# Multi Fuel Stove - Total Cost Query



## nitski

Hi there,

We just renovated our house and wanted to put a 5k multi-fuel stove where the open fire was in the living room. 

We budgetted 2000 EUR knowing that prices in Ireland are inflated.

A friend directed us to a specialist retailer in Wicklow which gave good service etc. We saw a model we liked (Morso O4) and bought it for ~1100 EUR incl VAT and waited for the fitting quote. The fitting quote just came back and is nearly 2650 EUR incl VAT. 

I am shocked at this price. We were told in the sales room that fitting is usually about 800 EUR. Expensive I thought but all-in it was within our budget. Breakdown (ex 13.5 % VAT) is:
Base 350
Flexible Flue Liner 750 (I live in a common 40s 2 up 2 down in Dublin that always had a fireplace)
Cowl 60
Adaptor 60
36" flue 60
Register plate 45
Trim Collar 45
Insulation 100
Labour 850
Total : 2630 Incl VAT

I am looking at total price of 3850 EUR for a 5k stove!

I am assuming that this is a fairly easy job - we were told it would take a day. 850 for labour?! If this is the going rate, I am leaving my job to fit stoves... I feel like telling them to stick the whole thing and get my stove from the UK (about 3-400 EUR cheaper) and get an independent fitter.

Anyone have any advice on the quote or tips to go elsewhere? Is this a normal fitting price?

Thanks,
Niall


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## PGD1

You were told that fitting was about 800 and you got a quote for 850, so thats not unexpected. Perhaps it is a bit high.

The flue materials are expensive. You should have been told that you would need them I suppose.


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## Abbica

I think that is very expensive, but it does depend on the flue materials, we have chimneys for ours, so nothing fancy and I have been guestimated €600 to install our two stoves, one multifuel, one woodburning, but the man is coming out next week to get final price, so maybe it will bump up, but still.....


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## PGD1

I meant to say that the flue materials are expensive, in general. not that yours looked overly expensive.

all you can do is get another quote in I guess.


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## nitski

PGD1 said:


> You were told that fitting was about 800 and you got a quote for 850, so thats not unexpected. Perhaps it is a bit high.
> 
> The flue materials are expensive. You should have been told that you would need them I suppose.


 
I got quoted ~800 originally for fit only and now they are telling me it will cost 2600 for fit only. Thats an 1800 difference. Just seems very excessive. And labour seems very high. Considering the stove is already about 400 EUR more expensive than UK prices.

Really want a stove but at that price no way!


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## ludermor

Are you sure you understood the initial quote? The price for the stoves just include for the stove unit itself, it would not include for the fitting ( flues, liners. adaptors etc) and as PGD has said they are very expensive. The shop will not know where your stove is situated ( tight to wall, in a recess, away from wall) so unless you explain the details they may not have included for these fittings. 
By the way 800 does seem high for fitting a standard stove, it should take no more than a 1-1.5 days for a couple of lads ot fit
There is a supplier (FMCC?) who posts here and he will give you good and fair advice im sure


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## fmc

Hi guys
Nit this does depend on the job which sounds like they are relining the chimney properly and filling/insulating this void because they are up on the roof and it is labour intensive I'd say its about right. You could ask a chimney company to price relining the flue to get a comparison. However was the chimney already relined is there an 8" pot there already and are these all sound? ie no leaks if so there would be an easier cheaper option of simply connecting via an adapter but this depends on height of flue draught in flue etc.
Whats the overall height of the flue? flexi for solid fuel is about €55 per metre on average. There is a lighter one for oil gas a lot cheape but not suited for solid fuel if comparing in other shops.


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## bonniecat

Can any one tell me the cost and availability of wood to burn in a stove. am thinking of getting a charnwood SLX multifuel stove as cost of gas heating has reached milionire level. Am in Dublin. Will suppliers make home delivery. What is best type of wood to burn in stove. What price is wood? thanks in advance.


