A closer look at Hillandale Stoves

As if appearing from the doldrums emerges Hillandale Stoves a well presented brand with stoves and cookers in its portfolio, but who is Hillandale Stoves, what products do they have and will they be around to honor the warranty? If you want to know the answers then read on.

Hillandale Stoves as a brand are fairly new, but this is no need for concern as the Hillandale brand hails from two very well known and respected companies, Brosely fires and Bemodern. The Hillandale stoves range is very similar to the Brosely fires range of stoves, and have the same superb build quality and design as each other too. 

Broseley became part of the Bemodern group in 2009, they added to the Bemodern Group by providing the stove element that Bemodern was somewhat lacking from their large array of products.
Hillandale therefore come from the best possible back ground, and have provided the stove outlet Bemodern desired, they are set to go from strength to strength, and have a stylish and functional range of stoves and cookers, some with boiler options  and are already on sale across the UK at the moment. 

It is pretty much guaranteed that Hillandale will continue to release stylish, functional and desirable products in the near future. Any concerns over warranties would be unjustifiable, and I look forward to seeing the future developments Hillandale Stoves provides in years to come.

Will A Wood Burner Save You Money?

It's becoming increasingly popular for people to buy a woodburner to supplement or replace a gas or electric heating system because they simply can’t afford to pay their spiralling fuel bills. Changing to wood-fired heating saves many people a lot of money, but it takes time to recoup your initial investment in savings on fuel bills. The savings available vary, but these are the main points to consider when working out how much money you can save.

Purchase Costs
The most obvious cost is buying the woodburner. Wood burning stoves are available to suit all budgets, but the cheapest woodburners are not the most efficient. Spending a little extra to buy a more efficient stove can be worthwhile to gain savings in fuel costs over time. Bargain hunters tend to buy woodburners on the internet in order to get the cheapest prices. It can take a little work to compare deals properly – make sure the price advertised includes VAT and delivery, and see if there are any special deals on chimney liner or free fitting accessories with the stove. To ensure you have full manufacturers warranty cover on the woodburner, check that you are buying from an authorised retailer. You may also need to buy a chimney liner or flue system and accessories such as a stove pipe or register plate. If you are not sure what you need, get expert advice before you buy.

Installation Costs
Installation costs vary enormously depending what work needs to be done. If you need a flue liner for your chimney or to fit a twinwall flue system because you don’t have a conventional chimney, this will increase your installation costs. Sometimes fireplaces need to be altered for a woodburner to be installed, at an extra and sometimes unexpected cost. It is a good idea to have a stove installation survey from a  before you buy a woodburner – this will give you a clear idea of what work is necessary and the associated costs, as well as giving you an opportunity to get expert advice about what woodburner is most suitable for your requirements.
Running Costs
Research prices for firewood or coal both from local and nationwide suppliers, unless you are lucky enough to have a free source of firewood such as a friendly tree surgeon! To get the best prices on firewood or coal you need to buy in quantity – if you don’t already have a suitable storage area factor this into your budget as well. Demand for woodburners is increasing in the UK, but the Forestry Commission is implementing a program to develop the UK wood fuel industry over the coming years to ensure plenty of quality firewood will be available at reasonable prices. Recommended woodburner maintenance includes having your chimney swept at least once a year and an annual service of the stove by a HETAS qualified engineer – it’s a good idea to allocate some of your budget to cover these expenses.

There's More To Logs Than Simply Cutting Down A Tree

Increased demand for wood burning appliances has not only resulted in increased demand for logs but has also raised some concerns about the quality and availability of this very popular energy source. With the help of the experts we take a closer look into what's involved in producing logs.

Fuel quality is pretty much taken for granted. Although our gas bills carry some techical details of the energy coming down the pipe, few people take any notice. It's exactly the same for electricity and oil, we've got used to high quality energy and no longer take any notice of it.

Wood on the other hand is all together different. There are over 10,000 tree species in the world and more that 100 in the UK (only 33 of these are native). These generally divide into hard woods and soft woods, hardwoods native to the UK include Ash, Beech, Elm, Maple and the mighty Oak with Yew, Scots Pine and Juniper among the softwoods.

In short, if you're going to burn wood you have a wide selection to choose from and as we're about to tell you, an even wider choice of quality.

