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My house has a stove. Perhaps I am simply a poseur for having one, but it does get the most-used room in the house up to a comfortable temperature whilst the re

My house has a stove. Perhaps I am simply a poseur for having one, but it does get the most-used room in the house up to a comfortable temperature whilst the rest of the house can be left cooler to save on central heating bills. The house was built without central heating, electricity or indoor plumbing and so had fireplaces and had a stove when I moved in. If, like me, you can wander around the woods near your house (it's not in London, or any other city) and gather fallen branches to cut up and put in a wood store to season, then fuel only costs the time taken to gather and cut it. There are other sources of free wood as well but I still have to pay for it from time to time. Any savings from free fuel are offset by the fact that the chimney has to be swept at least once a year, ideally twice or more. Getting a sweep in gets the job done a lot more cleanly and quickly but costs about £50-60 a time.

Asooka 9y ago
Please don't burn wood, or if you do, use a gasifier/pyrolysis stove. They are also called "smokeless" stoves. Smoke from a normal wood fire is a really awful pollutant.
- gvurrdon 9y ago
  Perhaps when such stoves are readily available for home use, and the time comes to replace the old one I've got, that might be worth doing.
  - m_t 9y ago
    Apparently, Angostura found one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16324367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16324367
    - gvurrdon 9y ago
      I suspect that's one of the ones that runs on certain sorts of solid fuel, such as this: https://smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk/appliances.php?country=s https://smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk/appliances.php?country=s AFAICT these still require chimneys but presumably the smoke they produce contains fewer particulates than that produced by wood in a standard stove, hence allowing them in these zones. Presumably Asooka was thinking more along these lines: http://brightstove.com/ http://brightstove.com/ This looks very interesting, but appears not to be available.

Asooka 9y ago

Please don't burn wood, or if you do, use a gasifier/pyrolysis stove. They are also called "smokeless" stoves. Smoke from a normal wood fire is a really awful pollutant.

gvurrdon 9y ago
Perhaps when such stoves are readily available for home use, and the time comes to replace the old one I've got, that might be worth doing.
- m_t 9y ago
  Apparently, Angostura found one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16324367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16324367
  - gvurrdon 9y ago
    I suspect that's one of the ones that runs on certain sorts of solid fuel, such as this: https://smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk/appliances.php?country=s https://smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk/appliances.php?country=s AFAICT these still require chimneys but presumably the smoke they produce contains fewer particulates than that produced by wood in a standard stove, hence allowing them in these zones. Presumably Asooka was thinking more along these lines: http://brightstove.com/ http://brightstove.com/ This looks very interesting, but appears not to be available.