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## Abbica

Hi Bonniecat, we have a multi-fuel stove also, lit our first fire last Sunday. I bought a bag of logs, holds about 20 good sized logs which cost €7 at the local petrol station. I was dissappointed as just used logs and paper, the fire never really took off at all. But I got my OH on Monday to buy a bag of coal, (I got the better deal) and it cost €18 for the bag and I thought I would pass out from the heat. We just piled up some coal on paper with a firelighter and put 2 logs on top and left it. Burned away for ages, no way we needed to put more fuel on. 

So, I think you need coal to really throw out a good bit of heat or briquettes etc, not just wood but once it is going, logs are great, take ages to burn in the stove. So, two logs from the bag and a shovel of coal, a briquette also and that is your fire for the night, for a long time, ours lastest hours. You would have to work out the costs yourself, so from your local shop, price bag of logs, coal and bale of briquettes and divide it up so you are getting your costs per day. I think it is very cost effective.


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## demoivre

Buying coal, logs etc from a forecourt is likely to be very expensive ( I buy six bags of Polish coal for €81 or €13.50 per bag ). Your chances of getting well seasoned logs from a forecourt ie dried for a year to 18 months before use ( to produce most heat and least creosote ) are nil imo.


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## fmc

HI Abbica have to agree with demoivre here the logs from most forecourts are very damp and will defo cause the glass to blacken up and give naff all heat. Buy a bag now and dont burn till next year and see the difference. The market will start to provide seasoned wood in the futureas the demand grows.
I just posted some info on the blog about wood as a fuel also.


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## Abbica

I agree with you both regarding dry wood as the logs we got were damp but we are only in our new house so we didn't have the luxury. 

Do you have any suggestions re storage of logs, a man is cutting a tree at mums house next week and he is giving us a few logs but where do we put them, so they remain dry outside?? Also coal?


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## fmc

Abbica a lean to or something like that is fine a shed if it doesn't have enough air flow through it will just cause mould. The tree should be split and quartered and then the logs raised off the ground. Should be left for 18 months min. You can buy storage lean tos from somewjere that would also do wood sheds i imagine.


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## fluffy47

Considering putting in  Mulberry Beckett into our home. We have ten rads (only 2 double rads in the house at the moment so uograding them in the near future is another project). FMC-can I ask you if we already have a back boiler in situ in the sitting room-will we need to do any further pipe work when installing the Beckett? The water tank in the hot press is particularly small-is there a particular size tank that we should consider putting in? Apologies for the questions!! but you do seem to be very well versed in these things!!!!

Regarding wood for the burners-Shaws Trees are importing 2cubic meter palets of wood from Russia and selling it for 450euro. It is all cut to perfectly to size and air dried ASH. I have absolutely no connection with SHAWs-just spotted their wood for sale recently at Peamount hosp.


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## Abbica

Thanks for the advice fmc, when we get our garden shed, instead of putting it in the shed which will get dirty etc, take up space, I might put a lean to roof beside it. Just come up with another quick fix solution for now.


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## allthedoyles

demoivre said:


> Buying coal, logs etc from a forecourt is likely to be very expensive ( I buy six bags of Polish coal for €81 or €13.50 per bag ).


 

Where can I buy Polish Coal for € 13.50 per bag ?


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## builder ed

Stanley have an offer on at the moment until the end of October where they are giving 30 bales of briquettes free with the Ashling, Grainne, Tara and Erin models.  Has anybody availed of this offer? It looks to be a very tempting offer but very suspicious as Stanley would appear to be one of the market leaders in Solid Fuel Stoves. Have they started to import inferior quality from abroad or whats the story?


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## Peter C

Stanley have been getting their stoves made in China for a while now, the same with Mulberry and others. When looking at stoves ask straight out where are they made. I know some claim to be Irish or English because they are re-packed or maybe the glass is fitted here. Quality is worth the extra money because to install a stove properly can cost a lot of money as seen in the earlier posts.


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## fluffy47

Peter C-are the Chinese made stoves an inferior quality would you think? Just about to order a Mulberry.


