Top 10 tips for Reducing Your Heating Costs by Installing a Wood Burning Stove

On freezing winter days like the ones we have managed to almost dodge completely this winter, could there anything nicer than coming in from the cold and curling up in front of a wood-burning stove? Aside from the romantic vision of cups of hot chocolate in front of a glowing stove, did you know that installing a wood-burning stove could potentially reduce your energy bills?

Even with the recent gas and electricity price cuts that have been announced by some of the biggest energy suppliers this week (following their steep price rises last year), it is definitely worth considering alternative forms of home heating to reduce your energy costs and over-reliance on gas and electricity.

So, to give us the low-down on wood-burning stoves and how to maximise our heating whilst minimising our energy bills, the chaps at gr8fires have shared their top 10 tips, plus we have an exclusive offer for all Queen of Easy Green™ readers, see below.

Top 10 tips for Reducing Your Heating Costs by Installing a Wood Burning Stove

1.     Install a wood-burning stove
That’s the inevitable starting point for saving money with a wood-burning stove. This will reduce your heating costs by cutting your reliance on central heating. You can turn off the radiators in rooms that you don’t need to keep warm and use the stove as your main source of heat.
2.     Choose the right stove
Picking the best stove for your needs is essential in helping you to save money. If you don’t fit a stove with a heat output suited to the room, it will reduce your chances of cutting your heating costs. Opting for a more expensive model with a greater output to heat a larger room will pay for the price difference in no time at all.
3.     Consider a wood-burning boiler stove
Installing a boiler stove is one way of further cutting your heating bills. You can use the heat generated by your stove to also heat the water in your home. The dual use of your stove means you can cut your central heating costs even further.
4.     Use properly seasoned wood
The type of wood you use has a huge impact on the efficiency of your stove. Using seasoned wood -which has been cut, split and left to air for at least a year – is the best way to minimise your heating costs. Seasoned wood contains far less moisture, burns more efficiently and heats your home more quickly than freshly cut wood. Use a log store to allow your wood to season and to help you build up a supply that should last you all winter.

5.     Control your stove’s air supply properly
Both the bottom (primary) and top (secondary) air vents should be open when you light your stove. Once the fire is burning well, you should be able to close the primary vent and control the fire using only the secondary vent for a more efficient burn.
6.     Get your chimney swept regularly
As a minimum you should get your chimney swept annually before you start using the stove regularly. Ideally, it should be swept every three to four month when the stove is in regular use.
7.     Use dry kindling to start the fire
Using small pieces of wood to get the fire going will heat your stove more quickly and, as a result, your room will start heat more efficiently once you add logs. The sooner your stove is up to temperature, the sooner the convection process can have an impact on the rest of the room.
8.     Use free wood
One of the best aspects of installing a stove is that you can easily find a supply of free fuel. From saving friends and family from a trip to the tip to salvaging fallen trees from your nearest forest (with the landowner’s permission), there are plenty of opportunities to heat your home for free.
9.     Don’t be tempted to throw another log into the stove. Once you have loaded the stove with logs, don’t continually top up your stove as they burn. Wait until all the logs have been burnt to glowing embers before reloading the stove. Continually adding more wood is considerably less efficient.
10.  Keep the door closed
It is a simple tip, but one that causes unnecessary confusion for many stove users. Once the stove is lit, the door should be closed. This increases the efficiency of the burn by up to 60 per cent.

Reasons to buy a range cooker

Big, beautiful and bursting with functions, a range cooker has the capacity to steal the show - making sure the kitchen is the true heart of any home.
But what are the options when it comes to ranges, and why choose a hearty range cooker over a built-in oven for your kitchen?
One of the greatest benefits of a range cooker is its heavy-duty durability and solid construction - they are literally built to last a lifetime.
Not only does this mean your initial investment has long-term benefits, but a range cooker is also kinder on the environment as it puts landfill sites under less pressure, and with a solid fuel range, can offer Carbon Neutral heating and cooking.
Range cookers exude a feeling of permanence and solidity and, once you use them in the right way, quickly become a focal point in the kitchen and a home essential that you can't live without!

Range cookers have a distinct style, which stand out in the kitchen. Ranginge from a traditional, yet colourful finish of the Broseley Rosetta to the industrious Broseley Thermo Sovrana to the ultra-contemporary Firebelly Razen Cookstove. They add a homeliness, and even a feeling that whoever owns one is a competent and capable cook!
These factors mean that, unlike built-in ovens, range cookers can quickly become a focal point in the kitchen - making this area a place to which people naturally gravitate in the home, particularly if the smell of freshly baked bread or a simmering stew fills the air,  a freestanding range cooker has a much stronger presence than built-in appliances.
 While most "normal" cookers just come in the standard white or stainless steel, range cookers are available in a large number of extra colours, such as cream enamel, red enamel or even soapstone panels on some of the stoves! These extra colours allow the stove to complement or contrast existing decor to truly create that focal point.
While the common perception is that range cookers are old fashioned so don't have the same features as a "normal" cooker, but this can actually be the opposite. With additional features such as a warming drawer, ideal to warm plates before a large meal or to place bread to rise. With the larger stoves you can also connect them up to your central heating to get the most out of that lovely wood-fire and heat not only your kitchen, but the rest of the house and you hot water as well.

