Log Burners

[flash]

We are thinking of purchasing a log burner for the colder months, Does anyone know how much these cost and where is the best place to buy one from.
Any information much appreciated
Thanks Flash

[Dalyansteve]

Can you clarify please, do you mean a proper smart woodburner or a soba? When you do answer I will not be able to help much as I think both are dirty nasty horrible things that are not worth the money to buy and cost a fortune to run unless you have access to cheap or free wood. They also take up a lot of your time, cleaning, chopping, cutting etc. and bugger up the decor with soot, meaning the one room that gets heat also has to be repainted every year. I use electric oil filled radiators and the klima, keep a nice cosy temperature throughout the house during the winter and I reckon I spend half of what it would cost in coal and wood etc to keep one room hot. So there you have it my potted view on how to keep warm in winter after 11 years of experience.

[John Codling]

We have a built in "log burner" this is a picture of it as it was being put in.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v127/v6cod/Photo57.jpg

It doesn't take long to clean it out 10 mins or so, nor does it make the room sooty It depends on the installation and how much draught you have I think. This is in our cozy room which we can shut the door to and seperate from the rest of the house we are not totally open plan. I think Sorbas are smelly though.

I paid around 2tl a kilo for wood last new year.

I find it very useful if you have a power cut as well :grin:.

We use our ac units to heat other rooms if we need to, and have a small radiator in our bedroom for background warmth during the night.

One tip get an electric blanket.:Yep:

[Dalyansteve]

John, that is a proper built in fire you have there and think of it, if you were here all winter you would need at least 2 tonnes of wood and maybe 1 tonne of coal which adds up to 3,250.00 lira plus whatever for magic wood or firelighters plus the electric you use in the rest of the house. Even if my electric was 200 lira a month for 6 months,which it is not, comes to 1,200.00 lira. and I have not had to go and get the coal and wood nor do I have to spend an hour a day cutting said wood. Proves my point I think, you only have a fire because it looks good or you like the idea of a fire. Economical it is not.

[John Codling]

Steve I don't know why you have got on your high horse about proving points as I don't think I mentioned anywhere in my post that it was more economical than the way you choose to heat your house.

I believe I simply stated what we had, what we paid for the wood and how we heated the rest of the house. The original post was about log burners after all not what is the most economical way of heating your house in the winter. The only thing I disagreed with you on was the length of time to clean and whether it made the room sooty, as ours doesn't, sorry if that doesn't fit in with your inestimable knowledge of all things Turkish.

As we only use it in the evenings I doubt if we would use as much wood as you stated anyway but I cannot give a definate answer to that as, as you say, we have not been there all winter.

I do know however it was a godsend the winter before last when we had a four hour power cut.

Oh and by the way the wood is delivered already in manageable sizes so we don't have to "spend an hour cutting it up".

The reason why we had it put in is probably because of both of what you have said but I don't see why you have brought that up.

Enough said , rant over.

[m1cksut]

Fight! Fight!!

[John Codling]

Pides at dawn.

[Dalyansteve]

Ok, anything but Pide's at dawn, I give in John. I was overdoing it a bit and yes a log fire does look nice. My main beef is with soba's. I have an open fire in the kitchen that I used to use when I had a lot of free wood from my roof but would only use it now in the depths of winter for the nice glow, it is completely useless as a method of heating as most of it goes up the chimney. Yours looks much better built and designed so should be relatively stress free.
To answer Flash's original question, there are or is a fireplace shop around Ortaca but it seems to keep moving, a peculiarity of Turkish business, and soba's are really only available in many shops around October time onwards and only during winter, somewhere from around ?80 upwards for a half decent one with chimney parts, the best one are the built in fire's like John has and can be got from shop that keeps moving around.

[John Codling]

I'll let you off steve. :Cool:

Our place is fully plumbed for central heating as well so if anyone knows of a cost effective central heating system in Turkey let me know.

[Dalyansteve]

Sorry to say they are all expensive to run but I think it runs in this order most cost effective first, 3 phase electric especially if you have a digital meter, low cost 10pm to 7 am but it does depend on the area, village electric and water is usualy cheaper than in the town, automatic hopper fed coal fired boiler, lpg but you would need a mini tank in the garden which I think you have to pay for and lastly oil fired as there is no cheap heating fuel, it is the same price as at the pump. The electric one is also cheaper to install. By the way we have one of those mobile gas heaters for emergency heating during power cuts and have to say we have not had to use it in the last 2 winters, we also have a gas lantern for the same reason which we do use and it gives out a bit of heat. I just remembered someone in Fethiye I think has fireplace back boilers which could be a good option for you. When you have some time to spare in Turkey you can research it all.

[Dalyansteve]

I have just thought of some thing else, a combination of solar and electric heating. I have been having discusions with a very clever engineer in Ortaca who has worked out a solar heating system for the home and I have been talking to him about adapting it for swimming pools, it could in fact be dual purpose, there would be some months you would not want to swim so the heating could be diverted to the house, whether this would all be cost efective overall we can work out together some time but thinking it through, it could work out quite nicely for you when you are living here. This system uses a much better solar panel than the ones used just for hot water, more efficient, longer lasting but more expensive.

[Ronster]

Back to the original question, we had a wood burning (Free Standing) stove installed in our new villa & have used it to great effect last winter. Looks the Dogs B*****ks.

We found a contact in Fethiye, went over to see one in action & ordered immediately, cost circa 700 lt. Its a more European style, similar to one we had in cottage in Scotland not a local "Pot Boiler". If someone lets me know how to attach a pic from my C drive I'll do my best. Don't have contact detail with me but should be in Business directory or I could get our builder to check back on records if really interested.

Ron

[Andy]

email me the pics Ron i will post them for you

[Ronster]

Andy,

Hope this worked. Went into additional options & attached pic. Otherwise let me have a pm mail address & I'll send.

regards, Ron

[Ronster]

To John, Steve and Andy,
This is The Ronster's wifey here and I have to say we are lovers of the old 'woodburning ' stoves. One cold morning in March '09 we awoke to a power cut and when I came downstairs Ron had the woodburner on like The Africian Queen, open plan lounge heating up nicely and in addition Ron had a pot of boiling water ready for tea or coffee and a pan of bacon and eggs cooked up. Woodburner 1 = Electricity Company nil !!!