Vocal Voices

Tonight we bought a multi fuel stove!

We have been looking out for one for a while and this afternoon I was looking on ebay and came across one. I showed it Mick and I emailed the seller (who lives about 10 miles away from us). He emailed back and Mick went over this evening to look at it and came home with it.

It cost £110 and is lovely. It is still in the back of the van at the moment as it is too heavy to carry. We will get one of the neighbours lads to give Mick a hand tomorrow.

It is going to go in the lounge. It was in really good condition although it had a slight crack in the glass which the seller had to point out to Mick, it was so miniscule. However, when Mick was looking at it when he got it home, he reached across to get his torch, leant on the glass and broke it completely. But it only costs around £20 to replace the glass we think.

It is this one. The seller had all the paperwork to go with it - it is still under guarantee as he only bought it 10 months ago (we have the receipt).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Warrior-Stoves- ... B00B80RFFE

Oh that's lovely
What does multi fuel mean? Wood and coal?

Weka wrote:Oh that's lovely
What does multi fuel mean? Wood and coal?

Yes. We would burn mostly wood but put a shovel of coal in at night to keep it lit to the morning. It would be lovely to light it on a Friday and keep it in until a Sunday night - we can't do that with the open fire we currently have.

Our neighbour has one and he hasn't bought fuel for it for 18 months (other than a couple of bags of coal so that he can put a shovel on at night).

We are surrounded by trees - many of them dead and falling down. The land where the dead trees are does belong to someone but no one has ever been able to find out. Years ago we contacted the council as a tree that had a branch overhanging the lane was dying and a huge branch had come crashing down onto the lane. The council tried to find out who owned the property but never did (or if they did, nothing has ever happened). Our neighbour (and another friend of ours) go up and cut the dead fallen trees to take home the wood. Maybe not completely legal but at least its clearing the dead trees which whoever owns it is not bothering with!

So no doubt this summer Mick will be doing the same. He just needs a chainsaw now.

The stove will (hopefully) get fitted over the summer. We already have an open fire.

We will need to take the cast iron fire surround and grate out (they will go on Preloved/Ebay/Admag) and see how much the arch of the fireplace needs opening up. We already have a good idea of how high and deep the current fireplace is as we have one in the dining room. We will probably temporarily store the stove in the dining room fireplace - that will give us a good idea of what it will look like.

The Mick and his mate (who has fitted lots of them) will fit it. We have a huge gritstone slab that we saved from the kitchen fireplace that we hope will fit (we have coloured tiles in the hearth at the moment) although I am conscious that if it is not the right size then then we will have a big gap between the stone and the carpet - if thats the case we'll have to make a decision as to whether to keep the current tiles and carpet or, if it looks much better, go for the stone slab and save up for a new carpet (having to live with one with gaps around the hearth for a while).

I don't want a mantle around it - just a lovely piece of oak or pine as a shelf above it. I am finding it very easy to visualise as my friend has one that looks exactly as I want ours to look.

I'm loving my mental image. Can't wait to see a photo. Our rental as a log burner. We would put a really thick log on then go to bed, in the morning we only needed some kindling in and wait 5 minutes, then we had fire again. Bliss. Nothing like that in our we place. Not ye sure what we are going to do for heating.

This is our current fireplace in front room. I will be sorry to see it go as I do love it.

When we first moved into the house and decided to open up the fire in the lounge (it was bricked up with a horrible old fashioned wall mounted gas fire) we hunted high and low for a fireplace we liked and, despite going round loads of reclamation yards, just couldn't find one. And then, lying in bed one night, we realised that the cast iron fireplace that was painted white and attached to the bedroom chimney breast would be perfect (it is a full size fire surround rather than a bedroom sized one) and this is what it cleaned up to look like. When we pulled back the grotty old carpet in the lounge the original coloured tiled hearth was still there.

(By the way - check out the clock. S made that at school when she was in Year 3 at primary school. It is made out of mod-roc and we loved it so much it has pride of place on the mantlepiece).



This is the fireplace in the dining room (please ignore all the rubbish surrounding it - the dining room has become the dumping ground whilst the kitchen is being done). It was also bricked up. Mick opened it all up and rebuilt the arch and then made the fire surround out of MDF and painted it with blackboard paint! We never had any intention of using it as a proper fire - just a display thing. It used to have flowers in it until L claimed the space to put her art box in (the stack of plastic boxes surrounded by her stuff).



I think whilst we are waiting to have the new stove fitted in the lounge we will oust Lucy's art stuff from the dining room fireplace and stand it in there to look lovely!

The dining room is the next room to be tackled - my job, hopefully during April. I all needs completely redecorating. I think I am going to be boring and do it in magnolia with white above the picture rail. And then get a chandelier of some sort to replace the lights that we currently have.

could you not put the existing fireplace in the lounge into the dining room - not to be used, but it'll look very nice with a nest of candles in the base?

You know - I'd been thinking the same thing Ria.

I think we might have a go at selling it on ebay first and if it doesn't reach a reserve price keep it and put it in the dining room.

I'm not letting it go for a silly cheap price as although it didn't cost us anything (with it being already in the house) it took me hours of blood, sweat and toil to get it looking like it is now!

Lovely Debih - your house is going to be just gorgeous when you've finished

That stove sounds a great bargain - and even better that you're surrounded by all that free wood!!!! We lived a couple of miles from Windsor Great Park when we lived in Egham and often wondered if anyone would notice if we stole away a few dead branches, but thought we might get our heads chopped off if we tried

The clock is fab!!

Ditto the fireplace.

What's in that bottle next to the Lucy piggy bank?