Due to moving house too many times I'm now on my third Clearview (1 Vision and 2 Pioneers). Very pleased with their performance. Glass really does stay clean as they say in the brochure.

The Pioneer will stay in overnight if damped down but there's only a few glowing embers in the morning due to the small firebox size. This isn't a problem as it'll burst into life again once opened up and you throw a couple of logs on.

Lighting these stoves from cold is extremely easy. I never use kindling, just some screwed up paper and cardboard is enough to get the logs burning.

Make sure you get a flat top stove as it'll give you the option of doing the cooking when nothing else works!

Hi

I purchased a low cost (£270) simple stove on ebay 5Kwh output, and adapted it myself to make it clean burn for wood. The glass stays clean and it can burn over night if stoked up with logs. I have now installed a back boiler and it supplies 3 rads and hot water.

we have a pioneer (well lthe new 400P) and its great, but don't have any experience of those other makes.. its incredibly efficient and controllable compared to the big hulking lumps of metal we had at home when growing up

Heats our hot water and will do 3-4 radiators in a few weeks time when I get round to finishing installing them

Clearviews are very well made and efficient as are Hwams. I am not overly familar with the Nestor Martin stoves you mention but the brand is well made in general.
You should also consider the Morso Owl.

I really depends on what you want out of the stove, how much you want to pay and what you want it to look like.

Remember that lining and insulating your chimney is probably going to cost as much if not more than the stove. It is not necessarily a building regs requirement (which some people will tell you) but is a really good idea.

By the way to explain a bit more about cleanburning stoves - when wood burns it is actually wood gas that burns. In the firebox of a normal stove the oxygen in the air supply can quickly get used up. The trick is to introduce a warm supply of air from above (warm so that everything stays hot so that combustion can take place) which goes towards more complete combustion of the gases coming off the wood. On some cleanburning stoves like Clearview and Morso you can regulate the air supply so that you can clearly see the gas burning because you get flames hanging in the air above the wood - it's pretty cool. There are cars that run on wood gas - do a google search.....

: )

Hi Adrian
If you have an unvented system then all you really need is a little tank high up - ie the loft - i have as tank about 400mm x 250mm x 300mm ish. This keeps the system full of water, allows for volume changes, and allows steam to vent into the tank should you boil the water in the backboiler. Talk to a plumber first though.
If by fire you mean fireplace then I would look to replacing it with a stove too (even if it just a second hand one) - fireplaces are dreadfully inefficient and needlessly waste fuel.
Cheers
Sune

Hi
I just joined this evening and am amazed that one of the issues i am currently looking at is already being discussed. I live in italy where I am restoring and old farmhouse on very limited funds. I am looking into the best way of heating the house in winter and heating water all year round. I hope to go for solar heated water and a wood burning stove with back boiler in the winter. My problem is that we will be using a mixture of heating types. We want to lay underfloor heating on the ground floor and radiators upstairs (the old floors are just bricks laid over beams so cannot take the tubing). The problem is how can we get over the fact that the underfloor heating needs a lower temperature of say 18-degrees but the upstairs radiators need a much higher water temperature?

smithorus - if you use a thermal store to store the heat from the panels/woodburner then you can run two seperate heating circuits off it, one for UFH and one for radiators. Each would have a thermostatic mixing valve to set the temperature of the circulating water appropriately, allowing you to use the same store to provide both. It would make sense to take the UFH circuit from lower in the store than the CH, as the water will be hotter higher in the tank

Hi Dantenz - well spotted, yes it was a typo - I meant to write "a vented system".
Most stoves with backboilers are unsuited to unvented/pressurised systems - it is possible to link a vented and unvented system, but a bit of a hassle.

I have just had a Nestor Martin R23 multifuel stove fitted in my conservatory and it's fabulous.

