Scotland has banned Wood Burners in new homes and conversions

[Kelvin]

People are very wedded to their wood burning stoves. I was chatting to someone local recently who said the ban would stop them from self-building. Seemed an odd deal breaker to me. 

[SteamyTea]

  On 29/05/2024 at 17:07, Kelvin said:

People are very wedded to their wood burning stoves

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Be interesting to plot wood burning stove preferences against political persuasion.

[Iceverge]

Be interesting to plot it against age.

[scottishjohn]

  On 29/05/2024 at 23:16, Iceverge said:

Be interesting to plot it against age.

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at73 i,m a definite NO-- to wood burners

[Gone West]

  On 30/05/2024 at 07:17, scottishjohn said:

at73 i,m a definite NO-- to wood burners

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At almost 73, I'm also a definite no, to woodburners.

[scottishjohn]

  On 30/05/2024 at 07:36, Gone West said:

At almost 73, I'm also a definite no, to woodburners.

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 who wants to be cutting wood into their 80,s 

[JohnMo]

  On 30/05/2024 at 07:36, Gone West said:

At almost 73, I'm also a definite no, to woodburners.

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At no-where near that age, I will still have enough wood left from our build, I suspect by the time I get there. So for the amount of time we use it, generally only once in a while and only two logs each burn, I will still keep it.

 

Also I think we have had about 10 power cuts in the last 12 months, one for over 24 hrs, the others a few hours each time. So its nice to have the secondary heating system.

[Kelvin]

  On 30/05/2024 at 07:52, JohnMo said:

At no-where near that age, I will still have enough wood left from our build, I suspect by the time I get there. So for the amount of time we use it, generally only once in a while and only two logs each burn, I will still keep it.

 

Also I think we have had about 10 power cuts in the last 12 months, one for over 24 hrs, the others a few hours each time. So its nice to have the secondary heating system.

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Your house won’t lose much heat in a few hours. Even over 24 hours it won’t lose much.  Plus you have a battery backup which would likely see you through a few hours. 
 

We have a few power cuts here too that generally only last a few hours. It’d be baltic in no time in the rental so I get why they useful in older properties. 

[Kelvin]

  On 30/05/2024 at 07:38, scottishjohn said:

 who wants to be cutting wood into their 80,s 

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I’m 57 and I don’t want to be doing it. I have a log splitter so it’s less effort but it’s still a chore that needs doing. 

[JohnMo]

  On 30/05/2024 at 08:02, Kelvin said:

Your house won’t lose much heat in a few hours. Even over 24 hours it won’t lose much.  Plus you have a battery backup which would likely see you through a few hours. 
 

We have a few power cuts here too that generally only last a few hours. It’d be baltic in no time in the rental so I get why they useful in older properties. 

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All true, but it keeps the wife happy knowing we could light the fire.

[SteamyTea]

If you live in a power cut prone area, get a portable gas fire or two.

 

 

80 quid

[JohnMo]

  On 30/05/2024 at 12:25, SteamyTea said:

If you live in a power cut prone area, get a portable gas fire or two.

 

 

80 quid

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But not for an airtight house with the MVHR off or no windows open!

[ProDave]

  On 30/05/2024 at 13:04, JohnMo said:

But not for an airtight house with the MVHR off or no windows open!

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I thought that was a joke.  I have not seen those on sale for years, let alone one with a matching fireplace.

 

Interesting point though, a prolonged power cut in an air tight house with mvhr would probably require a couple of windows cracked open a little, so it would then not retain it's heat as well as normal.....    So I would light the stove.

[JohnMo]

  On 30/05/2024 at 13:20, ProDave said:

I thought that was a joke.  I have not seen those on sale for years, let alone one with a matching fireplace.

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I saw them for sale in a garden centre a couple of months ago, they are still sold. It didn't come with the fire place, but was under £50. 

[scottishjohn]

  On 30/05/2024 at 07:52, JohnMo said:

At no-where near that age, I will still have enough wood left from our build, I suspect by the time I get there. So for the amount of time we use it, generally only once in a while and only two logs each burn, I will still keep it.

 

Also I think we have had about 10 power cuts in the last 12 months, one for over 24 hrs, the others a few hours each time. So its nice to have the secondary heating system.

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and thats why iwill have my generator in the garage  to run a small elctric fire if needed,who knows by then if the build goes to price iwll also have solar and batteries,but that is a maybe -- with cost of panels and batteries idoubt i wil live long enough to get a pay back 

[SteamyTea]

  On 30/05/2024 at 14:56, scottishjohn said:

my generator in the garage  to run a small elctric fire

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Why not a cheap 2 kW inverter and a leisure battery.

Probably less that 200 quid and no refueling, fumes or noise.

[Crofter]

My MVHR draws 50w. Would be one of the first things I would want to get running in the event of a power cut in cold weather.

[Iceverge]

  On 30/05/2024 at 17:05, SteamyTea said:

Why not a cheap 2 kW inverter and a leisure battery.

Probably less that 200 quid and no refueling, fumes or noise.

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Been there, tried it out, from the car battery on tickover. €200 2kw inverter from eurocar parts. 

 

The Modified Sine wave does not play nicely with our Led bulbs or the induction cooker. One bulb started flickering uncontrollably and another smoked and set off the fire alarm 

 

However everything else worked A1. 

 

I looked at getting a better inverter but a quality brand like Victron was almost the same price as a generator. 

 

I bought a loncin LC8000 generator instead. Key start and AVR and enough poke to cook and heat water with. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kelvin]

We have used our EV a few times during power cuts. It’s typically always around 50% charged  and we have a  portable induction camping stove. So we’d be able to cook and provide some heat from small rads. Plus I could power the water pump so we’d have water too albeit the drinking water tap provides reasonable flow from the small attenuation tank. 

[SteamyTea]

  On 30/05/2024 at 17:55, Iceverge said:

 

Been there, tried it out, from the car battery on tickover. €200 2kw inverter from eurocar parts

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Was thinking of just running a heater.

Thinking a bit more about it, I wonder how well a panel heater wired into a battery would work.

 

A 230 V, 1 kW heating element would be 53 ohms.

 

But only 2 W at 12 V, so not very good.

Would need just 0.15 ohms to get 1 kW at 12 V.

[ProDave]

A 100A leisure battery would have a theoretical storage of 1.2kWh, but in reality less than 1kWh as you can't discharge it to 0.

 

So you could run a 1kW element for less than an hour or a 3 kW element for less than 20 minutes.

 

In the middle of a power cut that is not going to warm your house up much.  Save the battery for lighting and other useful things.

 

On the other hand my WBS can deliver 5kW for as long as I keep adding logs to it.  The one in our static caravan ran nearly non stop from November to March the winter we spent in it.

[Crofter]

Using a battery to provide direct electric heating sounds a bit nuts. Running your heat pump with it makes a bit more sense.

[SteamyTea]

  On 31/05/2024 at 06:37, Crofter said:

Using a battery to provide direct electric heating sounds a bit nuts.

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Depends on your electricity tariff.

 

As I use about 1 kWh a day for cooking and very occasional fan heater usage, being in E7 is worthwhile to me.

I could 'save' about £0.20/day, so about £70/year.