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Can you help me or guide me with with my plans to install a hearth and the fitting of a wood burning and multi fuel stoves onto a boat?

All our HETAS registered stove fitters go though training by us before going off to HETAS after 2 years of training. Part of their training is installing log burners onto boats. As we are very close to the Thames, we are often installing all types of stoves on narrow boats or Dutch Barges, from contemporary wood burning stoves with soap stone tops to more traditional Aga Little Wenlock SE style stoves.

The main problem with existing stoves on barges and cannal boats is that there is often very little regard for clearances to combustible materials like wood and we often see cases where wood have turned almost to charcoal, which is very dangerous indeed, as this could easily set on fire. The other issue is that the flues are short and do not always draw that well and smoke leaks into the boat, which is when carbon monoxide is present at dangerous levels.

A carbon monoxide detector is now law for houses and not yet for narrow boats, however we would always recommend this on boats as they more commonly have issues with this. But there is help! Our HETAS registered chimney relining experts will visit your boat and guide you through the process of installing a log burner onto your boat.

When we install stoves onto boats, barges or any other floating device that is on water we appreciate that you may want to go under very short bridges, which could be a problem if the chimney flue was not easily removable. We often have the top section a join just above the flashing, so that the upper part of the flue pipe can be removed before you go under a little bridge. Original installation of wood burners on narrow boats would have had a removable single skin cast iron flue pipe that could be taken off but often these had no rain cap on them and rain would drip down into the stove. When we install them we use a spinning cowl or aspirator which helps the draw of the fire when there is a slight wind it helps pull the smoke up and out of the flue pipe system.

Because we always use an insulated twin wall flue system on boats these are easily unclipped and fitted on, also the insulated flue pipe ensures that the flue gases travel faster out of the flue and this makes the flues cleaner and makes the stove work better by keeping the inside as soot free as possible.

If you would like to speak to us feel free to call us on 020 8942 8881. We look forward to helping with your project, click here to see examples of our log burning stove fitting on boats.

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