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## Peter C

fluffy47 said:


> Peter C-are the Chinese made stoves an inferior quality would you think? Just about to order a Mulberry.



There are a lot of different stoves on the Irish market at the moment, personally I would put Mulberry at the bottom of the list when it comes to quality and after sales service. Some Chinese stoves are good quality however the better quality units tend to be as expensive as the UK or EU manufactured stoves. I have seen the Chinese cast iron crack and it was not due to installer or customer error, the reason was the cast iron panels were made from scrap iron which means some parts of the cast can be weaker than others. Personally I would stay with E.U or UK manufactured stoves because the manufacturing standards are a lot tougher which means better quality.


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## olddog

aprapros of nothing I wandered on to the Castorama site recently

The are like Woodies/B&Q but based in France

Some useful tips on picking a stove :

[broken link removed]

Here are some of their offerings

http://www.castorama.fr/store/html/recherche/page-liste-recherche.jsp?search=poles&_requestid=283914

I just love this chariot !

http://www.castorama.fr/store/chariot-pour-poele-a-petrole-tous-modeles-PPRDm552662.htm


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## demoivre

How many people on here with stoves have soot boxes fitted ? If you don't how do you clean your chimney?


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## Peter C

Very good question because a lot of people appear to forget that with a stove the chimney needs to be cleaned at least once but recommended twice to three times a year. Many stoves allow you to remove the baffle to get access for cleaning, others require a soot box or a tee off the flue to allow access, on some a soot door in the flue usually at a 45 degree bend will suffice. That said there are thousands of stoves installed without any consideration to cleaning the chimney / flue.


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## olddog

Just to play the Devil's advocate :

There is a line of reasoning which goes like this :

- Clean wood burning stoves

- Are clean because of wood gassification burning

- And so there should be very little creosote etc going up the chimney ( when compared to an open fire )

- So why does chimney need to be cleaned more often than an open fire rather then less often ?

I wonder what an experienced sweep would have to say on this


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## Peter C

The more efficient the stove the lower the flue gas temperature is which on entering the flue will cool and can condensate, very few people allow their wood to dry to less than 20% moisture content so there is always some moisture in the wood. Stoves can not reach the temperatures required to burn off all of the nasties which when combined with condensate forms creosote. There are very few stoves that gassify (inverted burn) I only know of one though I'm sure there are more. The open fire being inefficient allows around 80% of the heat to escape up the chimney resulting in flue gas with substantially higher temperatures, on the plus side less chance of creosote build up. Stoves are often run with the air intake closed (shut down for the night etc) without air we have less burning so lower flue gas temperature which means the gas will condensate before it reaches the top of most chimneys so more creosote. I Am Not a Sweep


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## olddog

Peter C said:


> .................. There are very few stoves that gassify (inverted burn) I only know of one though ....................




Thats very interesting

I'd formed ( jumper to ) the view ( for no go reason or basis in fact ) that any stove claiming circa 80% efficiency or better or 'cleanburn' was doing it.

How can I establish which stoves gassify and which dont ?

Peter C What is the model that you know of that does gassify ?


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## demoivre

olddog said:


> I wonder what an experienced sweep would have to say on this



It was a sweep that told us that we shouldn't put in a solid fuel stove without a soot box. We never put in a stove in the end because we couldn't get consistent advice on various aspects of stoves despite talking to several people such as suppliers, installers and the sweep. Some told us we needed to get the existing chimney lined, the sweep said we didn't - who do you believe? One installer told us we would have to put some type of heat deflector material on the underside of the top part of the fireplace or it would warp - a guy selling stoves said we didn't need to do that ! I have read most if not all of the threads on AAM about stoves and there is rarely if ever a mention of how you access the chimney for cleaning when a stove is fitted. Safety would be the most important issue for me regarding stoves - I would rather stick with the open fire and get the chimney cleaned once a year than get an efficient stove, have no chimney access and end up with a fire in a few years.


