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While contemporary stoves are all the fashion, there is still good demand for traditional style stoves - what is your preference?

Might help if you post some pictures to actually illustrate what the differences are. I've got a wood burner but I'm frankly unsure wether my black box is contemporary or traditional

I've yet to see the point.

I can remember the days before central heating was in almost every house: banking up the fire with slack late at night, cleaning out the grate in the morning, dumping the ashes, carrying coal up from the cellar, keeping the fire going all day.

It's just the latest fad, like laminate floors, halogen downlights, lights in stair risers and kitchen plinths, I neither like or need any of them

I'll stick with my gas fired boiler, programmer and thermostat thanks.

ayjay wrote:I've yet to see the point.

I can remember the days before central heating was in almost every house: banking up the fire with slack late at night, cleaning out the grate in the morning, dumping the ashes, carrying coal up from the cellar, keeping the fire going all day.

It's just the latest fad, like laminate floors, halogen downlights, lights in stair risers and kitchen plinths, I neither like or need any of them

I'll stick with my gas fired boiler, programmer and thermostat thanks.

I would tend to agree there. Only time I think it really benefits is if you have a plentiful supply of free wood and/or live in an area where powercuts are possible in the winter.

The fad won't last long though, over proliferation of wood burners in cities has caused the gov-mint to prick their ears up, legislation will be along soon and they will be banned or severely restricted in all but the most rural areas.

An estate agent tried to promote a wood burner as a positive to me on a recent house viewing, they were blank faced when I had finished explaining all the bad points as well as pointing out that if it was soooo amazing, why weren't the current owners using it at all?

Certainly buying the wood is going to work out more expensive. Or so I believe as I've never brought firewood in my life. The time spent cutting , chopping , stacking and cleaning out could arguably be better spent though I doubt it adds up to little more than the time spent watching an episode or two of coronation tripe . Other "downsides" s the space taken with the wood. I have several stacks in varying stages of drying and my sister in lard is always commenting how untidy our house is with a bag or two of wood standing ready.
As it is I tend to think " what if?" and like to have some resilience to potential problems . For example when we had that cold snap our boiler had packed up ( wasn't the condenser pipe , it was another issue and we weren't viewed as vulnerable) the wood burner helped out a lot. We use it to reduce bones too which with the riddled ashes gets dug into the garden. I've also used the ash mixed with the sand under the slabs of the patio.
The air quality issue is largely down to people burning wet or inappropriate wood I believe. Mine is kept for a year or more before being burnt and I won't burn treated or painted timber.