Hot Property For 2012

With just a week left in 2011, and with our first snowfall across most of the UK last week, most people, along with ourselves are focusing on 2012. We thought we'd take a look at some of the things that we forsee becoming 'hot' property for 2012.

Bio-Ethanol Fires: 
These  eco-friendly and incredibly simple and elegant fires are becoming more and more popular with energy prices rising and installation, servicing and other costs of gas and soli-fuel appliances to consider Bio-Ethanol are beginning to become the appliance of choice for both heat and a stunning flame effect. While the fact that most bio-ethanol fires only feature one moving part which means there is almost nothing to go wrong with the fire. This means an end to expensive engineer/gas fitter visits and an end to struggling to find spare parts.


Other amazing feature is that some of the fires are portable, allowing for use both indoors during the colder nights or using Citronella Gel outside during the summer to provide that amazing ambience while keeping the insects away. While some people claim that the Bio-Ethanol costs an arm & a leg, most larger internet retailers are able to sell larger quanities at substanitally cheaper prices to that of a local showroom or garden centre.

You can find an incredible selection of  bio-ethanol fires; portable, freestanding and wall-mounted from the House 2 Home Megastore


Stoves In Colour:

With stoves becoming more and more popular as the idea of carbon-neutral heating and reduced fuel bills becomes more mainstream most people will start looking into purchasing a wood-burning or multifuel stove.
The general consensus of the market is matt black cast iron or steel is the only available colour. But why settle with just matt black?
With manufacturer's such as Firebelly or Carron offer many more colours, while Carron offer enamel colours that may chip or discolour due to heat Firebelly offer a wide variety of colours or heat resistant paint that are hard-wearing and can be touched up. Combined with the optional Stainless steel legs as pictured can give you an incredibly unique stove.

Drugasar Fires:
Drugasar fires are set to become the must-have gas fires. With the Global Range being an incredibly high quality range of gas fires for Chimney's & balanced flue systems that are also much more affordable than some other similar fires on the market. With the Eclipse, Aura, Cara & Grace suites also set to become more and more popular. The Ceraglass interior has also become a must-have, with not many other fires offering such a contemporary finish.
“We develop products that continuously meet the highest stipulations and as such retain the level of quality we are used to. Where homes are becoming increasingly better insulated, we offer products for example that still delievr a lovely fire but with less capacity," 

Does Your Stove Work For You?

 When many people think of a wood burning stove they imagine it heating only one area of the house. However with a little planning and initial disruption, your wood burning stove could heat the entire home, whilst saving a fortune on electric and gas.
Some stoves can be fitted with a back burner that means as you light your stove the hot water tank heats up, from the energy created and fills your radiators with eco fuel that keeps every room in the house toasty warm.
Although initially fitting a wood burning stove with a back boiler can be more disruptive than simply attaching a stove to a chimney, this is an ideal way to heat the home for less, and ensures you get the full benefit of all that heat without opening doors in the home to let the heat travel through.
Even the incredibly contemporary wood-burning stoves such as Firebelly (We found the best prices here) can be ordered and built with an optional back-boiler, and in the 18 different colours you're sure to be able to find a colour you love.
Before back boilers wood burning stoves were huge heavy things, that would be used for cooking, drying clothes, heating water and the home, however just because times have changed and we now rely on oil and gas, it doesn’t mean we can’t learn a thing or two from our ancestors.
Range Cookers, more commonly called Aga's after the brand that made them so successful, are strongly back in fashion, and whilst at the beginning of the twentieth century these were thrown out with the rubbish, now they cost a pretty penny and are a must have for any designer kitchen. Manufacturer's such as Broseley have created some stunning Range Cookers, that allow you to enjoy the warm glow as well as being able to do almost anything. Unlike the Aga's that have hidden everything behind heavy metal doors.
Your wood burning stove can perform the same jobs as an Aga, as there are now so many on the market with extras, that the past is coming into the future.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for, scour antique shops and reclamation yards, they will have the old type of wood burning stove that can easily be transformed with an expert hand. These older stoves will have special compartments at the side- a single cast iron cupboard, where you can place slippers to warm or even leave bread to rise. This creates not only warmth in the home, but a delicious smell too, and makes sure that in these winter months there really is no place like our own abode.
If planning a home renovation and the kitchen or study adjoins the lounge, another idea for an open plan feel is to remove the wall where the wood burning stove will go. Some stoves will have glass on both sides, so each room can feel the benefit of the flames as they lick you into a state of relaxed happiness.
With all these features, there’s only one worry left when buying your wood burning stove, how to keep a stockpile of wood big enough! Try growing your own fast growing trees, some only take a year to grow, and as one is chopped down replace with another secure in the knowledge that you really are going green with your energy!