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## demoivre

Peter C said:


> Many stoves allow you to remove the baffle to get access for cleaning, others require a soot box or a tee off the flue to allow access, on some a soot door in the flue usually at a 45 degree bend will suffice.



Very useful info - Thanks.


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## Peter C

demoivre said:


> Very useful info - Thanks.



I am not surprised at the different advice you received, the sweep may like a soot box because he finds it user friendly, soot box's were often fitted outside with solid fuel cookers and made them very easy to clean, even the one's beside the cooker saved a lot of time so for the same fee the sweep could have it easy or more difficult, which option would you choose?
You go into a shop and most will tell you what you want to hear, their job is to sell the stove so why add confusion and more cost after all if installation is too expensive you may not buy the stove. Some installers will not tell you that you should line the chimney especially if you are fitting a small stove with a 5" spigot into a clay liner that is 8" diameter, sometimes they don't know you should and others do not want to price themselves out of the job.
My policy is tell the people the best way to get the best value from their purchase, I do try to look into or speculate how much money is in a customers pocket, many leave without buying but a lot return (some 2 > 3 years later). I find the majority of people want value for their money, that does always mean cheap in fact it very seldom does.


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## MrKeane

Peter C said:


> I  Some installers will not tell you that you should line the chimney especially if you are fitting a small stove with a 5" spigot into a clay liner that is 8" diameter, .


 
what does this achieve? I am close to fitting a stove but had not considered this. I will be fitting the external soot box though.


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## Peter C

Olddog, The stove I know of that is a gassifier is called "Walltherm" efficiency around 93%, not sure if I am allowed to post a link if you would like to know more send me a P.M. Many of the better quality stoves on the market have tertiary air as well as the primary and air wash. When the tertiary air is working it can appear like a gas ring forming jets of flame burning off much of the carbon that remains in the smoke.

MrKeane, The stove is tested for efficiency based on the fact that the flue is 5" which is why the spigot is 5" (or 6" / 7" as the case may be). A 5" flue opening into an 8" flue is akin to a river 5 feet wide flowing nicely then somebody opens the river to 8 feet wide and the river flows to a trickle unless there is away to improve the flow where the river rises.
When the stove is installed using the correct flue it allows the flue gas (smoke) to rise through the flue pulling the correct amount of combustion air into the stove. When the flue suddenly widens the flue gas which is at a much lower temperature than the existing flue was designed for (Eg the open fire the stove replaces) it can hang in the flue causing it to condensate. Of course many stoves appear to work fine but they are pulling in more combustion air to compensate for the wider flue therefore using more fuel. The most important item is the low temperature of the smoke in the wide cold flue, heat meets a cold surface and you have condensation which combined with the unburnt carbon causes creosote to form on the flue which causes chimney fires.
I understand how many people can be surprised that cost of fitting the stove can often be as much as three times the price they paid for stove especially the cheaper models. I expect as more people draft proof and insulate their homes to higher levels we are going to hearing of stoves that don't work properly and a much higher rate of chimney fires due to condenates in the flue. I also expect insurance companies will be investigating the cause of the chimney fires and will refuse to pay out on claims where good working practices have not been followed when installing stoves.


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## Zerograze

I can anyone tell me how to do a DIY instalation of a flexi flue?Well iv made an attempt at getting it down the chimney of a 150 year old two story house and can get it in 4 metre of the 8 but am failing to get any further.It seems to be caught in a corner.We tied a rope to it and were pulling it down aswell as pushing from the top but no success.Is there any nacks that i'm missing?


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## Peter C

Hi, It is not unusual in very old chimneys to have the flue narrow down in places, one we did actually reduced to about 5" diameter for 3 feet !
Many of the 150 year olds were formed using brick mid feathers and parged (kind of plaster) again not unusual to have ledges, did you clean the chimney before you started ? Besides being necessary it can also give a good idea of how the flue is formed, example resistance at 4 metres, you could try to pull / feed it up the flue we have used a steel ball and even had to open the chimney breast, sorry can't say there is an easy way.


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