Hi Mike am looking into a pellet burner could you advise me about them I keep looking into them are they hard to install
Regards
Richard
Hi Richard,
Pellet burners are quite effective, very efficient and the obvious benefits are, cleanliness of the fuel because of storing sacks of pellets and not wood, very little ash is left after a burn so not masses of cleaning ash pans, automated control over when the stove starts, stops and what temperature to maintain when running. The downside is that in the even of a power failure the stove will stop blowing out hot air as the fire will simply die out and also with most pellet stoves you can her the fan which blows the hot air into the room.
They are quite simply to install and when we purchased our second stove we installed it and had the stove burning in under 15 minutes. You need to install an 80cm stove flue pipe to an external wall or to an existing chimney.
Our first Pellet stove we purchased from France then realised we could purchase at a far cheaper price from abroad. We then purchased from a company in Italy and they were brilliant and the stove arrived in 4 days in the back of a large truck. http://fireland.it/eng/pellet-air-stoves/ We now have a 12kw pellet stove fitted in my wife pottery and again it is perfect because of the flexibility, we set it to come on overnight during winter to ensure all her clays and glazes do not freeze, when she want to work in there she can go in press a button and 5 minutes later she has hot air warming the place up very quickly, when she has finished press a button and the stove is off. You can set the stove to come on and off multiple times each day and even vary depending on the days.
The stoves from companies like Extraflame (we had 2 of those) are far easier to program that some of the very cheap models you can find in some of the brico sheds.
We use to order a ton of pellets (I think 76 sacks) at a time and the delivery driver would help me stack them under the stairs in the lounge and we would just call and order more when we got low. The sacks of pellets really need to be stored whey they will remain dry.
I hope this helps.
Rgds, Mike L
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Thank you that’s brill do you need a flue pipe all the way in the chimney? In the UK I never put a flue liner in when I did my own log burner also were do you order your pellets from thank you for your help 
If the stove is being positioned in a fireplace with a chimney then you will need to join the 80cm solid flue pie to a flue liner in the chimney to exit at the top. However, if the stove is being positioned against an outside wall you can take the stove pipe out through the wall and terminate it there. If you do a search for wood pellets in your area it will show the locations that will supply them, there are so many different suppliers now and we used a local dealer.
Blimey! ALL woodburners require a proper flue liner, & wood pellet stoves are no exception.
We went for a room sealed unit which uses a coaxial flue to pull fresh air in & push fumes out. Very, very, happy with convenience & cleanliness, though you do have to get used to the fan noises. It’s early days but we are probably saving fuel money too - we have no source fo free wood.
I am no expert in this matter… our French builder insisted on putting in a flue when he re-did the roof…telling us horror stories of chimney-fires in neighbouring houses… and I am so glad that he did.
Later, when we finally bought a wood-burner, the company installing it was impressed/surprised that we English had “done things right”…
Anyway…a few years down the line… our nearest neighbour set his chimney alight…(we share that one, but our side is blocked off)…wow, it was like firework night, sparks and flames shooting out of the top…the pompiers struggled to bring the whole thing under control…and finally, we could all breathe a sigh of relief. It seems the neighbour does NOT have a full flue liner… and this fire was not his first time…but, he just shrugs his shoulders…
Beggars belief that something so basic should be disregarded…
In the UK you don’t need a flue liner as long as your chimney is CAT 1 i,e stone, and you get a smoke test and sweep the chimney once a year to detect leaks, just inquiring if french building regulations are different
Thanks
so what does CAT 1 really mean other than just stone ??
Our village houses are all made of stone…hundreds of years old… huge inglenook chimneys…and yet some still get chimney fires…(even with the annual sweeping)… so something else must be involved…
Fire can be so disastrous…I’m nervous of letting our woodstove stay in overnight… even though it is supposed to be absolutely safe to do so…
If you have a liner fitted all the way up to the top of the chimney (Not just past the register plate that I know a lot of people do), and it is regularly swept ( by yourself or by a rammonneur), then it cannot catch fire and is perfectly safe.
What a timely comment Stella. According to our insurance agency Macif who is offering a free fire prevention lecture in Limoges next week - another way to improve my French!), there are 250,000 house fires in France a year which cause 800 deaths and injure 10,000. Fire is a serious public safety concern - anywhere. Particularly for those who live in the country with a volunteer team of firefighters! It’s odd how so many seem so blasé about it when the results can be so devastating especially when some simple preventative measures can avoid disaster and distress. But to be fair maybe some people don’t know what they don’t know and perhaps fire prevention tips could be better promoted through local authorities?
@Mark … last year, I stoked the fire then went across the road for the Carol singing…turning back, I saw billows of black smoke issuing forth from my chimney…I was horrified and expected to see sparks and flames (as per a neighbour’s chimney-fire)…so I kept dashing from house to church and back again… checking that all was well… It made no matter that we have a full liner… that there was no way we could catch fire… when that cold dread clutches at you… common sense goes out of the window…
Everyone was very supportive and understanding…but, oh dear… I’ll be more careful this year…
I agree but I once arrived home from work in the UK to find a fire engine outside the house, fireman on roof and a couple more indoors dealing with a chimney fire. Full length liner but cowboy sweep. It had only been “swept” the week before but it was actually blocked. They got to us quickly so minimal damage but I did feel a complete arse…
hi could you tell me the make you installed and has it been reliable thanks
Hi Richard, I installed an Extraflame, extremely reliable, very simple to operate and set up, also the controls allow for so much flexibility of operation. I ordered the stove from Fireland in Italy and it was delivered in just 4 days and came with French plug (same connector as a computer) and also full English Installation and Operating instructions. Also, we paid 1/2 the price of the same stove sold in France. It took me 15 minutes to install the stove myself but the chimney and existing flue were in place so I just needed to connect the stove to the flue.
http://fireland.it/eng/pellet-air-stoves/
Hope this helps.
Thank you that’s great it’s good to get recommendations so they spoke English from the Italian distributor
Yes, the guy I spoke to over there was fluent English.
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Hi Mike
I’m interested in a pellet stove and I’ve followed the links to the Fireland site - what I wasn’t clear about was how the pellets get to the stove? Do you also need an automated feed system installed separately from the stove?
thanks
Mark
Hi Mark, There is a lid on the top which you open and simply pour pellets in from the bags of pellets. Normally, they can take enough pellets to last a whole day or longer at a time. It is generally the larger Pellet Boilers as opposed to Pellet Stoves that tend to have complex feed systems installed.
Hope this helps.
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Hi Mike
Thanks, that system sounds perfect for us, nice and simple 
Thanks for the response
Regards
Mark
Hi
We would like a pellet stove that also can be used for a little bit of cooking too. ( seems a shame not to make use of all that heat).
Have seen a Piazetta with a small oven. Does anyone have any experience of this make please or any similar stoves?