Hello Dear Reader,
You often ask me about my woodstove and you've been interested in how much it cost me and the cost benefits and how long it takes to pay for itself. Our stove works really hard for us and has been lit almost every evening, including the 'summer' when it used to get chilly in the evening.
Stoves need maintenance, safety checking and the chimney needs cleaning and all this needs doing at least once a year. You have to have an air vent fitted in the room and a carbon monoxide monitor fitted in the room. The stove has to be fitted and safety checked by a HETAS engineer. Most HETAS engineers are plumbers and not brilliant with woodstoves and you have to find someone who fits stoves and knows what they are doing.
We called out local woodstove engineer Robbie Savill to check ours and to clean our chimney. A high speed rotating brush gets all the soot out of the stainless steel liner and it was checked to make sure there was no tar build up (which can cause chimney fires). It's all vacuumed out with a huge machine and there's no dust. He then resealed the glass and everything was done and left spotless within an hour.
Robbie is an apprentice trained and time served Blacksmith and Chimney sweep, who uses his blacksmith skills to service and repair woodstoves. He comes from a long line of chimney sweeps and he's well known and respected in our area.
So, you call him out, with 24 hours notice, get him to come out really early on a Saturday morning. He issues you with a safety certificate which validates your insurance and your wood burner is checked and safe to use. All sounding incredibly expensive? £40! That cost will save our lives and will ensure our house doesn't burn down. I think as far as extending life and well being goes that is extremely frugal good value.
He's also friendly and punctual to the minute. Here's his number if you need a sweep or a stove installed or checked over in South East Cornwall. I like to share 'good deals' with readers and really believe his service is brilliant value for money and for £40, I have peace of mind for another year. I paid full price for his service and was glad to.
Over to you Dear Readers, please leave the comments to share any great value trades folk in your area, county, country or zip code!
Until later,
Love Froogs xxxxx
Thank you for this information. And you're right, sometimes we need to invest a little bit of money to insure our safety.
ReplyDeleteMy sweep is a former chairman of his trade association. I agree there's nothing like the peace of mind you get from knowing your chimney has been properly swept. Lots of people think about using those newspaper log makers and he warned me off them - they produce a LOT of tar and what you save in the cost of logs you lose by having to have your chimney swept more often
ReplyDeleteCoincidentally just went to fabulous shop called The Sack Store in Boston (UK) to sort out a wood burner for a friend. They guide you through all the reg's and give advice about which stove is best for you. Fantastic working showroom and they also sell the most beautiful tiles.
ReplyDeleteHi Froogs,
ReplyDeleteI know you have dogs and would like to know how you feed them frugally if possible and do you have them insured or just save for vets bills.
Thank you
Hi Froogs,
ReplyDeleteI know that you have dogs & would love to know how you feed them and look after them frugally.
Keep up the good work
My dogs only eat dry food and one cup full each a day - I buy which ever is on offer at pets at home which seems to be the cheapest place. I bath them myself, groom them myself, we cut their nails and clean their teeth. They are clipped almost bald every three months and we let their hair grow until they are fluff balls and keep them brushed daily.
DeleteFroogs, I was going to ask you for a post about how you keep your dogs looking so good...guess you have answered most of the basic questions here. My black Lab/golden retriever mix gets bathed as needed; my West Highland white terrier (a rescue) gets groomed 4 times a year (vs. every 6-8 weeks). I rather like the scruffy look! Both eat a mid-priced dry dog food that seems to be the only kind my big black dog can digest. Sorry if we hijacked these comments, but I do have to say your dogs look great!
DeleteI am quite lucky as DH used to help fit double glazed windows with his brother. And he is a carpenter as well, so we are quite lucky. DH has just done electrical through work and Pc work as well. So touch wood we are pretty well covered. And I love to do interior design as well, which I have helped other people as well. Allie xxxxxx
ReplyDeleteJust out of interest, as we have a wood burner which has already saved us pounds and pounds in heating, did you have this done just now? Is it just an annual check. When we had open (wood burning) fires our sweep came once a year. So I was going to call him in in June as that would be the stoves birthday. Thanks in advance for any advice. (We have the detector thing.)
ReplyDeleteWe had it done today. It's the first time we've had it done and we've had it just over a year. It needs doing more often if you use it more, we really should have ours done about every eight months.
ReplyDeleteWow, now that's a neat job and no dust.
ReplyDeleteWe had a chimney fire about 35 years ago and it damaged the brick liner in our chimney. We were using some wood that wasn't completely dry. It's very important to only use wood that has cured and dried as creosote builds up very fast in the chimney. A chimney fire is very frightening and roars loudly as it creates it's own wind.
The last chimney sweep we hired just went in the garage and opened the clean out door and pushed his brush in there and was done in no time and we decided to do the job ourselves this time with using a chimney brush on a big rope and a metal weight on one end and it takes two people to do this. On on the roof and he drops the brush down the chimney and the other one pulls on the rope. The metal weight is to make sure that the rope goes all the way down so the other person can pull on it. The brush is pulled up and down until no more soot falls. It's a dirty job and one should wear a mask to protect their lungs.
JB
JB
Hi Julia, you don't say where you are. If you are in the UK and you have a chimney fire and call out the fire engine, and you don't have a certificate showing it's been professionally cleaned you will be charged and your insurance will be nul and void.
DeleteI remember my parents had a chimney fire in the sixties when I was just little. All I remember about it is standing outside on the path a few houses up from our house and seeing the fire engine outside of our house. If I ever have an open fire or stove, I would make sure it was swept twice a year, just to give me peace of mind. I seem to remember hearing that burning logs clogs up the chimney more than burning a coal fire? Don't know if this is true?
DeleteWe have an open fire, we dont use it after April and then we start using around Sept/Oct. I had ours swept in September before we started using it again. We are in Bristol and have used our sweep twice and he is great, loves a chat but in and out within an hour and spotlessly clean. His name is Smiley John and he has a website if anyone else is interested.
ReplyDeleteThat's very reasonably priced - it's €70 here in France - we have two working chimneys and another four that we don't use - wouldn't it be expensive if we did!
ReplyDeleteHi Froog. I live in New Brunswick, Canada. We weren't charged anything for this. I know that the insurance companies are strict about meeting the necessary requirements for coverage, but we never had them come to check our stove and the surrounding structures near the stove.
ReplyDeleteJB
A good tradie is worth his weight in gold! Someone reliable who doesn't rip you off is a real treasure.
ReplyDeleteJudy xx
Having once experienced a very scary chimney fire with a fire engine and crew having to be called - this is money well spent.
ReplyDelete