On a mission

Help us kill off the open fire?

I have often espoused the benefits of a stove over an open fire even though they make up a good portion of our business. So we are gonna take a bit of a risk here and try and get every fireplace we sell to be a closable one. The benfits are huge and obvious if you read any of the posts below. But lets bring it back to money for every one of these



you spend on fuel for your fire this on average is how much you get for it in heat.



Put in a stove instead and you get eight euro back in heat.
On top of that you no longer lose heat up the chimney when you have no fire on. So many people spend a lot of money on insulation to stop heat loss and rightly so but then leave a gaping hole in the front room losing heat 24 hours a day seven days a week.
Convinced yet? Not only are you saving money you are also helping the environment.

Now heres the kicker I'm trying to sell stoves so I have an agenda here.
My best advice is go find someone who bought a stove from us and ask them. Come into our showroom and see the pictures on our wall of people who were so happy with their stove they let us go out and photograph it and let us put it on our wall. then join our wall of fame yourself and start saving.

Have breakfast on us.

This Friday 17th April we will have a Breakfast morning with Mulberry Stoves where they will run a demo on how to use the Swift Range cooker in oil or solid fuel. We will also be launching the new Mulberry Stoker solid fuel insert stove that sits into a standard fireplace opening but convects heat into the room and stops you losing heat up your chimney when the fire is not in use. Special discounts available on the day.

The benfits and problems with wood as a fuel.

Ok as Irish we are used to turf and footing it out on the bog, leaving to dry, saving it and finally burning it. In much the same way as turf people say you get heated twice from wood, once when you chop it and second when you burn it.

First off it is a renewable fuel if bought from responsible forests where they are constantly replanting for the future. If burnt correctly its carbon neutral and unfortunately thats where we irish fall down a little bit. On the continent they are used to seasoned wood whcih means it has been split, raised off the ground, stacked and left to dry for 18 months to 2 years. The moisture content is now less than 20% and it burns cleanly leaving very little ash, giving great heat, and giving a beautiful fire.

Unfortuneatley in Ireland we tend to cut it down leave it for a week or two and then burn it. This results in low heat output, cresote (like a varnish on your stove or flue inside) dirty glass and a dirty chimney/flue. This in turn reduces the efficiency of your stove in the future. If your fire is crackling and spitting you know the moisture content is wrong and you will not be getting the heat you should be from your fire. This is because the fire is working to dry the wood first which cools the core temperature of the flame and makes for an inefficienct burn.

The good news is we are changing. At a wood energy conference last year both Teagasc and Coilte were encouraging people and land owners to enter the wood energy business. While the trees are primarily grown for building timber as the trees grow they become too crowded. Thinning occurs of the crooked trees or where there are just too many. These can then be used fro firewood. The leaves and needles are usually stripped and left on the forest floor to allow the nutrients seep back to the soil for the other trees left behind. The smaller branches are chipped for use as wood chip fuel and best of all this can all be done at a local level meaning your fuel is not transported from all over the world contributing further to climate change.

The biggest downside to wood logs is their bulk. You ideally need to have a large shed to store them or else you end up paying more for them if buying in small quantities. As more people start to use dry wood logs the market will grow and prices should come down further.
Start today and find a supplier near you.