Wood burning stoves and central heating

I would seriously think about A/C with heat pump for the bedrooms and living room. I had a wood burner in Spain and it was fantastic. I had a big town house , it heated it up well. I had A/C in all the rooms too and used them to heat and cool the rooms. The running cost of the new units now are very cheap. 

Hi Janpug,

We have a log burner in our livingroom which is great but getting the heat to spread through the house is a challenge. We also have gas central heating (combi boiler) with radiators in each room and it also provides our hot water, this is ideal but expensive to run on gas bottles! As Steve6 says modern AC units is probably the way to go although the new electric radiators are good and getting more energy efficient all the time. Especially if you can have solar panels as well.

Thank you so much for your advice , it is much appreciated .

We have new A/C  units in the bedrooms so we shall try it all out and purchase a wood burner , any recommendations on firms to use for this ?.

Hope to be coming over before xmas , and the weather cannot be any colder than here in whitldy bay snow and ice.

Thanksx

Hi, defintely get the air con units with heat capability as recommended by Steve6. We used these units for heating in January/February this year and they are very cheap to run. We had to seriously limit using our mains gas central heating due to the cost of gas at the beginning of the year. I would steer away from gas central heating if I was installing anything now, it was already in place when we bought the house and it was fine before the gas prices rocketted.

 I have a friend in Portugal who has a wood pellet stove, for me it is better than a log burner as it is much cleaner and the heat can be controlled a lot better (he has a remote control to turn the heat up/down) The only negative may the cost of wood pellets versus logs, so you need to investigate both options and costs.

   I have a log burner in the UK which I use in the winter when it is cold enough, great at heating the rooms, I just leave all the doors open. Obviously warmer where the burner is but the other rooms get their share. If Spain is anything like the UK logs then are getting more expensive, I am not sure the woodburner is cost effectice to be honest, but it looks good on a cold day!

Coming from the town that has the Spanish City you should fit easily in Spain!

Rgds,

Aitch.

We installed a high efficiency log burner and ripped it out three years later, replacing it with a pellet stove. These can now be programmed for timings, temperature etc. There are also systems where the heat can be distributed throughout the house, which reports from friends say is extremely efficient. We were not prepared to continue stacking heaps of logs tipped onto the drive, and the mess of cleaning. Pellet stove much easier, cleaner, less hassle. The price of pellets rose last year, but appears to have dropped again. We worked out that it’s a bit dearer than logs, but we are prepared to pay for less hassle.

Yes, the heat will go up the stairs, but little further, no it won’t heat your bedrooms!

We also have underfloor heating downstairs run by a heat pump, which isn’t astronomical to run apart from a couple of month per year. Personally. I would not contemplate anything gas now, I don’t want the hassle, but our house was completely electric when we bought it.

Thank you so much for that valuable information we will def look into pellet burner .yes we have the spanish city and a beautiful coastline ,  but unfortunately we also have high winds , freezing cold winters , and every day is " a bad hair day " !! 

Sadly a bad hair does not affect my few remaining strands! Good luck with the move and the heating search.

Rgds,

Aitch.

Hi,

We've been using a log burner in our small casa now for over 10 years and love it. As it's only a small place we find the log burner warms it up nicely if we open all the connecting doors. I understand other people preferring other methods of heating and it is good to have info on all options but we find the log burner suits our circumstances best, we don't use air-conditioning in the summer as we get a good breeze all the time and find our house stays pretty cool.

Good luck and I hope you find the right system to keep you toasty.

We used Budget Burners based in La Marina to fit our burner and although it may not be the cheapest they are excellent, helping you all the way and advising on the best for you. An excellent burner that's sturdy and well fitted. 

RD Stoves and Pellet Burners based in Campoverde would be my recomendation 👍