Which woodburner?

[Chocolate]

Having just bought a house in France we are looking to install a woodburning stove. The salon/sejour is over 300 cubic metres as it was the grange in years gone by. We have gaz central heating, but the roof insulation is not superb and we would like to reduce heating bills. We have access to wood on our land and have read the advice posted recently on types of and drying etc. There is an open fireplace with a good chimney above, but the place for the fire is just a flat raised ledge for firedogs and whole logs.

The problem is that we have seen several makes of woodburning stoves in the various places to buy and really don't know which make to go for. We have read the excellent info posted by other people which has helped. However, we are now down to these :- Godin 'Le Carvin', Charnwood 'Island 3', Jotul 'F 600' and Dovre '760'. The first is French, the second is English and the last 2 are Norwegian. We had the delights of a small Charnwood Country stove in a gite this winter and frankly we were just 'kippered' as well as cold! All the vendors tell us that a woodburner will not smoke if cared for properly, and of course theirs never do! Also it was a very dirty business to clean it out when the ash pit, (there was no provision for an ashpan in its design), needed to be reduced.

Reading the inputs from others however, the Charnwoods seem to be popular and respected on the forum. Were we unlucky? Are the new ones with double combustion better/ smoke less or not at all? Are the Godins good? Are Norwegian (Jotul or Dovre) better due to their obviously colder winters? Advice is very welcome from anyone please are we are really in a fog about this.

[Simon]

I love my Jotul, trouble free, and high quality; brilliant.

regards

Simon

[Clair]

Hi

I had used a Charwood Country 6 in the UK and was ready to get a Country 12 as I had been very impressed with the heat output and the design of the slanted doors, but the cost in France was prohibitive.

So we installed a Jotul F600 and are very happy with that. It was on all last winter (outside temp was -16º occasionally!) and would restart with no hassle after an overnight snooze...

Very happy with both models and would prefer the look of the Charnwood, but cannot fault either on efficiency.

Clair

[Chocolate]

Thank you Clair and Simon for your advice- both Jotul happy customers.

Regarding the price: we found one supplier for Jotul and one for Charnwood locally. They have both given us the following prices:- Charnwood Island 3 (with taxes but seems to be the higher rate so maybe they are not fitting ) just over 2000Euros. Jotul about 2300 euros. Not much in it but the taxes seem to make a difference as does the fitting.

Does this seem high or should we look further afield for suppliers? If we bought at a distance, I am concerned that we would not get service or repairs easily. We are just in the Midi-Pyrenees.

[Dick Smith]

We have a Godin Colonial, cost about €650 fitted, but I'm not sure if they do anything for the volume of room you have. Works a treat in a smaller room.

[Clair]

[quote]Thank you Clair and Simon for your advice- both Jotul happy customers. Regarding the price: we found one supplier for Jotul and one for Charnwood locally. They have both given us the following prices...[/quote]

I paid just under 2350 for the Jotul F600 delivered and fitted.

I live near St Céré (Lot 46) and bought from M. Costes from Catena in Bretenoux.

Clair

[Anton Redman]

We paid Euros 600 for a 10.5 Kilowatt Supra from local Briconaughts. Delivered by a lad who could not even lift his end of the stove off the truck. Good job I have French neighbours. However it coped brilliantly through the winter, has an ash tray, and the glass stays clean unless we are burning grotty pine.

If and only if we were staying in house for next twenty years I might has persuaded myself ot buy a Jotul.

[Gail Smith]

We have a Jotul 500 and we paid 1600 euros for it in the January sales.  We fitted it ourselves. I have to say that it is the best money we have invested since we came here.  It is clean and extremely efficient and will stay in for 10 hours or more with no problem at all.  We bought it as we have LPG central heating and just could not afford to run it.  This stove will pay for itself in 2 years which has to be a bargain.

Gail

[Clair]

[quote]I paid just under 2350 for the Jotul F600 delivered and fitted.I live near St Céré (Lot 46) and bought from M. Costes from Catena in Bretenoux.Clair[/quote]

I should have said the fitting did not include the plate to close off the chimney...

The glass door is self-cleaning because of the double combustion.

We get very little smoke out of it. Because it's made entirely of cast iron, it stays warm overnight and only needs a blast of air to get started again in the morning

We use the fuel central heating for the (north facing) bathroom and the other radiators don't come on at all during the day as the Jotul warms the living-room very efficiently.

Money well spent, particularly as we have a friendly farmer to sell us wood and a woodyard in the village...

