Category: Heating

Firewood Storage

If you are serious about wood fired heating you are going to have to think about storage.

How Long Do You Need To Store?

Firewood should be seasoned, until it is thoroughly dried out.

For freshly cut wood that typically means for at least 2 years.

Wood gathered from the forest floor still needs at least a years storage.

Unseasoned wood  doesn’t burn as efficiently as seasoned wood.  The difference is noticeable, and some of the problems are:

  • The volatile components won’t ignite such as creosote.
  • The volatiles are deposited as a black mess (which is highly flammable once it dries) on the inside of the flue.
  • There will be too much smoke.
  • There will lot of steam going up the flue, Which carries a lot of the heat with it.

Storage Locations

As Enough Wood for a Year is around 10 cubic m you need to be able to store around twice that amount.

This can be split between 3 places:

  1. An open storage for the first years storage. (The timber will still dry even though it is being rained on)
  2. A roofed storage for the second years storage. (Make sure this, and the first years storage is well away from the house)
  3. A day or two storage next to the door.(I just use a wheelbarrow)

 What Not to Do

One of the things I sometimes see in those trendy magazines is firewood storage next to the fire. A bad idea in my opinion there is going to be a lot of spiders and other insects in the firewood.

See why Wood Heaters are Better than Open Fires

 

 

Bio-Ethanol Fires

Everywhere I go these days I see Bio-Ethanol Fires….. so are they a good idea for your new home?

Well all the publicity says they are a renewable resource that produces a ‘living flame’.  As Ethanol (we used to call it methylated spirits) burns cleanly with no toxic byproducts these heaters can be used in a room without a flue.

Well before you go down the Bio-Ethanol heater route here are some things to consider.

It’s Not a Main Heat Source

While a Bio Ethanol fire does give out heat, it’s not enough to heat out your house like a traditional Wood Heater. About the most you can expect is around 2 kW (the equivalent of a small fan heater).

Water Vapour

One of the combustion products is water. For each litre of fuel it produces almost 1/10th of a litre of water vapour. That can mean more condensation on the windows, and even mould in cold corners.

Oxygen Consumption

Although there are no fumes like a traditional fire it consumes the oxygen in the air. So make sure you get some fresh (colder) air into the room.

Safety

Some points about the Fire Risk:

  • You are storing a highly flammable liquid and pouring it in a heater in your living room.
  • You should never fill the heater while its burning or even when the burner is hot.
  • It is still a naked flame. Make sure children are kept well away from it.

Cost

Although there are some cheap Bio- Ethanol Heaters I wouldn’t feel all that safe with a cut price unit. If you get a quality heater you could be paying a lot of extra money for that flame effect.

 

Heating is just one of the topics included

in the Pre-Start/Selection Guide?

 

Firewood

Wood can be the Most Expensive………..or the Cheapest heating available for your new home.

It all depends on your level of commitment.

Most Expensive

Buy firewood at the service station and burn it in an open fire and it could easily cost $20-$30 for a few hours in the evening.

Cheapest

Use a slow combustion wood heater,  collect and split your own wood, and it can be less than $10 for a week of continuous heat.

How Much Wood Do You Need?

From my experience of heating a 180sqm home I reckon about ten 6×4  trailer loads (around 10 cubic m) is enough for a typical winter.

Another way of looking at it is what a friend of mine says “All you need to heat a house is to pick up three logs every day of the year”. I would say that’s about right.

Low Cost Sources

  • Nature Strips, Free, I often see piles of branches outside suburban homes. Here is around three night of heat recently seen on a Nature Strip! Be careful some councils don’t approve of removing stuff left for council collection.
  • Friends, Free If you make it known you are willing to collect wood you can quite often get asked by friends take aware tree branches. WARNING Don’t offer to cut down trees, that should only be done by licenced, and insured, tree fellers
  • State Forests and Public Land, Free – $25/trailer. Each state has their rules in Victoria its free but  only at certain times of the year. In NSW it ranges from $8-$25 per cubic m.
  • Timber Companies, Free I often see skips of free firewood outside factories but be careful that you only pick up untreated wood. The fumes from burning treated wood can be extremely toxic.

 

See why Wood Heaters are Better than Open Fires

 

Fire Risk

Understandably there is a lot of talk about Bush Fires at this time of the year…….. but did you know that in a typical year there are around 13,000 domestic fires in Australia.

There are also around 80 deaths a year which fire brigades describe as preventable!

Causes

The top causes according to the NSW Fire Brigade are:

  • Cooking Equipment – Why not invest in a fire extinguisher and fire blanket for your new house?
  • Appliances – There appears to be a rise in tumble dryers fires so make sure you keep that lint filter clean.
  • Heating Systems – If you are going for  a fire or wood heater a bigger hearth is safer. For things like fan heaters make sure you keep them free from dust. 
  • Faulty wiring – Hopefully this shouldnt be too big a risk for your new house with modern Earth Leakage Circuit Breakers (ELCB’s).
  • Air conditioning/ Refrigeration – Don’t forget to clean any filters and occasionally vacuum the back of the fridge and freezer. 

 

Also see Your Garage – A Fire Risk?

 

Gas Plumbing

Most people who have mains gas available will have gas connections for hot water and central heating automatically provided by the builder.

But what else do you need to think about?

Meter Location

You will need the meter somewhere where it can be read from the front of the house but is not an eyesore.

Sounds simple but our last builders proposed location was behind a proposed gate that would have been an issue when reading the meter.

Oven and Hob

Our oven and gas hob are together so we have a gas line to that point.

Even if you have all electric cooking it may be worth running a blanked off line to that point if you have an eye on selling the house in the future.

Future Gas Fires

A lot of display houses feature gas log fires.

If you like the idea but can’t afford it now it could be worth getting a gas line put in for the future.

Hot water

If you have thought about the issues with long  Hot Water Pipe Runs you may want a different location to the builders standard for your boiler.

You may even prefer two separate instantaneous hot water units which will affect gas lines.

Barby

As previously mentioned in the External Plumbing post its worth considering a mains gas supply to your barbeque if you use it regularly.

What gas plumbing issues concern you?

 

For similar posts see Plumbing

 

More plumbing information and 24 pages of Check Lists in the

‘Selection / Pre-Start Guide’

 

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