Yeah our house insurance has something in it about regularly having the chimney professionally cleaned. We've a local guy does ours, it's a really quick and easy job for him, takes no longer than 30/40 mins & does a tidy job. We tend to get it done in the spring/early summer so it's cleared after we're finished burning for the season. Charged us £50 a couple of months ago, only a £5 increase in the last few years.
I'm a bit overdue posting in here! We have a little 'Franco Belge' -
https://www.directstoves.com/franco-belge-montfort-elegance-multi-fuel-stove.html we had put in a couple of years after we moved in. So around 7-8 years ago. 1970's build and had a big wide chimney breast in the living room with a 'fake' wooden hearth around an electric fire. I removed it all and found a hole behind, widened it and saw it was a chimney that had been bricked up. Got a local company in to rip it out and fit the stove (also put a metal flue all the way up).
Pre (previous owners):
Stove (Doggo loves it!):
Kinda wish (hindsight) I'd got them to widen the hearth more, so there was more airflow to get heat out into the room. Or the stove sitting 'out' a bit more. Have a
Vonhaus branded stove fan, but actually
looks more like this one. Works well to get heat out into the room, but it is a large space (half open plan into dining room) where we have the doors open so heats the house very little. In the coldest parts of winter it realistically only heats that room, but it is our main living space so we're pleased with it.
Kiln dried logs we get from various local places. Had a local guy a friend who'd done some tree work for us, but we've seen the cost for that go from £55 to £95 the last 4 years, but it was quality stuff. Last time I spoke to him it was going to over £100 'builders bag' with quite a wait for it so looked elsewhere.
Used a large local sawmill/timbers merchants who had 'hard wood off cuts' at £75 a bag. When speaking to them there was a waiting list, but he was able to offer 'hardwood block cuts' at £62 a bag, but with delivery had to get 2 bags as a 'crate' for offloading. He said most people struggled with the size for delivery (by lorry with a crane), but we have lots of room so went for it. Really happy with what arrived and the quality of it. It's possibly almost 2 'builders bags', maybe slightly less. The stuff being large block cuts and very little rubbishy smaller filler stuff in there I would say it's been better value so would get again.
Am considering building some kind of 'wood store'. At the moment using the rear of the garage which is ok, but can't stack much higher than this without it falling. I do have some good space outside the garage for it, semi sheltered, but would need to put a roof on it. Or just some kinda shelving in this part of the garage so can stack higher. I kept the pallet & plastic from the delivery for a base of this, just need to figure out the 'walls' to mount some kind of shelves.
My parents are (mostly retired) farmers so I have access to lots of rough bits of woodland. As yet I've not really felled anything - they have enough windfall that they store and dry out, I've been cutting and stacking for them while also taking some for myself. With the cost of energy & the kiln dried we've been purchasing I'll be doing more of it - probably also doing some felling - they have a patch of woodland behind their property which needs thinning out. Some big ash in there which does need to come down. I've only basic chainsaw experience (did a bunch of clearing forestry/snedding mostly conifers for several months) but have done the Lantra courses previously to fell stuff of around that size. Probably need some refreshing before tackling some of the bigger stuff (it's been 15-20 years), but will be easy as lots of space there and nothing to damage to be aware of (except myself lol).
Have the following:
Stihl MS-170,
Husqvarna boots,
Stihl helmet &
Oregon yukon trousers. Really happy with them and like the saw. Previous saws I've used where all bigger and generally older so this is nice and light & easy to use. But as mentioned have not felled anything with it yet. May consider a bigger bar than the 12" on it if I was to do much more felling (which it should handle up to 15").