Clair

[Bobc]

"Regarding the price: we found one supplier for Jotul and one for Charnwood locally. They have both given us the following prices:- Charnwood Island 3 (with taxes but seems to be the higher rate so maybe they are not fitting ) just over 2000Euros. Jotul about 2300 euros. Not much in it but the taxes seem to make a difference as does the fitting."

The latest July 2005 dealer price list shows the retail price of an Island III as 2240,30 Euros at 19,6% TVA. This does not include the shipping cost of around 70 Euros. If you have been offered one at just over 2000 Euros then that is a good price.

You might be better off saving some money and buying a Country 12 (rrp 1468,04 Euros at 19,6% TVA) - a well proven model.

All Charnwood stoves come with a riddling grate and ashpan as standard - the grate needs to be removed for woodburning and the pan can be retained if you wish. With continuous operation, a Country 12 only needs to have the ash removed around every two/three weeks - this can easily be done with a small metal shovel and metal bucket.

For your installation you also need to budget for the flue installation - a good double insulated stainless-steel flue system can cost half as much again.

If you get your supplier to install the stove, then you will benefit from TVA at 5,5% (providing your property is more than 2 years old)

As regards other brands of stoves - you get what you pay for. Jotul and the more expensive Godin models are good - most of the models sold in the 'bricos' are pretty poor - no rope seals, etc, etc.

Regards,

Bob Clarke
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/grindoux

[LesFlamands]

There are two main types of woodburning stove - a metal box to burn wood in or a  stove which allows you to control the rate of burn but also, by design, controls the rate of heat output to the room by virtue of its mass.

Low cost stoves from Bricos are very poor quality. Most have no seals and those that do don't work well. If you can't control the rate of burn then you have no control over the heat output but also you are continuously feeding the fire just to keep the chimney warm. A well designed stove should require refilling once every four hours at half output ( dampers half open). Good quality dry wood is essential. If a stove will not 'stay in' overnight it is worse than useless.

There are many good stoves available such as Jotul, Vermont Castings, Charnwood, Villager, Clearview. Jotul and Vermont Castings are very expensive. Other makes, your choice will depend on price and availability in France. Getting the stove fitted by the supplier can reduce the TVA payable to 5.5%.

[Iceni]

We have a Villager Flat A (I think) which is fantastic (14 KW). It was bought and fitted in France and not only does it heat 40 sq mt but I also cook on it in the winter as it has two rings (it is actually a little too large for the room most of the time but we are going to put in vents to the upstairs master bedroom to heat that also). It was nowhere as expensive as the Jotul quoted and this includes delivery from French importer (see Charles above ) and fitting and the cost of the chimney (local French specialist) etc etc as there was no chimney there at all.

If you want a logburner that will also cook and look good I would say a Villager should be on the list, this is my second and does everything we need it to do. The only problem with them is that the glass does not stay as clean as the Jotul BUT for the money saved I am happy to put up with a little bit of rubbing glass with ash.

[Chocolate]

Thank you everyone for your advice and experiences. It really seems to come down to a choice between a Charnwood or a Jotul by the look of it. We decided to get one of the suppliers to come out to look as they were so keen to do so, (and we are so ignorant), so am awaiting their visit tomorrow. They in fact are suppliers of a make we were no longer considering, but they are keen and we have told them we don't want to waste their time, but they are still coming. Will post the outcome.

By the way, we were only looking to heat, not cook on our woodburner and we did want the double combustion which cleans the glass a Icenis well as providing a very efficient burn, so perhaps the Villager mentioned is not for us. Thanks anyway Iceni.

[Chocolate]

Sorry about the peculiar wording in the last paragraph. The heat has got to the fingers as well as to the head!

[Dog]

We have a Jotul a Supra and a Colonial. They are all good. Now is the time to buy Obry have a 25% off sale on woodburners.

[Skytriker]

This is all good information as I too am in the market for a woodburner.  Is it possible to install one as a DIY project or are there insurance/building regulation issues? 

[Chocolate]

Well, I don't believe it as Victor would say. The man to advise arrived and now thinks we should have an insert, (he called it a foyer )instead as we have a fireplace and he says that the heat will not come out into the room from a woodburner  as well as it will from an insert. One of these would mean a small amount of building work to enclose it in the space of the open fireplace and we will get 17% of the heat into the room as opposed to only about 9% if we installed a woodburner. He can supply, but his top sized model only gives out 8Kw as opposed to the 14 Kw we had been looking at from a wb. He began by saying had we thought of an insert (foyer), then said we probably had an unsuitable fireplace. Measured it then said it would be OK.

