I'd use my stove no matter what (I lit it yesterday briefly when it was raining with very cold winds). It's my back-up heating, top-up heating and sanity inducer. 

I bulk buy unseasoned wood - legal minimum 2.2 cubic meters - and season it myself. I usually burn @ approx 10-12% moisture levels and the stove has a catalytic convertor so it is pretty clean and efficient. 

I love my stove. 🙂

@lucia Interested to know what you mean by legal minimum of unseasoned wood?

@vinceprince It's the law since 2022. DEFRA!

You are only permitted to buy unseasoned/green wood in minimum quantities of 2.2 cubic meters.

It is to (try to) stop joe public burning unseasoned wood on stoves.

The 2 biggest sources of pollution from wood stoves are:

1) older stoves that aren't clean(er) burning;

2)stove owners burning wet or chemically soaked wood. 

Obviously you can add fossil fuels but my stove is wood only and I test all my wood with a moisture meter. 

Posted by: @vinceprince

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legal minimum of unseasoned wood

There are rules on how wood is sold, small quantities have to be dried to a defined level before being sold. Larger quantities, as stated, can be self seasoned (dried over time) by the purchaser.

When buying larger quantities of self season wood, this wood is very likely to be still wet wood. Leading to poor burn, lots of particulate matter being passed through the flue. No good for the environment or you

Our log burner will be used for supplementary heating when the weather turns and the dark nights draw in. We don't really need to light it, but it's a useful quick heating boost for en evening in. Lounge normally sits at 20-21degC with the ASHP chugging away all day, but we can quickly raise to 23-24degC to get really cosy. We can't do that with the ASHP of course, it has no 'boost' mode. We usually get through 2-3 dumpy bags of seasoned mixed hardwood over the winter in our 5kW 12yr old Bohemia stove.

I was occasionally lighting the stove mid-morning when the ASHP was struggling to achieve an acceptable indoor temperature due to continual defrost cycles. We've now fixed the 3kW supplementary immersion heater installed in the system to energise during defrost, which has significantly improved the ASHP's performance when regularly defrosting. The installers had not wired up the immersion, or commissioned it, despite pulling all the cables and terminating at the ASHP...

Posted by: @johnmo

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Posted by: @vinceprince

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legal minimum of unseasoned wood

When buying larger quantities of self season wood, this wood is very likely to be still wet wood. Leading to poor burn, lots of particulate matter being passed through the flue. No good for the environment or you

Of course it is wet wood - that's why you buy it - it is cheaper and you season it yourself. You don't burn it green/unseasoned. 

2.2 cubic meters takes up a very large space thus it can only be purchased by people who have big exterior log stores. Mine holds 4 cubic meters stacked. You don't buy green wood in dumpy bags it comes on a tipper truck and is dumped on the ground. Stacking is a labour. 

Anyone who goes to this effort or cost is highly unlikely to be burning it green and lining their chimney liner with inflammable tar. 

@lucia I see, hadn't heard of this, probably because I don't buy firewood. Also DEFRA doesn't cover Scotland as far as I am aware so not sure if this has been implemented here!

Can't see why anyone would want to burn unseasoned wood anyway - we have a couple of years worth stacked under cover so never a problem for us.

The poll, of course, is missing a choice or two (ain't 20:20 hindsight a wonderful thing, @editor). Reiterating what I and others have said before on this thread, ideally I'd have answered "Yes, when I'm in need of a bit of a mood lift" since our use of the woodburning stove is far less linked with temperature than with emotional state.

We certainly only burn seasoned wood whether that's our own wood that we've left until the moisture meter tells us it's ready or pre-seasoned wood we buy in from a trusted local (sustainable) supplier. The real test we go by is the verdict of our chimney sweep each year since the flue doesn't lie; each year the sweep takes before and after photos of the chimney and takes away about a cupful of soot. That's the demonstration that we're burning wood that's dry enough and lacking in resin to burn hot and that our fires are being kept at a temperature where we're not producing much smoke, tar or creosote.

I would also say that the two extras we bought that have been incredibly good investments were a stove-top fan and a flue thermometer. Absolutely invaluable, the both of them.

Posted by: @vinceprince

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Also DEFRA doesn't cover Scotland as far as I am aware so not sure if this has been implemented here!

Exactly the same rules, with a different badge.

Posted by: @vinceprince

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...

Can't see why anyone would want to burn unseasoned wood anyway - we have a couple of years worth stacked under cover so never a problem for us.

I quite agree.

That said, I'm well aware there are plenty of people who do not realise how much of an impact burning resinous wood has. I've seen plenty of people be very careful in seasoning pine or spruce ready for burning, blissfully ignorant of just how much tar and crud they are about to generate not from the moisture but from the resin.