As natural living organisms, trees drink and retain a very large amount of ground water absorbed through their roots and obviously fire and water do not mix. The tree, or more correctly the moisture content of a tree varies with it's species and maturity and is greatest when a living tree is cut down. When left to do it's own thing, the tree will start to dry out, but that would take a very long time.

Sawing a tree into smaller pieces and splitting the resulting logs with dramatically increase the surface area of the wood and reduce the drying time considerably. Artificially drying (or kiln drying) accelerates the process quite considerably but it is not just a matter of applying heat... Theoretically, the maximum amount of energy that could be released from burning wood will occur when the moisture content is 0% but this means the wood would disintegrate and be useless to use in a stove or fire.

As Nic Snell of Certainly Wood explains, "It is really a relatively simple economic balance. Drying uses energy which must be balanced against the heat gain from burning 'dried' wood. We believe that logs for wood burning appliances should have a moisture content of between 15% and 25%. At this level, combustion is excellent and any remaining moisture is quickly driven off by the heat intensity.

In comparison, wood with a moisture content between 15% and 25% produces four and a half times as much heat as freshly cut wood. Putting this another way, 10kg of dried wood would produce 45kW where as the same amount of fresh wood would only produce 10kW of heat.

And this moisture content issue is the main problem regarding quality of wood for stoves and fires, visit any garage or DIY shop and you're almost guarenteed to see nets of wood for sale on the forecourt or by the main entrance but in most cases if you ask where the wood is sourced from and the moisture content you may not get an answer. Obviously some of this wood may be of high quality and may well have been kiln dried or at least well seasoned, but all of that work is undone if the wood is left outside in the weather so the wood can absorb any and all rain or dew that settles on it, and this combined with any that is freshly cut makes this wood very wet and totally unsuitable for a stove or fire.

For example, watch what happens next time you see roadworks that involve the felling of a tree. Either a shredder is brought in and everything is shredded and reduced to being buried in the ground. Or a group of men normally armed with chainsaws and traditionally in a white van appear, cut the wood and disappear again. They normally take the wood back to a yard where it is split and netted and then on the market within a couple of days! This results in a very low quality wood that will release very little energy and can do some quite considerable damage to stoves, chimneys, flues or even the environment!
Although just a small fraction of the wood felled in the UK is used for fuel the equipment used to sustain just a small, but rapidly expanding market is quite substantial. One company, well hidden amongst farmland and orchards boasts a site occupying over three acres, all devoted to turning trees into kiln dried wood logs.

Large Quantities of harvested hardwood is being continuosly deliveryed to the site and stacked with precision that would probably beat most Supermarket shelves! These 'trees' are often up to 45cm in diameter and as king as 3 metres! They are then cut to lenghts of abouve 250mm and split into up to 16 segments. The machine that does this job uses pure brute force to split the logs, using up to 4 tonnes of pressure to get the job done!

These logs are then transferred to the drying operation where brute force is replaced by technical prowess and knowledge as the drying system comes into force.

The wood is then transferred into the drying kilns, in reality most of these will be ex-shipping containers that have been adapted and modified with all the hardware and safety equipment that the drying operation demands.

Getting the wood down to the correct moisture content has been refined and is now more science than guesswork, early experiments show that when taken too far the wood could spontaneously combust so all the drying kilns contain sensitive equipment to tackle any problem should it arise, which may even come to flooding the container itself with water!

Reducing the moisture content to between 15% and 25% takes approximately 32 hours per container, rather dramatically this reduces the volume of the wood by 20%. Add this to the cutting of kindling and storage for the finished dry woods and you quickly realise that there is more the firewood than just cutting down a tree!

It's Not About Radical Design But About Moving Things Forward

A behind the scenes look at AGA's Coalbrookdale operation to find out just how its stoves are designed and tested.

At the heart of the Coalbrookdale site sits the AGA Foundry where quaker Abraham Darby discovered cast iron 300 years ago. Beneath the exterior of this historic site beats the heart of a modern and thriving foundry where David Carpenter, AGA's technical director and Tim Evans for Think Product Design are charged with creating AGA's latest stoves.

