Wood pellet stoves [poëles à granules]

Got rid of my villager when I bought the Burley.
It’s good to see the industry is moving forward in 2022, personally starting with the DEFRA approved models is a good place to start. The French Flam verte gives bad stoves 5 stars so not reliable.

Put them away boys

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Quite, I agree. Things are certainly moving forward, I see & follow as part of my day job but with bigger plant.

John, as I already mentioned some of us are on a small budget. I have lived here in France for many years. I posted my actual experiences of living many years with 2 Invicta stoves that I was quite happy with. In fact the people who bought my hous are still using the same stoves many years later.
You proceeded to rubbish them and now you use words like ‘cobblers written by others’!
I find that comment to be quite disagreable and not worthy of you !

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I’ve got , amongst others in our gites, a Hunter Herald 14. Had it 12 years, installed it myself with a full length stainless steel rigid liner inside the clay pot chimney . Works brilliantly, nearly free heating. I know pellet stoves are probably more "efficient ", but i cant get pellets for free.

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That is a very good point, we have access to plenty of “free” firewood so long as I am prepared to get the chainsaw out.

I have bought a log splitter recently which is proving excellent:

I will be getting one of them soon. I watched one in use recently and it was really impressive.

I bought it at Brico Leclerc (approx 250 euros)- it is 6.5tonne and seems to work well , much safer & quicker than an axe/manual splitter - and obviously a lot less tiring!

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I tried using a friends splitter (cant remember the exact make, power etc) but thought it was a bit slow. I do all my splitting by hand, on a meadow where I prep and store my wood, (too far for a power cable ) and it keeps me a bit fitter. I reckon wood warms you up at least 4 or 5 times, chopping it down, chopping it up, stacking and moving it and finally burning it. You don’t get all that just by emptying a bag of pellets .:joy::joy:

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@james

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I am rather amazed by the nastiness and blind prejudices displayed in this string. I am sure there are many Survive France members whpo simply want guidance or shared experience without the jibes. We had a Palazetti installed by an approved installer nearly 5 years ago. Teething troubles at the start becuase of the lectric feed motor (Chinese made) which failed twice. Clearly not just us, as then Palazetti replaced it with an Italian motor which has functioned perfectly ever since. Of course, if you have limitless free firwood and wood burning stoves, that is a good alternative…EXCEPT: woodburners have to be cleaned out before use; you have to drag yourself out to the wood store a couple of times per day; the heat cannot be accurately managed; they require more maintenance and cleaning; you need to forage for or buy kindling. A pellet stove can be programmed and temperature-controlled. It is lovely to come downstaits to a warm kitchen on winter mornings, or to pop it on to boost temperature on chilly evemings at any time of the year. They are clean, quiet, relatively cheap to run (ours costs around 3 euros per day in winter) AND you get a stonking great crédit d’impôt for installing one!

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Hi John,
we are about to go down the route of wood gasification boiler into a thermal store. The theory of efficient batch burning to create a store of heat to use for HW and radiators is very appealing.
Are there any brand and installers that you’d recommend or advise to stay clear of?
How has your experience been?
Thanks in advance,
Ray

I used Michael at https://www.enershop.eu/collections/wood-gasification-boilers, very good very neat and tidy

Thank you John, greatly appreciated.