say, say, SAEY ...

Wow! These SAEY multifuel stoves are gorgeous!

The SAEY Scope pictured here is absolutely fabulous - it's a contempory cast iron multifuel stove which burns coal and wood. It comes in anthracite and grey paint.

And - it'll heat a massive space - up to 195 m³.

For more information (sizes, prices, etc) see fabulousfireplaces.co.uk.

However, if you're after an even sharper looking round stove! Contrary I know! Then consider the SAEY Signum 20.

Again, more information (sizes, prices, etc) see fabulousfireplaces.co.uk.

Alternatively, call in at the Woods Stoves and Fireplaces showroom - 26 Church Street, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire NG17 8LE - MAP.

DIY Fireplaces

Many of our fire surrounds and fireplaces are suitable to DIY installation, as are some of our fires - HOWEVER - you need to know that a gas fire or a stove/open fire should be installed by the right person:

• Here in the UK a gas fire should be installed by a CORGI registered engineer (http://www.trustcorgi.com/);
• A solid fuel appliance should be installed by a HETAS registered installer (http://www.hetas.co.uk/).

Once the work has been done your installer will issue you with a certificate - this will form part of your Home Information Pack (HIP - http://www.homeinformationpacks.gov.uk/)should you choose to sell your house.

To service or not to service?

At a time when your wallet/purse strings are being tugged pretty hard should you have your central heating boiler serviced?

Well the answer is a resounding YES ... and of course we would say that, it's what we do - well I might add!

But what you should know is that a serviced boiler will run more efficiently than an unserviced one, that means you'll spend less money on burning gas that you don't need (Prices set to rise again - BBC).

At an annual boiler service we will carry out the following checks:

• Flue ways and terminals


• Ventilation


• Gas pressure and heat input


• All safety devices

We also check the following boiler components:

• Heat exchanger


• Burners


• Combustion fan


• Seals (gas and water)


• Ignition systems


• Performance test (on all boilers with a suitable test point or accessible flue terminal)


• All visible pipework and controls


• All radiators


• Expansion tank (and vessel) and associated components

And finally, we will give, where appropraite, advice on the use of your present controls more efficiently.

We can also help you consider the best options for your future heating requirements.

If you'd like to book a service give us a call on 01623 752097 to get a quote, or to arrange for an engineer to service your boiler.

Charnwood Stoves - hot property!

The new Charnwood Stoves on display in our new Stoves Showroom are proving to be very popular.

Used in conjunction with the Green Dragon biofuel fire briquettes they are proving to be an economical as well as beatiful installation for customers.

Stoves on Canal Boats (Narrowboats)

I've been working for a HETAS (www.hetas.co.uk) registered heating company for over 21 years now. HETAS are the regulatory body who govern, monitor and promote the installation and servicing of solid fuel appliances.
As with CORGI for gas, ALL solid fuel appliances installed within residential or business addresses within the UK, must be notified to the relevant authority (usually your local council) or certified as safe via a qualified engineer (HETAS engineer).
In previous blogs you will have seen that I have been bestowing their virtues of Green Dragon Fuels; a biomass fuel made from the co-products of biodiesel product. Completely green, completely renewable energy. Green Dragon Fuel is currently undergoing HETAS testing for their approval. We have tested it on a multitude of appliances and today we have fired and tested on an installation that really shouldn't work (More of this later).
Now, my Dad owns a Narrowboat. He loves his Narrowboat and having talked to a lot of "boaters", they all do! And I can't say I blame them. The ardent boaters, like my Dad, are out on their boats, rain or shine, wind or hail. Some may think them mad! I personally think it's a completely different lifestyle. You see parts of the world that motorways and dual carriageways thankfully haven't destroyed and at a leisurely 3-4 miles an hour travelling speed you have plenty of time to see the world gracefully pass by.
Many of these boats have heating stoves on board, fired by solid fuel, be-it wood or smokeless fuel.Which got me thinking, since we supply Green Dragon Fuel here, would it be a good idea to see if I can introduce it through chandelries throughout the UK to the inland waterway users?
This I have done, having had several very productive meetings with chandelries around ourselves, we have also contacted chandelries throughout Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Northamptonshire. If you happen to be reading this, and are a proud owner of a Narrowboat or any inland waterway craft that has a solid fuel stove, ask your local chandelry for Green Dragon Fuels. It will save you the postage costs and you'll be helping the environment.
But I digress, the point of this blog was to be stoves and Narrowboats.
To install a stove to regulation requirements usually requires a flue (chimney) of at least 4 mtrs high from the top of the stove to the terminal. The flue, where at all possible, if made of metal, should also be insulated.
There is every chance that if these factors aren't met, then the flue will "downdraught" i.e. smoke will come into the area where the stove is fitted.
All narrowboats that I have seen have an effective flue height of only 1.7mtr! More to the point they are uninsulated metallic flues as well.
In theory these flues will be problematic to say the least.
Yet, every narrowboat with solid fuel seems to work quite adequately.
So, I wondered how a stove would perform with reduced flue height and burn Green Dragon Fuel.
The video below shows this simply, "Heath Robinson" installation. It by no way complies with any regulations and was set up and monitored by qualified professional people. In other words DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!

