I feel your pain. I have, ahem, acquired a solid fuel Rayburn. Bloody hell, what a palaver. We lit it for the second time this weekend. At least this time we managed not to smoke out the whole house on ignition - build a wood fire first, when that is burning well, lob on the coal. Don't lob on the coal when the fire it not properly lit.We haven't quite cracked the overnight banking. 1) Load with coal. Check.2) Close the spinwheel. Check3) Close the flue slide. Check4) Open the flue damper. Check.5) Set the lever that burns you really badly to "C". Check.6) Go to bed. Check.7) Wake up at 03:30 wondering why you've drenched the bed with sweat. WTF, the heating is on full chat. Go down to the kitchen, it gets warmer with every step. You expect to see the blue glow of Cherenkov radiation as you go into the kitchen, but no, it's the bloody Rayburn, temperature off the scale.9) She cannae take much more Captain. Switch ON the central heating pump, open all the windows. Retire to bed with the needle has visibly moved down a bit. 10) Get up, expecting boiling coffee in about 2 nanoseconds on the hot plate, but no, it has pretty much gone out. 11) Bugger. As far as I can see, the only plus side is the fact that you could order up 40 tonnes of coal (15 years supply....) and stick it at the top of the garden. What energy crisis?
