France in Focus

As a follow on from our ramonage last week, we decided to get the firm who originally installed our stove to come and redo all the cord seals.

Its a big Jotul double door/side door stove - 14 years old and has been used every winter.

The old seals were cracked or very brittle and had come unstuck.
The guy spent two hours redoing them all. There were seals where I hadn’t even imagined there would be!
Hoping we won’t regret this maintenance.

It could make a lot of difference. We replace our wood burner ropes most years - OH says annually (as the quality of the rope, as everything these days, is not built to last!)

I finally got around to doing a thorough clean of our woodburner a few days ago and found the glass was broken at the edge. So I went online to source a replacement. I had to do this about 15 years ago at another house and the cheapest glass I found was sent from UK, even after paying postage it was well cheaper. This time because of import duties, etc. I kept my search local to French online retailers. The price for the glass ranged from €210 + postage down to €113 including postage. While waiting for the glass to arrive I decided to replace the sealing cord around the door. €8 from a Brico. All very easy to do. I'm hoping that having a new seal and non-broken glass will improve the flow of air that is supposed to keep the glass cleaner.

Or you could do a smoke test and check for leaks

I could, but I don't fancy filling the lounge with smoke just yet. There is no flue connected to the burner. I'm still waiting for the bod to come to install the liner. I'm giving him one more week before I get the ladder out and do it myself. It's getting very cold here at the moment.

We no longer have a stove but in our last house the glass (and seal) was replaced a couple of times. I obtained both glass replacements from Weldom. The glass was cut to size (I took all the bits with me) and it cost about €35. Seals are sold by most of the DIY emporia.

Recently bought two pieces of the slightly more expensive 'self-cleaning' stove glass from a French company (insert-glass.com). 180 x 160 mm so not very big, but only 39€ including postage for the pair.

They also sell the 'joint de porte'.

+ 1 [mention]MAD87[/mention]
In our old house we had a wood burner bought from one of the brico shops, and very good it was too. They also provided the replacement bit of glass at reasonable cost when the original was damaged. We've always bought replacement sealing cord there, no problem.

The glass on our current wood burner keeps reasonably clean but if the wind's in the wrong direction and the fire doesn't pull well, or burns very slowly, it does crud up. It's easily cleaned with water and essuie tout. Stubborn marks come out with the damp paper dipped in ash.

Our woodburner has been a bit of a swine from day one. After about 6 years of aggro we are trying again to get a flue liner in place. The installation manual says the flue should be 200mm diameter to fit the output spigot on top. An expensive 200mm flue wouldn't fit down the chimney and was destroyed in the process of trying.
This time I have fitted a reducer down to 180mm hoping that will fit. At the moment the glass soots up in two or three hours until there is only a dinner plate sized clear bit in the middle. And when it rains hard for any length of time the water pours down the chimney and even behind the cement render on the wall. We spent a fortune this summer getting the chimney repointed and flashing around it replaced. Every time the bod climbs up there to do any work more slates get broken because the roof is years overdue for replacement.

I'm told having a liner should make the fire start easier and be more controllable. I am starting to wonder if it is worth all the bother to get it right.

I think liners (at least insulated ones) are supposed to be less prone to deposits and easier to keep clean - so less of a fire risk. And also prevent creosote from soaking through the brickwork. So worth persevering.

Maybe if you cannot get an insulated one to fit try an uninsulated one as they are more flexible - then fill the chimney void with vermiculite insulation?