You can see, not only is the flame picture wonderful with the Green Dragon Fuel, it is not smoking back through the door and more to the point, the flue terminal shows a lovely clean burn.

(I aplogise for the quality of the video, Mr. Spielberg I am not!)

So, although the installation does not comply with current HETAS residential regulations, it does work! More over, it works very well with Green Dragon Fuels.

Give it a try, I'm sure you will not be disappointed!!

Green Dragon fuel vs smokeless fuel vs hardwood logs

For those who don't know, Green Dragon fuel is a "bio" solid fuel, formed from the byproducts of rapeseed (RS) oil production. (Why, oh why can't we have a better name for this plant?!?)

The stems, ie. the left over bits, have a calorific value (they burn). When crushed and compressed they are formed into "logs".

Since RS is grown throughout the UK and is, by all accounts, a rapidly growing plant, the byproduct fuel; bio log, is a truely renewable fuel. Unlike traditional timber, it does not take years to form. Trees require at least 10 years (hardwood) before they reach harvestable girth. Most readily available pre-bagged logs are either too wet to burn correctly due to little knowledge on the forecourt of how to store them or of so poor a quality that they do not burn efficiently.

The best true timber will always come from a good tree surgeon; one who knows how to season and store timber. Even so, the seasoning process takes 18 months minimum.

The next commonly available fuel is prepacked smokeless fuel. The process to form smokeless fuel is basically processing coal; burning it under pressure. This removes the deposits and dirt and a lot of heavy carbon, but where does this "dirt" go to? The hint is in burning. Sometimes a chemical process may be used. But chemicals will eventually need disposing.

Thus, is processed smokeless fuel "good" for the environment?

So, we now have the question regarding what's best to burn, smokeless fuel, hardwood or Green Dragon Fuel.

I know what I burn regularly. One thing is sure, humans want to stay warm. Use an earth resource such as smokeless fuel formed from coal, hardwood which takes a long time to grow or a fuel that has its source effectively replenished within months; not years?

You can find full details of Green Dragon Fuels here, or email me and I'll willingly take you through it.

Better still, BUY SOME here. Try it, believe it, help save our precious planet and money!

Green Dragon Fuel

We are proud to announce that we will be stocking solid fuel manufactured from sustainable sources.

I'll let Green Dragon explain what and who they are. All copyright and source materials are used with permission from Green Dragon Fuels. All rights reserved.

What is Green Dragon Fuel?

Green Dragon Fuel is a totally new and unique solid ‘green’ fuel made from the by-product of Phoenix Fuel’s bio-diesel process. It can be used on boilers, stoves and open fires instead of wood or coal and burns three times longer than logs, giving off twice the heat!

• The solid ingots of the bio fuel are actually GREEN in colour as well as truly green in credentials.
• Formed from the remnants of Rapeseed which has been grown and harvested for it's oil, the stems and husks are processed to form a solid fuel block (ingot).
• This block is dried and contains a significant calorific value (it burns well!).
• Producing TWICE the heat of traditional wood, each 2.5Kg ingot can burn for up to 3 hours, drastically reducing the refuelling rate of your appliance.
• Each block is hexagonal in shape, each ingot can easily be split into four quadrants if you require a smaller "log".
• The shape of the ingot makes stacking of the product exceptionally easy, no more logs rolling off onto the floor!

There is the option of buying the ingots in 1.25kg (half ingot) form either individually or in box quantities. However, we suggest that you keep up your green credentials and buy the fuel loose; why have a box when you can simply carry the product in a re-usable bag?

Full details of Green dragon can be found here - http://www.greendragonfuel.co.uk/gdfuel.htm.

We are proud to announce that we are both a supplier and distributor of this wonderful new fuel. Our website http://www.hwood.co.uk/ will carry full details soon.

On a personal note I have tested this product fully at home, the video link here shows a 1/2 ingot burning ... in my humble opinion and I have burnt a full ingot ... 1/2 is more than enough for the average room!

My stove delivers 6kw at maximum burn. I do not have the tech to say what the stove is delivering when burning a 1/2 ingot, all I can tell you is that the heat is awesome ... way in excess of any wood burning or smokeless fuel burning that I have tried.

Living with a multifuel stove

They say a picture can say a thousand words. I'll set the scene, raining, dark, cold, central heating turned off.

Sounds miserable? Indeed it does.

Unless you have a multifuel or woodburning stove!

I'm lucky enough to have the fantastic Firebelly FB1 multifuel stove installed from our range of stoves. I installed it with my engineers (check out http://www.hwood.co.uk/).

I light it every night when I come in from work (5 ish), once lit and working (after 1/2hr ish) the living room is lovely and warm.

Our heating does not need to be on after that point... so for the rest of the evening the warmth from the stove permeates around my ground floor (some 720 square feet), it trickles upstairs ... the flue (chimney) naturally passes through my eldest daugthers room, this naturally warms the room.

So ... for the past four week since installing this stove I have not used my gas heating (high efficiency band A boiler) at all during the evenings.

We burn seasoned timber from managed sources and now ... well now, we have just found a fantastic supplier of biofuel logs form from the remenants of rapeseed oil production.

More about the biofuel in the next post.

The enclosed picture is untouched, enjoy :-)