How to install a wood burner

Thanks Anthony, please have a look at my reply above, what exactly is a flue liner and it function, is it meant to improve the draw or insulate the flue or something else?

Thanks

James

Stuart

It will never get too hot to stand in front of, even when it’s going full tilt and the flue starts to glow orange! Should it? The unit is called a Panadero Mont Blanc.

http://www.leroymerlin.fr/mpng2-front/pre?zone=zonecatalogue&renderall=on&idEIPub=1224507297

You will not from the photos that I have neglected to install the cowl as I assumed it to be a cosmetic thing, however, having read Anthony’s comments it may well have an impact of the efficiency of the unit. Although to what extent I won’t know until I fit it.

The house is undergoing complete renovation and I have installed 100mm wood fibre insulation in the cieling and 360mm rockwool in the loft space. Although the wall and floor remain uninsulated.

The Panadero unit is one of the entry level models in terms of price and it cannot be shut down effectively overnight. Even when you close the door an the two vents it still draws through gaps around the seals. I assume this would not be the case with a more expensive wood burner?

It does get similar tech specs as the more expensive ones though. Such as Flamme Vert approval and a 77% efficiency rating. So I’m confused as to what I should be looking for when replacing it.

What do you have?

Anthony,

Sounds like a good system, I often see this stuff on sale in the DIY stores, I will pay closer attention next time.

James

PS is there a good seal on the door and inlet valve? this allows you to slow the burn-rate, and therefore the heat loss if its buring too fast. Door-seals are a cheap solution!

I renovate old enamel french stoves and sell them in the UK as a part-time job...and I have some links on my website about fitting in the UK and as euro rules become more together, they are probably similar and would be easy to follow up on equivalent french sites. hope this helps. www.frenchstoves.webs.com

I paticularly wanted to show you a very handy green piece of kit called an ECOFAN..I think they start at around £50. Its a fan which sits anywhere up the chimney liner and is powered by the updraught of warm air, channeling the warm air back down again and through an air vent into an upstairs room or the origional room.

I also have a back-boiler for sale for 60 euro, which is cheap because its an unused ex-dispay model, which you could use to heat hot water for radiators/baths etc.. but this would make the room a tad cooler so might not be suitable if it turns out that the fire itself is the problem. Back-boilers are brilliant on large flat-backed fires like this though, so if it isnt the fire thats rubbish, I do suggest thinking of one for the next fire.

Some fires just dont work efficiently. It could be this one's a duffer! I think you're right about the sheet making some difference, tho, and if there isnt a chimney liner behind it inside the chimney, which looks huge, the fire will be burning more fiercely than it should do, once the fire and chimney are warmed up aswell and the updraught will be huge, making most of the heat go away upwards instead of out to the room....a chimney liner will slow it down quite a bit, aswell as making it easier to light to start with and preventing the need for a more expensive type of chimney sweeping. Liners are a legal necessity for installation too..in the uk it would be a minimum of 150mm for that size fire.

you can get pieces of flu-pipe which have a screw opening in them to allow easier cleaning..I will try to find one and send the details. what size is the pipe?

you can also try lining the inside of the fire itself with fire-brick/insulation board. It would cost about 60 euro for a fire that size. I think brico depot sell it, but cant be sure. I bought my last lot in the UK. This will slow the burn rate down and increase the temperature aswell.

I think the backing plate change for a fire-proof insulating material is a good idea. If you combine it with a liner and a pipe which opens to allow cleaning it should be servicable.

Hi Anthony

That's incredibly generous of you! Thanks

If you let me know what sort of volume it would take up I'll get an appropriately sized van and come and get it in April.

Kind regards

James

What a nice thought Anthony - thank you! Will let James get back to you on that.

It's a tricky one and I suspect that it might be one of those renovation problems that has more than one cause...It is hard to evaluate whether it is just the stove not functioning efficiently as we moved the goal posts since last year in that:

Last year we had just moved in. There was no insulation anywhere and we had two stoves going - a really rubbish one and this one which we bought 2 hand but fairly new. Its only a cheap model in any case but was vastly better than the rubbish one. It was somewhere else though where it didn't draw well and the rubbish one was here. With me so far?!

So - this year loft insulated, parts of house insulated, the worst of the drafty doors sealed up (the ones that had gaping holes at top and bottom!), rubbish stove chucked out, better stove in pole position (ha ha) and interior walls demolished. So we are comparing with diff criteria.

All I know is that it is flipping cold!