As Tim Evans put it, " With such an iconic name, you have to be faithful to the brand and show sympathy with the materials. Working with AGA isn't about radical design departures; it's about moving the products forward slowly so they appear to evolve. It's also a combination of both process and materials"

"For example, when we design using cast iron we want it to look like cast iron. The form, the ability to cast in fine detail and chacteristics of the material must not be hidden away, but rather worked with to give the products their unique appearance."
When asked if the marques world renowned cookers had any influence on the woodburning stoves he replied.
"Without wanting to sound too pretentios, when we started work on the new range of stoves for AGA we wanted to transport some of the DNA from the company's famous cookers. The simple lines, the honesty of the materials and solidity and timelessness of the designs were all important to us."
Tim Evans clearly believes that typical AGA customers, whislt design conscious, also tend to be traditionalists, so says the company has to find the right balance. "The stoves we were designing could not be ultra modern but, on the other hand, not overly decorative with scrolls, pillars and floral relief."
The resulting stove, the new Ludlow, retains mich of the charm without being overly fussy. But what about the interior? How do they deliver the cosy warmth that people expect? David Carpenter, AGA's technical director was characteristically succint. "Everything we do at AGA is tried and tested and improved until it achieves 'best in class' standards. It's exactly the same for one of our stoves. It needs to deliver the heat into the room effectively, the glass needs to be kept really clean, and most of it it needs to be efficient so that the homeowner gets the most out of their fuel."

A stove begins its life on the drawing board. Following a brief from AGA, Think Product Design works closely with AGA's product development team to complete initial concepts, discuss ideas and evolve the design. Once this stage has been reached, the drawings are transferred into a CAD package and more detail is added on the computer screen.
At this point, David Carpenter's Telford based research and development team join the process creating the internal structure of the stove and creating all the baffles and channels which guide the combustion process and deliver the fuel efficiencies and the air wash system. Once the CAD drawings are completed, a rapid prototype is made in plastic to see what the stove will look like in reality.

David adds "If we've reached this point and we're happy with the plastic prototype, we will invest in the toling and casting moulds to actually build the stove in cast iron. And when we've got the prototype cast iron stove, we can begin the testing process."
Testing is a rigorous process and one that the team at AGA is surprisingly passionate about. In a tone that few would argue with, David says, "There are so many companies offering lower costs and unapproved stoves, as well as stoves over the Internet and inferior copies, that some homeowners simply don't know what they're having installed. It's quite scarry how people will just go on price alone when they choose a stove. It might look like a nice product, but the quality just isn't there. Poorly design, badly manufactured and with no evidence of third party approval, no efficiency rating and very little attention paid to compliance and testing."

So what kinds of tests does AGA put their stoves through? Unsurprisingly they go through rigorous testing at AGA's research and development department overseen by the company's technical team. When AGA is happy that the stove reaches the manufacturing quality standards and efficiency it needs, it is then sent to GASTEC at CRE for european approval and, on some models further work is undertaken to achieve Smoke Exempt status, such as the Little Wenlock SE.
David adds " To reassure both our suppliers and homeowners the approval is clearly marked on the appliance data plate and all AGA stoves are HETAS listed - It means that all the salient information is in one, clearly visible place."
Once all the tesing is complete the team is happy that no modifications need to be made, the stove is handed over to the marketing team to launch, promote and add to the AGA range.

Apex Louisiana Multi-Fuel Stove

Apex Louisiana Multi-Fuel Stove is classically designed to compliment traditional decor and is constructed from cast iron and burns and array of fuels.
The Louisiana comes in a choice of three sizes with differing heat outputs. The Apex Louisiana 3 is the most petit of the new range and suitable for the smaller room, able to burn a range of fuels and emits a maximum heat output of 3kw with 81% efficiency when burning wood. The next stove available is the Apex Louisiana 5, this is the medium sized stove in the room, and is designed for to suit most homes. The Louisiana 5 is large in dimensions to the 3 model and emits a higher output of 5kW. The efficiency of the Louisiana 5 is 76.6% and this stove has been Defra approved, meaning it is suitable to be used in a smoke controlled area when burning wood. The largest of the range is the Apex Louisiana 7. This large stove has a maximum heat output of 7kW, surely enough output for the grandest of rooms. The efficiency is 76.3% and the 7 model is Defra approved also.
All three of the Louisiana range by Apex sport impressively large viewing windows and stylish door designs.
Easy to use Primary and Secondary airflow controls mean easy control of the flame and fire. The glass in the large viewing window is kept cleaner with the aid of the preheated air wash that helps keep soot from forming on the glass.
Apex Louisiana stoves come with top exit and rear exit flues, designed to aid installation, and the Louisiana stoves come with ash pan and complimentary safety gloves as Apex know that these stoves give generous heat, even after the flames of the fire have been extinguished.