That's great - thank you! We have seen the charnwood stoves and like them. Do you find it efficient and burns well? Thanks

We went with a Westfire in our Victorian terrace which is a modern Danish design BUT the previous owners had ripped out the chimney breasts (downstairs only) so we could get a way with a tall stove and simply plugged the flu into the ceiling where it found the old chimney breast upstairs.

Don't read too much into the Kw requirements. We went with a 6 and its so hot we have to open windows sometimes, if its not your sole source of heating and its a terrace you can get away with a smaller one i think.

Thanks Rob - do you mind me asking what size your room is (width, depth and height) and how well insulated? It'll give me a bit of a gauge as to the output etc!

I really like the look of the Westfires - it's just whether I could get it to work within a chimney breast. I have thought about putting in a new lintel further up to accommodate though that would mean not having a surround and I rather like the idea of a traditional surround juxtaposed with a modern stove.

does it go through a lot of wood?
Thanks

We have now had 2 Clearview Pioneer 400's in 2 houses. Absolutely love them.

Greg

Aprox the living room is 4m x 4m with 3m high ceilings but its open to the dining room which is about 3.5 x 4 x 3m. It doesn't get through a lot of wood compared to a traditional stove if you adjust the dampers properly and use well seasoned wood, a ton and a half lasts a winter we find. The insulation is literally appalling ... floorboards exposed, crap double glazed aluminium to the bay window at the front although new dining room external door is pretty decent. The new stoves really do chuck the heat out but you can usually adjust them to get them hotter if you want and if you want really hot you can use smokeless coal in London.

Hi Rob - a beautiful stove - it's just trying to work out how it would look within the chimney breast. Have you got the dimensions of the room?

Mrs Mcee - I'd have thought given you've a 5kw in your room then an 8kw would be about right.

Jane - the clearview stoves look great - I've heard lots of very good things about them - but we were wondering whether something a little more modern would suit the room better - at the other end (other room but we're knocking throug) we're going to put in a resonably sleek, modern kitchen so hoped the stove might mirror slightly but then with the original features shining through too with the mantel.

Man thanks for everyones help so far!

Aprox the living room is 4m x 4m with 3m high ceilings but its open to the dining room which is about 3.5 x 4 x 3m.

Thanks Victoria - we went to the property last night and measured the chimney breast - it's very wide (7ft) but quite shallow (14 inches)... Our plan is to not have any combustible material anywhere near the stove - the surroud, if we have one would be slate, and the opening lined in cement particle board. We're getting building control to sign off rather than Hetas as we've struggled to find a hetas engineer that would sign off work they haven't done which is fair enough.
Many thanks

Hi Greg,

I think mixing contemporary styling with original features works wonderfully. My personal favourite wood burners are the morso stoves (for example the s50). Of course you need to choose one that meets your heating requirements, but the supplier should be able to help with that. If that one (that has the right output) doesn't legally fit in the existing opening, then you have a problem. You could remove the existing fire surround and enlarge the opening, with maybe a contemporary floating shelf above the new opening, or you could choose a smaller stove and then provide supplementary heating through other means. Is there central heating already in the building? If so then a discrete flush panel radiator should be easy to locate somewhere out of the way. Alternatively you could put in an industrial style radiator below the windows (where they are normally most needed):

http://www.bisque.co.uk/products/general-radiators/flow-form

If you don't have central heating, you could use a black-body infra-red radiator to top up the heating, which is run on electrics, is energy efficient and has other health benefits. For example:

http://www.theecostore.co.uk/eco-store/buy-german-herschel-infrared-heating-panel-mirror/

Hope this helps,

Kind regards,

Erica.

Thanks Erica, some interesting ideas! It's not our only source of heating but, once it's on we hope that it means we turn the central heating off! I think we'll need to wait and see what size the builders opening is before we can make any further decisions so we can go from there!

Many thanks