Why has my wood-burning stove baffle warped or worn?

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Has the baffle of your wood-burning stove warped? If so, you might have noticed it looks a bit wonky when you remove it from your stove’s firebox. Equally, it might no longer be sitting correctly when you attempt to re-fit it.

Alternatively, you might have spotted a hole started to form in your baffle plate.

So, what has caused this damage to your baffle?

Warped woodburner baffle

The most common cause of a warped baffle plate is overfiring of your wood-burning stove. Overfiring is when your stove operates at too high a temperature. This can be caused by using too much fuel. It can also be caused operating the stove with the air vents open too wide or operating the stove with door open, both of which allow too much oxygen into your stove.

The high temperatures can cause the baffle or any of your stove’s other internal parts to become warped and misshapen. You can help to avoid this by using a stove pipe thermometer to check your woodburner is operating within recommended temperatures.

Worn woodburner baffle

Overfiring – as detailed above – can also create a hole in your baffle plate in the end.

Another cause of a hole in a baffle is failing to clean it regularly. The baffle plate is a favourite place for hot ashes to settle. If they are allowed to sit for a prolonged period, they might start to corrode the metal and eventually cause a hole to form.

Ensure you frequently remove your baffle plate and clean it.

Baffle problems

Baffles are destined to take a lot of punishment. They are positioned in perhaps the hottest part of the stove with the aim of keeping burning and unburnt gases in the firebox for as long as possible.

Nonetheless, some people can make a wood-burning stove baffle last for several years, while others find they have burned through or warped the baffle within a year. It all comes down to sympathetic stove operation. Check your stove manual for instructions on best practice.

Click here to find a replacement baffle for your stove.

Why is my wood-burning boiler stove not heating all the radiators?

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A boiler stove is a great way of cutting your reliance on central heating (and therefore your heating bills) by using your stove to also heat your radiators and provide hot water.

But it is not always the easiest thing to get right. So, what’s going wrong if your boiler stove installation isn’t heating all of your radiators? Here are some possibilities to investigate….

The temperature is too low on the boiler thermostat

This is the best case scenario. It could be that you just need to turn the thermostat up to achieve the desired temperature.

The air intake flap isn’t opening properly

When you turned up the thermostat, did the air intake flap open properly? If not, it could be a fault with this that is causing the problem.

Your stove isn’t big enough

One possibility is that the boiler stove you’ve installed simply isn’t big enough for the requirements of the system. These requirements will vary considerably depending on the size, shape, surface area and performance of your radiators, what material they are made from and whether they are double or single.

On that basis it is hard to get a precise calculation of how many radiators a particular appliance will heat, but a very rough guide would be to allocate at least 1.5kW of heat output per average-sized, regular radiator.

Remember, that is only an approximation and refers to the heat output going to the boiler – you also need to allow for heat going to the room itself.

Try turning off half the radiators to see if the temperature increases in the other half. If it does, turn them back on one at a time to see how many you can use before it impacts on the performance again.

A problem with the circulating pump

Is it your downstairs radiators that are failing to heat? If so, this often points to a problem with the circulating pump in the heating system. Your upstairs radiators are able to heat using gravity, but downstairs radiators need a circulating pump.

If the radiators are getting hot at the top but no the bottom, this also indicates circulation problems.