Blog

Notes from the workshop and the installs — what we learn on site, written down.

Chimneys · Chimney Lining

Chimneys for airtight, low-energy homes

A chimney needs an air gap; a low-energy home needs an unbroken insulation envelope. How the two are reconciled, with the kits that do it.

Renewable Heating Solutions

Planning a home heating project

New eco-home, major renovation or a stove added to what you have: the measuring and planning done first is what saves the time and money later.

Masonry Stoves

Stack Stoves by La Castellamonte

An introduction to the Stack Stove range from La Castellamonte: a steel core inside a ceramic outer, for space heating, cooking and hot water.

Chimney Lining

Chimney liners: is 904 worth double?

A 904-grade stainless liner costs about twice a 316. What the difference actually protects against, and why in our experience it rarely matters.

Thermal Stores · Hot Water Cylinders

Thermal store or hot water cylinder?

What a thermal store is, what it can be fed by, sixteen reasons to have one instead of a cylinder, and two houses worked through as examples.

Thermal Stores · Renewable Heating Solutions

Thermal stores powered by wind and hydro

Storing the electricity from a wind turbine, hydro or solar PV as heat, in a thermal store, rather than selling it back to the grid.

Boiler Stoves

The Walltherm boiler stove range

A gasification boiler stove with record efficiency, Italian styling and a second window on the gasification itself — and Gondwana fits it.

Masonry Stoves · Wood Burning Stoves

Ecco Stove: British-made masonry heaters

Gondwana is an authorised installer of the Ecco Stove, a British-made silicon carbide masonry heater that keeps giving out heat long after the fire is out.

Renewable Heating Solutions · Thermal Stores

A guide to off-grid heating

Shipping containers, huts, cabins and family homes: the two ways to heat a building and its water with no mains electricity, and how they combine.

Masonry Stoves · Wood Burning Stoves

Steel and cast iron versus masonry stoves

What a masonry stove is made of, why it heats a home differently from a steel or cast-iron stove, and whether the steel stove has had its day.

Wood Burning Stoves

Quality in the wood heating industry

Why the wood heating trade in Scotland has a quality problem, what would fix it, and how to tell a good installer from the other kind.

Firewood · Fuel

Kiln-dried firewood: what's the fuss?

Kiln-dried logs cost more than air-dried. What the kiln actually does, why that costs what it does, and why dry wood is dry wood either way.

Firewood · Fuel · Log gasification boilers

Firewood for stoves and log boilers

The one number that matters with firewood is 20% moisture. How to test for it, what burning wet wood does to a stove and a chimney, and why the species matters less than you think.

Chimney Lining · Chimneys

Chimney liners: to line or not to line?

What a flexible stainless liner is, the advantages and the drawbacks, and why the reason we line older chimneys comes down to safety.

Wood Burning Stoves

Defra exemption: worth the paper?

What Defra exemption is, why it restricts which appliances can be fitted in Edinburgh, and whether it does what it is meant to.

Firewood · Fuel

Free firewood for Edinburgh residents

A woodland charity was running days where Edinburgh residents learned to manage a woodland and took home the wood they cut.

Conservation

Tree planting in the Borders

Another 150-plus trees planted in the heart of the Scottish Borders, near Kelso, with a view of the Eildon Hills.

Conservation

More trees for Scotland

Our second major tree planting day: birch, Scots pine, oak and ash, on a hillside with views over the Eildon Hills.

Renewable Heating Solutions

Ecobuild 2012: the highlights

Two products that stood out at Ecobuild 2012: a panel-driven heat pump new to the UK, and a radiator with a fan inside it.

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