Insert v poele?

[SaligoBay]

We have an insert chemine, and a man in M Bricolage (!) said to us last weekend that an insert is far more efficient than any poele/Godin/truc machin.

This surprised me, because guess what, ours isn't!! It could be because it's not well built, and lacks proper controls - the damper is either fully open or fully closed, and the fire has to be constantly nursed and fed.

The landlord said that when his ex-wife lived here, she used 8 cubic metres of wood every winter. All the other rooms in the house have electric rads.

8 cubic metres seems an awful lot to me to heat one room! Or are my expectations wrong?

Thank you,
SB

[Quillan]

We have an insert and Chimney all from Rennee Brishac (probably spelt it wrong) who I am told are either the top of the range or very near, it came with the house.

The insert really comes into its own if you design it to fit the house or the house to fit the insert. The reason for saying this is because the big ones are designed to heat more than one room. The one we have installed can produce 24,000 BTUs (needs a lot of wood) and the hot air can be pumped into 4 rooms via a silent low power fan and ducting.

The door on our model either hinges open or can be slid up into the chimney and allows for cooking and BBQ in the winter. With the door up one gets a vast amount of heat generated into the room which has at times (when I have put to much wood on) resulted in us opening the windows in deep winter to let the heat out.

Our fire is located in our lounge area which is around 200 cubic metres (big lounge with vaulted ceiling) and we burn around 8 cubic meters of wood (oak) a winter.

Would I buy another, too right I would and I would not now bother with something like a Waterford which I was so keen on when I came here as I had one back in the UK which I thought was brilliant until I tried an insert.

Hope this all makes sense.

Chris

http://www.chambresdhote.com