When we bought our little house it came with a pellet burner in the living room, which was the owner’s pride and joy. It certainly heated the room well & we were given a demonstration of how it could be switched on remotely using a Smartphone, so that the house could be lovely & warm the moment we walked in.
On paper it was perfect, but reality was a totally different thing. ‘The Growler’ as it quickly became known was set in the corner of the living room, in such a position that we couldn’t open one side of the front window – not ideal. It was also a large, black brooding presence, bearing more than a passing resemblance to a ‘Dalek’ or similar alien robot born of science fiction!
Then there was the noise. Part of the enjoyment from having a fire is the gentle tick that comes from the woodburner as it warms and the silent enjoyment of just being able to sit & watch dancing flames. ‘The Growler’ gave us neither of these, with the metallic ting of pellets being regularly deposited into the grate, coupled with the roaring noise of a fire being force-fed air. It certainly didn’t make for a quiet, thoughtful & dare I even suggest romantic ambience!
We quickly decided it had to go & looked to replace it with a nice woodburner that could become a focal point for the room as well as being something to keep us toasty and warm in winter too.
We were pointed in the direction of a very local fireplace company and within a couple of days a stove had been selected, a site visit made and a date set for the installation.
Fantastic …… but then we started to worry about what on earth we could do with ‘The Growler’? 100 kilos of metal in a room 1 storey up, accessed by a narrow old staircase! Andy had visions of him having to break it up somehow and remove it piece by piece to the nearby tip.
We mentioned our dilemma to a couple of people who both suggested that we advertise it for sale on ‘Le Bon Coin’ http://www.leboncoin.fr
This is a great site where you can sell everything from houses to cars and (as we quickly found out) pellet burners!
It’s very easy and also free to advertise on the site so we did some research on the burner, set a price and submitted the advert, not really expecting any interest. How wrong we were!
Within days we had a buyer who drove out one afternoon and most importantly helped carry the burner down the staircase and out of the house.
Within minutes it looked as if there had never been anything there – the only sign being the hole in the wall where the vent had been and a slightly warped window frame!
So ‘The Growler’ has gone and the new woodburner is being installed next week. We have been really impressed with the local company we are using as back in July they said they would fit it in the week starting 10th October and having popped out today to check a few details they have said they’ll be with me at 8.30 on Monday. I can cope with that, especially as we had specially arranged for me to come to oversee the work and it would have been very difficult if the date had shifted.
So out with the old and next week it will be in with the new, which will make a huge difference to the living room and hopefully give us the cosy atmosphere we love from a real fire.
In the meantime though I’ll keep getting on with other bits that need to be done in the house and enjoy pottering to markets & fitting in a few bike rides as well!
I know there’s going to be mess and a bit of chaos so I might as well enjoy myself whilst I’m here!
Vaucluse Dreamer 