly incinerates not only the beasts, but their hairs also thus preventing them flying about!
I deal in Logic!
"Magic" is applied science far in advance of our current technology.
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john
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Post by john »

Roger O wrote:Don't know if this would work for a woodburner stove as we have a fireplace with "insert", but here's how I do it

Take a few chunky barbie charcoal pieces
Fire them up in the grate (about 2 minutes) with this (any make will do!)
Image
When glowing nicely, just put medium sized logs on and bingo!
Total time less than 5 minutes

Need cheap soldering lamp about €20-30 one-off buy (I got mine 3 years ago on a tip from a local artisan!)
Need gas refills occasionally (each will light about 20 fires!) at between €1 to 1.50 each.. Weldom, Tridome, etc.

Tip 1: the same lamp is very useful for firing up dampish compost burning in autumn
Tip 2: the same lamp is extremely efficient for running alone a line of processional caterpillars as it instantly incinerates not only the beasts, but their hairs also thus preventing them flying about!
In the immortal words of The Prodigy:

"He's just a Fire Starter;a twisted Fire Starter".......
Last edited by john on Thu 06 Jan 2011 12:00, edited 1 time in total.
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Roger O
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Post by Roger O »

john wrote:In the immortal words of The Shamen:
"He's just a Fire Starter;a twisted Fire Starter".......
Yeah, love it man!!!
I deal in Logic!
"Magic" is applied science far in advance of our current technology.
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