Wood or pellet burning stove

Have you looked at the other threads on this subject? It doesn't sound like it.

I'm biased, as I've got a log fire, but I'll try to be impartial.

Log fires:

Much, much, greater heat output than a pellet fire of the same cost.

A log generates more heat than pellets of the same weight.

Less to go wrong.

A choice of what to burn - lemon, frutale, olive, almond, oak.

With two dampers and a choice of size of logs, you can easily change the heat output and burn rate.

It's a pleasure to look at.

No clunking noise as pellets are dispensed.

The only electricity you pay for is if you've got a built in fan, like ours.

Pellet burners:

Less cleaning to do the following morning.

Just buy a bag of pellets when you want them; you don't need the same storage space that you do for logs.

I can't think of anything else as an advantage of pellet burners.

As an aside, I've just lit our fire, as Margaret lost a lot of weight due to cancer and is really feeling the cold. We'll probably be watching the fire tonight instead of TV!

You have done a great job of being impartial Jim.  I would opt for the log burner stove over pellet burner, every time and not be impartial!! hehe.  

We had a log burner for several years and it always put out a good amount of heat. Logs lasted up to an hour, depending on size. We tried pellets in a rocket stove/fire that my hubby built in the fire place. It needed "feeding" pellets every 5 minutes and I don't feel that it gave out the heat that the log burner did.   It can burn up to a bag of pellets in 2 hours, if being burned hard.  It won't work when the electric goes off as it needs a fan to blow the heat out and it has an electric hopper that feeds the pellets into it, so no electric, no heat.  You don't have that problem with a log burner. 

I know someone with a pellet burner and it is supposed to be cleaned/vacuumed out after every use, so every day, with a "special" vaccum cleaner (30 Euros).

Enjoy your log fire Jim.  We will be having one fitted next year.  For now we have mini split air con units. 

Once the living room was up to a comfortable temperature last night, I put on a large oak log (about 20cm diameter) and that lasted about three hours. I don't doubt I'll still find glowing embers when I attend to the fire this morning.

Thank you very much for your Input really appreciate it.

This idea came up as we were leaving to fly away on holiday to Vietnam 

It was cold in the apartment during the night.

We do not have A/c hot to cold in the Apartment.

But there is a place under the chimney breast for a wood burner.

Will have to be a small one to fit into the space.

As you rightly say I have not looked into this before.

Fishing for ideas, about companies who will fit this system as well.

If you know any would be very much appreciated we live in the La Zenia lots Dolses area.

Once again thanks

Thank you much appreciated for your input will make my mind up seems wood is the best

Now you mention that it's an apartment, have you got storage space for a good quantity of logs?

Going to a log yard for just a boot full at a time is fine while the weather's dry, but you don't want to be collecting wet logs after rain. Nor do you want to be going for logs in Jan/Feb and finding all they've got is logs that have only just been cut.

Wet or newly cut logs will struggle to burn, and most of the heat produced will go into vaporising their moisture content, so you'll get very little heat output.

As regards who you buy a fire from, I don't know your area, but Leroy Merlin at La Zenia Boulevard would be a good place to start.

Hello Jim

we have a large garden, as we live in a ground floor apartment only two srories high.

We have the garden at the front and side of the property.

Our neibours above us have their separate garden at the side and back.

So I can fit a small plastic or wooden box to hold the logs in.

Thanks for the info, never thought of that.

Cheers frank

As long as you've got at least a couple of weeks worth of logs under cover, the rest can be left stacked in the garden. If it rains, they'll soon dry out again. That's what we do, and we've never in twelve years has a long enough wet spell that we've had to use wet or damp logs from the garden.

We laid in all our logs in September, when they were as dry as they were going to get, the log yard was nice and quiet, and we could cherry pick the best of the logs.

For anyone in my area, I can recommend Hermanos Medrano. They've got big stacks of olive, olive root, lemon, frutal, almond, and oak. Ask if you want to know where it is. Drive straight onto the weighbridge, out of the car to the office window until she gives you the OK, load up, back onto the weighbridge, go into the office and pay.

All types of log except for olive root burn well. Olive can put deposits on the glass of your fire that is difficult to clean off. Lemon and frutal burn too quickly for my liking. Almond is my second favourite as it is fairly dense and leaves very little ash. Oak is my favourite, but it does leave quite a bit of ash. However, it is the densest of the log types, so we only need four loads in my car to see us through the winter, as opposed to five at least for any of the others. And being dense, oak lasts longer on your fire so you don't have to top up the fire as often.

Thank you so much