It begs the question now - should we go for an insert, complete with its grill in the front of our chimney piece just above the mantle and fans under the fire and behind the grill(surely electricity costs here and not that attractive), or for a woodburner which sticks half in and half out of the fireplace  (which we had not thought would happen as we cannot be clued up enough) but will only require the free wood from our land? The space in which a woodb would go is 82cm high, 82cm wide and 63cm from back of grate to the front overhang of the mantlepiece, (stone). We knew we would have to drop the floor of the fireplace a little but didn't think that the depth would mean all the heat would go into the back of the fireplace and/or up the chimney above with a woodburner. We had not considered an insert but have seen them when house-hunting. Can be modern looking but are they as efficient as a good woodburner? He also suggested that the chimney liner tube could be about 1000 euros! Cough, cough.

Are we on the end of a hard-sell here ie a long piece of string? We got very confused as to our best option and wondered if he was leading us along his sales pitch? Why is it all so complicated? We had thought, OK the consensus is for a Jotul, lets get it and another problem sorted out. But now?

[Clair]

We have an "insert" and fan in the gîte next door to our place.

That's why we knew it would not do for us: the electric fan which distributes the (otherwise lost) heat is so noisy it was driving me mad and we had to disconnect. The "insert" is nowhere near as efficient as the woodburner, but that could be down to our particular model.

In all the research I have done before shelling out for our Jotul F600, I have read that an "insert" is better than an open fire, but not as efficient as a solid woodburner.

More basic info on the pros & cons of each here (copy & paste)

http://www.leroymerlin.fr/mpng2-front/pre?zone=zonecatalogue&idEIPub=1100625073

http://www.leroymerlin.fr/mpng2-front/pre?zone=zonecatalogue&idEIPub=1100625131

http://www.ademe.fr/Collectivites/bois-energie/pages/Bois-energie/Chauff_particuliers/partic1.htm

http://www.costic.com/documents/balises_news/news47_balise107.pdf

http://www.costic.com/documents/balises_news/news47_balise108.pdf

In that last link, there is a section about where to install a wb, which says you should allow sufficient space at the back to enable convection.

The back of our Jotul is 20cm/8" from the chimney wall. Our Charnwood was installed half out of the chimney area and about 1 foot into the room. No problem...

[pouyade]

We recently had an insert put into an existing fireplace. I can only describe us as ecstatic over its efficiency. The insert has a fan option, but this is overrideable and I generally use it only when we are not sitting down admiring it, to speed up the flow of hot air around the two rooms it heats. I agree that the front panel (about 18 inches by 12) is relatively unattractive. We have solved that by painting it to match the chimney, which is of stone. We will be having 2 woodburners installed in freestandng locations later this year - but will revert to another insert when we finish our living room, as I think they generally look better that a wooburner shoe-horned into a fireplace.

 

If you are in southern 17, I can recommend our installer.............

 

Pouyade

[Iceni]

I have been in many houses with both inserts and stand-alone wood burners and all I can say is that our nickname for inserts is cold ash producers. We have friends who would rather sit with a paraffin stove in front of the insert than light it.

If you put a metal box into a space which has a plate to stop all the heat going up the chimney it must give out more heat (due to the fact that the metal case heats up and acts as a radiator) than an insert - or have I got my science all wrong.

If Charles is around (Lesflamands) I am sure he will give you some advice.

On another tack, I would rather have a burner that was very cost effective and occasionally has dirty glass (normally when it is turned very low) but just takes a few minutes to clean, than a burner that costs double the price for the same/less heat output with clean glass (but our friends do have to clean their glass on their Jotul on a regular basis also) - but then again, I don't have money to burn .

The villager comes with a nice domed top as well as the flat top that we got - you just choose your model.

We will need another log burner for the barn and we need the biggest output we can get - any ideas of a really good large log burner greatfully received. On this one we know we will have to pay to get the output.

[LesFlamands]

Villager stoves have both secondary combustion and an air wash facility to help keep the glass clear. The problem with using the air wash (as with all makes of stoves) is that the very low burn rate is affected and the heat output increased and, consequently, the the time between refills is reduced. The real solution for keeping the glass clear is to use very well seasoned timber but even then the glass will fog slightly when the stove is closed down , but should clear again when opened up.

John and Di, I think we have trouble finding a stove with a genuinely larger output than 15kW, but I do agree with your comments re. inserts. The French love them but I've never come across one that produces much heat. 

[pouyade]

I wonder if the poor experiences described with inserts are linked to build quality/ design as per the comments about poorly performong free standing woodburners? Ours was as dear as a Jotul; has thick rope seals; is very efficient and stays in overnight (albeit after it's been on for a couple of days or so). I would recommend a good insert as I would a good woodburner, I would hate someone not to investigate the options 'cos they thought ALL inserts were inefficient.......

 

Pouyade