In french?

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Hello,

Can some kind soul please tell me what are the french words for a combustion wood fireplace insert?  I have an existing fireplace and chimney, but want to have a sealed combustion system installed.  I have almost given up trying to find out how to say that in French to the guy that will be fitting it for us.  As we don't arrive until October and I imagine it will be starting to get cold then, I am booking the local chauffage fellow now to measure and fit one of these units in October, but am unsure what they are called. 

Is it a "foyer ferme"?  And is wood "bois"? 

The house has electric points for wall heaters apparently and I am hoping that with this combustion fireplace as well we will be able to hold up for the winter in this one room until we can get someone to fit heating for the rest of the house. 

I don't know if my husband is just stirring me or not, but he has me believing that I am moving from Sunny Queensland Australia into a refrigerator!!  Surely it can't be THAT bad.  He's got me thinking that I will be walking around with stalagtites hanging off my nose all year long. 

Oh well, it will be an adventure!

Thank you,

Lynda

[zeb]

You may be better off getting a good woodburner fitted as, from what I've heard, they chuck out more heat than an insert. But you must have chimney checked and swept, liner installed and chimney plate fitted.

This is bound to spark off a debate about the "best" woodburner to buy in France but just to say we have a huge French woodburner (and another one waiting to be fitted in another room) and it's brilliant! Just under a thousand euros and another couple of hundred for the chimney plate and liner. Friends have huge Jotel for their very large salon but at 4500 euros it was above our price range and the heat output is comparable.

Sorry not sure about the technicalities but with inserts you can have some sort of fanned heat distribution system into the rooms above.

Yes wood is bois and, yes, most of France gets extremely cold in the Winter (down to -9 degrees here last winter)so we also have oil central heating!

[derf]

Have a look at this site it may help you to understand a little better, also in my opinion i think a free standing wood burner is a better bet.

http://www.turbofonte.com/v2/pages_fr/chauffage.php

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Thank you for the 'heads up'.  I had thought that an insert and free-standing combustion would produce the same heat, but of course a free-standing has a lot more sides to it to release heat.

My only experience is when we had a free-standing combustion stove in Noosa, Queensland when it would get down as low as 14 degrees celsius somedays! bbbbrrrrrr

 

[Chocolate]

As newies to France this year, we also investigated the options for heating just like you. I also posted queries on this site and got so much helpful and experienced advice that we were able to make a final decision.

What did we go for? Well the consensus was that a 'foyer' would not kick out enough heat for us and there were comments about the often noisy fans which send the heat out of the grilles. We settled for a Jotul freestanding wood burner, (a poele it's called). However, having got a written quote for supply and fixing a well-known make which made us go cold (!) we took this to the Jotul supplier and said, 'If you can do all this at less than this quoted price, then you have the job.' Needless to say he did come in at a reasonably lower itemised all-in price. We had been told categorically by our French immobilier that 'Everything in France is negotiable'. She was right in this case so negotiate! Incidently the fixings up the chimney are expensive anyway, but think of a house fire! Think of the insurance company's reaction if, God forbid, your chimney went afire.

There had also been very positive comments from people on this forum about the Jotul poeles so we feel reasonably safe. The only word of warning is don't necessarily go for the biggest if you intend fitting central heating within a year. We came down one model from the biggest after being told about this. However do buy one big enough to put off commissioning the central heating into the Autumn, depending upon where you live.

One bonus was that the supplier has told us that as this is our main home and we are choosing energy renewable and eco-friendly heating, when our taxes are sorted out we should get 40% of the cost of the burner back. Hope this is true. Would be good if he's correct.

Our burner is to be fitted in October so we cannot definitely state we have chosen well yet. Good luck with your choice; one of many I am sure.