It has a remote control which has a built in thermostat so you just set the required temperature and the stove controls itself by a battery powered motor which opens or closes the inlet air to give the required room temperature.
I lit the stove, set 76 degrees and went to the pub for a couple of throat quenchers and when I got home the room temperature was bang on 76 degrees. Impressed!
The remote control can also be set to close down the stove to minimum burn at a preset time and restart again in the morning.

The manuals which came with the stove are very interesting to read, especially the advanced stove user manual.
A log fire is a lovely cosy living thing on a cold winter evening but there a some things I hadn't thought of.

To quote from the advanced user manual:

It is important to understand that during the drying time the logs have become the home to an abundance of creepy, crawly, wiggly, running and flying insects. By bringing the logs into the house the rise in temperature will induce many of these creatures to evacuate the logs. Spiders may not be your favourite house guest but they do no harm, other insects living within the log pile may find your floorboards and furniture more inviting than the log they have abandoned.
Whilst there are always exceptions to the rule, it is generally true that animals who live on vegetation do not move as fast as the carnivores and the same rule will apply to the insects in the wood pile. Therefore the first animals out of the logs will be the fast moving multi-legged beasties who may cause you to shudder and the dog to seek refuge in an armchair but it will be the second wave of evacuees who pose a threat to your furniture and woodwork, and simple measures to lessen the risk of infestation are at least prudent.

--------- I think I'll stick to coal.

The manual is full of interesting and very well written information like this - Brilliant stuff!!

heated conservatory?

i'll get my popcorn....!

any info on ranges for a compleat solution particuler the brosley 18.5 super therm or indeed any info

I have just ordered a Dowling Sumo 12 kw and am now needing to get prepared for its imminent arrival. I have a stove at present which is only a cheap one and have a solid steel tube acting as the chimney liner. We are intending to change this for a proper liner on Steve Dowling'sa advice. However, we currently don't have a cowl on the chimney pot and wondered if anyone could recommned the best sort for a Sumo stove?

I have also heard that if the bottom metre of the chimney is insulated with clay pebbles this really helps too. Anyone heard of this?

Hi Sune & Doctor. Thank you so much for your advice, particularly about the Leca. One question though, how do you backfill the chimney? Do you have to literally get on the roof and pour it down from the top?

Doctor - you question if I need a cowl, well at present there is no cover of any description on our chimney pot and rain and soot comes down and sneaks between the currently poorly fitted metal sheet that we have as the chimney plate above the stove. I know when we fit the Sumo we will fit a fire retardent plate and fit it well this time, but the thought of rain still pouring in on top of the plate does not seem a good idea. Maybe I used the wrong word when I said cowl, I think I mean just a chinese hat type thingy to stop rain, but also want to stop any birds too so some sort of cage. Steve Dowling recommended a rain cowl plus bird cage e.g Colt or Euro, whatever that is?

Steve also worried me when he said the delivery people will only deliver to roadside, so god knows how I am going to get it in the house if they come when I am alone (female, 8 stone wet through and certainly not strong enough to move a Sumo!).

Back to the issue of the plate that blocks the chimney at the bottom near the stove. Does anyone know what you can use to seal this so there is no loss of heat up the chimney or would this be solved by the Leca backfill?

Thanks for all your help, I am new to this site and love it!

I do not have any personal experience of these stoves but they look OK - like many of the laser cut steel stoves from the EU.
Check that they are CE tested, check with the supplier that they provide aftersales and spares.
The 3 year limited warranty seems pretty good...

: )

NB: as with everything you do of course tend to get what you pay for...

yes, leca from the top - between the walls and the liner. I put mine in as i built upwards from scratch.

I have no cowl on top - just a standard pot - not issues with rain / soot yet! Maybe i should get one!

delivery by roadside! yes - a problem. I am a mile off-road, so went to meet the driver by the road. He had a tail-lift, which helped, but he was 5'nothing. The 18KW is a beast, and we man-handled it into my trailer.

It then sat outside the house for a week under a plastic sheet until i could get some friends round to get it out of the trailer into the house.

I think Dowling will do the full install, but it is obviously more costly.