I have thermostats set differently in each room and the bathrooms are always set so that the radiators come on at a higher temperature because I'm nesh and I like warm towels!     They've been  been coming on for the past month, though the lounge rads haven't kicked in yet.  Underfloor heating in the kitchen and utility room is on thermostats and has been on most days over the past month. 

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A log Fire on tonight but holding out from the gas heating, saw the bills from last winter-spring and nearly fainted.  Im with Jason, skinflint mode in full deployment.  Thermal vest on plus 2 other layers.  A good investment is an electric blanket too.

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It's been on for 45 min each morning for a fortnight or so, just to take off the morning chill.

 

As for all those log burners, it will end in tears for anyone totally relying on it ... the estimate below, of 2-3 Hectares (5-7 acres) needed per household, matches others I've seen. It would be nice if we could all own that much woodland!

http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/planting-woodland/why-plant-trees/economic-benefits/Pages/firewood.aspx#.UngSUPnIZgg

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Here I have had it on twice, but that was so we could dry washing during heavy rain (no tumblel dryer unfortunately). We are mid terraced and well insulated, so kitchen (south west facing lots of sun) rarely drops below 21c. Even in winter, once the oven is on the temp in the kitchen rockets to 26c! 🙂

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Had the wood burner on for a couple of evenings in September when maximum temperatures outside were failing to get into double figures. It's still the Autumn season for me 'til December! Currently 3C outside but the woodburner is holding the upstairs rooms at 17C whilst a toasty 22C in the lounge! We have the central heating on occasionally to stop the upstairs from getting damp.

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Had the underfloor heating on in the kitchen and hallway, just for comfort on the toes more than anything, and had the woodburner going on the chillier nights. Trying to avoid putting the storage heaters on, though.

Just had a giant crate of logs delivered. Yes the prices have gone up but I reckon £180 of logs will easily see me through the winter which works out cheaper than having the electric heating going. I'm also salvaging as much wood as I can after the recent storms. Won't be any good for this winter obviously but will leave it to season over the summer for next year.

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The cost of logs is bound to rise with demand as so many people are turning to wood burners.  I'd love one in my lounge but I don't want the hassle of taking out the gas flue, though I do keep considering it.  We very rarely have the gas fire on, it's just there as a focal point and a log fire wouldn't make much difference to our heating bills, in fact it would probably make our lounge too hot, but I really do love the effect - it's better than watching TV!

Our daughter has a wood burner and she gets offcuts of wood for free from the local wood yards.  Last year she had a load of seasoned logs delivered for £80 and she still has half of it left, so hers doesn't cost much at all to run.  She has underfloor heating in her kitchen and bathroom and the log burner warms the rest of the house, so she hardly ever has the gas central heating on and it's very cost effective.  She's another reason for us not having one, she'd have to share her wood yard offcuts with me! 

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It has been on since late September here after being off for almost 4 months - the first time in 3 years it has not been needed over the summer. October was awful with a marked shortage of sunshine, barely any above average daytime temperatures, after the 8th, and lots of nasty unpleasant south and south east winds to chill the south facing house
 
 
It would be impossible to not have central heating. I've just come back from a week in Tenerife and while I was away the indoor temperature dropped to as low as 7C and was below 10C nearly the whole of last weekend

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I have had the heating on here at some time during the day since September, even in July and August I put the heating on when it felt a bit chilly. I must add though it helps that its all free, the company I work for pays the bills.

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Gary

A couple of storage heaters upstairs were on occasionally during October, and used a small oil-filled radiator in the lounge on the odd morning and evening too.

The main heating is from a cast-iron Nestor Martin Harmony 23 woodburner in the lounge. It's not big - the second smallest in the range - but once it's lit, it stays lit 24/7 and heats the whole house. It's more expensive than most woodburners, being cast iron rather than stainless steel, and with a clever air flow that allows a very gentle overhead flow once it's hot.

All this makes it mighty efficient on wood use once it's going. The cast iron takes longer to heat up, but retains heat far better. The burner works best with smaller bits od wood and branches. Use them the way Continentals use their stoves: get it roaring and hot and then just leave a deep bed of charcoal to grow with the occasional addition and to glow via the overhead air flow.

The net result is to make those figures from the Woodland Trust look daft. If you need that acreage to maintain a stove, then you don't know how to use one imo.

I've had them most of my life and never once paid for wood. What I've always had is a dog. Two walks a day all year round provide me with enough from hedges, roadsides, shrubbery and rivers. Rivers after rainfall are the best source of all, I find. Just don't be too proud to pick up small branches or odd-shaped bits. they all burn as well as nice-looking commercial logs. The most important point is to split them, strip the bark from some sappy species, such as beech, and leave them to dry out thoroughly, in the sun, the wind or even the greenhouse, if you're lucky enough to have one.

Lit the stove for the first time on Monday 4 Nov this year, which is about a month later than last year.

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S.F.B. -what a useful and fascinating insight you have provided.  Shows what can be achieved with the right wood-burning kit and a bit of graft and guile.  As for me I have caved in tonight and the heating system is on, albeit in a limited way.  Extra radiators and heaters will be brought into play as the need arises.  Like you, this later than last year, when I think mid October forced the heating on.

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Our gas has gone slowly down since the installation of the lounge log burner, yes at times it is baking but with the door open the heat soon circulates and it stays comfortable . Sometimes the wife and I  just sit in the lounge no tv  , on the laptop or reading with the burner going, very relaxing.

We have since put a burner in the dining room now all the radiators downstairs are switched off

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Thank you for the kind words, Weather Idle.

A couple more thoughts: I've never been a fan of lighting woodburners "just for the evening". To me that misses the point of how they work. You slowly heat up the stove as a whole, then benefit from needing very little fuel to maintain the temperature of the stove. By letting it go out overnight and relighting it from cold the next day, you lose that efficiency. Then the Woodland Trust figures start to make sense. In addition, I don't really like back-boilers, which provide hot water. Extracting heat from the stove this way just cools the unit, which thus requires more fuel and, worse still, it becomes harder to maintain the fire. But I understand the attraction. I keep a couple of kettles permanently filled on top of the stove. They help not just with making tea, but providing hot water for things like washing up or shaving when the tank's gone cool and you don't want to pay the full daytime rate of electricity to heat the whole thing up again

One tip, if you source and cut up your own fuel: on a sunny and/or windy day, sweep up all your offcuts, twigs, bits of bark and sawdust and store them. They make the best kindling, as they also start a genuine charcoal bed for the fire, unlike bits of chopped up plywood, which seem to burn into flakes, with something of a dowsing effect. Bits of bark or twig are also great for chucking on to rekindle a dying bed. I have half a dozen sacks of these bits and pieces, which would otherwise just be wasted. Perhaps the Woodland Trust leaves them to rot?

Try not to mix up coal with wood too much. All wood in the UK, however thoroughly you season and dry it, contains a lot of moisture, owing to our climate; coal contains sulphur. Mix H2O with S2 and H2SO4 (sulphuric acid) inevitably results. It condenses in the flue and either corrodes metal liners or dissolves mortar in the chimney.

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More words of wisdom SFB.  I will have to hold back from using a wood-coal mix too often!

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