Manufacturer Focus: Firebelly Stoves

It's now 8 years since Firebelly Woodstoves started making it's mark on the industry with the launch of the FB1, a cleverly designed stove, which is commonly viewed as a successful marriage of both modern and traditional styles.
Featuring tubular corners to offset and otherwise squarish design, the FB1 has an output of up to 6kW and the option for a rear or top 125mm (5 inch in old money) flue outlet. Measuring 522mm (width) x 605 (height) x 422mm (deep), the FB1 is also available as a double-sided "see-through" stove.
Keep It Simple
Using the same basic design, the FB2 is the FB1's bigger brother and has an output of up to 12kW and a 150mm (6inch) top or rear flue outlet. The FB2 is wider at 640mm but otherwise shares the same height and depth as the FB1. A "double-sided" is also available.
Key to the high efficiency of the FB range is the extensive use of high grade reflective ceramic linings which Firebelly have developed specifically for its designs.
More recently Firebelly has unveiled the FB1 & FB2 stoves with brushed stainless steel 'legs' which, in combination with no less than 18 Different Colours can produce some fantastic looking stoves and means that from just 2 different stoves you can have 76 Different variations, meaning you can really make your own stove unique. All from two relatively simple designs.

Log boxes and multi-fuel kits are also available together with a hot water boiler for the FB2 which can provide up to 8kW for central heating and domestic hot water.
More recent additions to the range include the FB, a small stove with an output of upto 4kW, the Firepod, a pedestal stove with an output of up to 10kW and the Razen Cookstove made from stainless steel.
"The success of Firebelly Woodstoves has a lot to do with keep the product range relatively simple but, most of all, by providing high levels of customer service." Says Craig Mollet, Managing Director of Firebelly Woodstoves.
"Our success has mostly come from innovative design and high quality manufacturing, the latter supported by substantial investment in the very latest cutting equipment which provides exception precision."

Proud To Be Built In Britain
Firebelly Woodstoves makes great play of it's product being British made and is now exporing the products all over the world, including far-afield countries such as New Zealand and Japan. Craig concludeds "The stove market in the UK is becoming ever more competitive but our determination to keep the customer satisfied has worked to our advantage and we forsee Firebelly Woodstoves to become increasingly popular for some time to come"

Warranties versus Cost……..FIGHT!

Many of the larger fire manufacturers will offer great, high quality fires that come with the all singing and dancing packaging and finishes. They also come with better manufacturers warranties too; a few examples of these are the Apex 5year warranty on selected gas fires, Crystal fires 5 year gas fire warranty,Pureglow 3 year warranty and the more recent Firebelly 4 year warranty on allproducts.
This is a great way to entice customers to buy these products as many of themare advertised as having their warranties included as free, so you should optfor them as they are giving you added protection for less cost. Well after alittle investigation, and to be honest it doesn’t take a lot, it becomes prevalent that many manufacturers make a product and allow it to be re-branded, these re-brands will often retail for a lesser price than the branded products but don’t come with the greater warranty.
I therefore wonder whether the extra cost of a branded product is actually fora better product or just for the warranty. The answer to me is obvious, but what you will need to ask yourself is “is the warranty worth the extra money?” .
Firstly you need to be aware of what the warranty actually covers, and decide on whether it is actually worth having a warranty on a product you expect tolast for at least 5-10 years. Another consideration is what conditions you will have to fulfill in order for the warranty to be valid, most fire manufacturers will not honor a warranty on a fire if it has not been serviced each year by aqualified engineer and that you can provide proof that such a service has takenplace.
With such consideration in mind in my humble opinion is it worth spending the extra money for a branded fire?…….Yes. I would recommend that you have all your gas products in your home whether it be a combination boiler, gas fire or stove,serviced every 12months without fail, and obviously retain proof of the service. Also, if a cheaper fire breaks down that has run out of warranty, it will probably end up costing you more to but another cheap fire then it would have cost to buy the branded version with a much longer warranty. The main reason though I would always go for the branded option with extended manufacturer’s warranty is for peace of mind, the last thing you or anyone needs is an unrepairable gas fire or stove in the living room in the middle of winter.