I dont know if this is going to be of any use to you,depends on the distance really but we are moving to near enough Castres in early April and if we have enough room on the removal lorry I have quite a bit of Kingspan insulation that you can have.

I was going to build an extension on this house at one stage and was given a load of it at work by my then boss as it was surplus to requirements.If its not to far to come and pick it up you can have it for nothing,it makes a hell of a difference to any house.

If like us you are fans of the Tour de France you might be down our way in the summer :)

The wood can be a major factor it seems,if its not dried properly it tends to just sit and smolder away not producing much heat,we have the luxury here of a pail of coal (our stove is a multi-fuel burner) ,you would be surprised what difference a few lumps of coal can make,if only to get the fire going then the wood burns magnificently.

Am I right in thinking that coal is not really used in France,that its primarily a wood burning country.

We bought a load of wood last year and it was fantastic,I think it was beech.When we ran out we ordered some more but this time got oak which was useless for us as we tend to arrive home late in the evening and want instant heat.Come 3 in the morning the oak was still pumping out the heat but had produced little heat for the first hour or so when the fire was lit.

Just the warmth in the opening above the metal sheet, but you'd be surprised how much there is.

I agree with Anthony though, I think there is a problem with the combustion or the insulation levels in the room.

We have been having some difficulty recently and it's just down to the wood.

If you can stand in front of it on full belt, without burning your backside then there is something wrong otherwise it's the insulation.

Hi Anthony

Thanks for your very informative reply, I'll get back to you on this tomorrow.

Kind regards

James

I dont know how you would retro-fit a kit to an existing stove as Ive never had a kit in my hands.

I know how the concept works though as you can buy stoves ready made with this feature.

As I said in my other reply your stove is in essence a metal box with a fire in the bottom and a hole attatched to a flu at the top.

If this box is then surrounded on all sides (bar the front) by another box,but with a gap between the two and air vents at the bottom and and vent pipes at the top .The air between the two boxes will heat up as the fire burns and rise up through the top vent pipes which you can run to another room,the cold air will be sucked in through the air vents at the bottom continuing the process.

We stayed at friends recently who had this and they had a small metal grill (100mm x 100mm)in the corner of each bedroom which were connected to a 75 mm flu liner and the warm air from the fire heated both rooms better than any centeral heating system.

Thanks Stuart,

If I take the heat elsewhere, upstairs for example, is the kit connected to the flue somehow? Or does it just collect up the ambient warmth?

J

Hi there,

Im a bricklayer who over the years must have built a couple of thousand chimneys.

Last year we decided to put a wood burning stove in to our little victoarian house which is tiny in comparison to yours,stove that is :)

I dropped a flu liner down the existing stack and connected it to the stove which now belts out the heat,we were even advised to get the small one we bought as a larger one would be unbearably hot.I think ours is a 5kw stove.

Ive had a couple of reads of your post and had a good think about it and I can only think that the stove isnt functioning properly.

The galvanised sheet is only really there to stop debris falling down from the chimney into the room,we have one on ours but as ours is contained in an old fireplace you cant see it and its a lot nearer to the burner.

No more heat should escape up your flu than any other type of stove/fireplace.The flu is really only there to provide the draw of air to the fire and somewhere for the smoke to escape.Of course the pipe will get hot and so will the galvanised sheet if its touching the pipe.

I can only think that your stove isnt perorming properly or that the room itelf is losing any heat that is generated by the stove.Insulation of the room would pay massive dividends.I can see your celing joists in the first picture,buy some sort of sheet insulation (kingspan or such)You can cut it to fit snugly between the joists before you plasterboard over them.If you do ,buy a cheap handsaw to do the job as the insulation destroys the sharpness of the saw,and wear a mask.

Our Flu needs cleaning as we are going to rent but Im assuming (before I try ) that no access has to be left to clean the flu.Our stove in essence is a sqaure box with a fire in the bottom of it and a hole in the top.We have a baffle plate that sits over the fire and below the hole that creates the draw,this is removable and im assuming i just have to remove this to sweep the flu,then replace it(it just lifts out)

Ill ring the sweep tomorrow and ask him

Hope this helps,please feel free to ask me any more questions about it

Anthony

Just snorted out loud - the rest of the place is sooo dire that I had never noticed that!!

Looks like a robot.

You mean you don’t like the decor…

Hi James

Replace the steel with glass fibre board, it's fire proof.

Add grills to the sides of the chimney to allow any heat to come back out into the room. If you want to take the heat elsewhere, there are kits available.

then decorate ;)