And while I am on the subject of Europe, most very rural homes, will still have some kind of wood fired stove, cooker, range.
I started life with Rayburns. I learned to cook on a solid fuel Rayburn number 1. A very basic machine with no hob lids and a single oven.
Can I just quickly clarify here that when I refer to a range, I mean a proper one with real live burny fire inside a fire box, and not a gas/oil/electric one, which to me, is simply crazy. If you are on mains gas, or want to use oil, or can afford to use enough electricity to run a modest home every time you want to grill some bacon, then I'm surprised you are reading my blog. When I say "range" I mean a beast which sits in the room, needing feeding occasionally, with a fire in it's belly dispensing a feeling of wellbeing and warmth.
Anyway, back to the subject. You need to learn and understand how a range functions, to be able to use it properly. Basically the principle is this: Vents underneath fire box, allow air to be sucked up through the grate, causing the fire to burn hot. The flue pipe on the top of the stove, which goes up the chimney, needs also to be open, thus, fire + flow of air = woosh, hot hot. By opening and closing the vent and the flue you are controlling air flow. More air flow, hotter oven, less air flow, cooler. Those are the basics. Once you start to use it, you very quickly learn. It's obviously not like a normal cooker where a turn of a knob brings instant heat and turning it down brings an instant result. So how do you control your pan heat? Simple. There's a hot end of the hob, and a cool end. Instead of turning the knob to turn the gas or electric down and stop a pan from boiling over, you simply, slide the pan off the hot end, to the cool end :)
The hot end will be the end over the fire box, and the cool end is over the oven.
The Rayburn makes a great beginner's range. It's not complicated, the older ones can be got cheaply and it isn't huge, taking up half the room (like my big old Wamsler). They started life way back in 1946 and almost every year, the basic model was improved, with more features. You can identify the age of an original Rayburn by looking at the features and I have found a great page with all the info on it here:Identifying your Rayburn.
There are a few things you need to consider before buying your secondhand Rayburn. Firstly, buy in Summer. Sounds daft right? But in Summer, people aren't generally buying heaters. They are buying air conditioners, coolers, fans and fridges. So if someone is disposing of an unwanted Rayburn because they are doing up a property in Summer, it will not go for a lot of money. Ebay is a good place to look.
Secondly, if someone is selling something like a Rayburn Royale, and tells you that it'll run your central heating, they are fibbing. Check the link I provided above, to tell you which model will do what. A Royale does indeed have a boiler and you will get lots of hot water and maybe one very small single radiator, or a towel rail from it, but not central heating.
If it's close enough, ask to go and look at it. The top should not have any cracks in. Believe me, hot cast iron with a crack in it, is bloody dangerous as it can literally explode. Chipped enamel is nothing. It isn't pretty, but, if pretty is important to you, you can always have it sand blasted and re enamelled or painted with stove paint.
Then check inside the fire box. It should be lined with fire bricks. Make a note of any which are missing or cracked as you'll have to factor in the cost of getting those replaced. They aren't expensive, and, if you get the range in the Summer and are strapped for cash, you have a few months to get the money together. And being strapped for cash is a good reason to get a range, as I'll go into later.
Then, if the model is one with a boiler (basically a metal box filled with water, behind or wrapped around the fire box, with pipes coming out of the side, leading to your hot water cylinder) ask if it is connected up to their boiler. If not, then the boiler will be useless and need replacing if you want to use it for hot water, and boilers are expensive to buy.
If in doubt, either buy from a dealer, or someone who refurbishes them and offers a guarantee. Of course, like car dealers, this means you will get peace of mind, but you'll be paying for it.
Ideally, you will also have it installed by a professional too. You really don't want to be trying to do so yourself unless you are very experienced.
Running a range on solid fuel means you need to not only learn how to use the thing, but how to use it safely. This means watching what fuel you burn. Unseasoned wood for instance, will soon clog your chimney or flue and this is dangerous. Conifers produce a lot or resin and, if the chimney gets coated with resin, which is highly flammable, you could have a chimney fire. So use only seasoned wood (more on fuels later), hardwood is best.
You also need to maintain your range and flue or chimney. This means at least twice yearly cleaning. Get the chimney swept and remove the hot plate (obviously the range needs to be cold), sweep out all the soot which has collected under the hob plate and around the flue control and inside the flue pipe.
You wouldn't drive your car if it had the exhaust leaking into the interior and a blocked chimney or flue is the same principle. Safety first.....always !
If you haven't been put off by this, then I'd say, read up. There is loads of info online. Join forums, speak to people (like myself) who have spent decades living with a solid fuel range, then start looking at different makes and models. But for dipping your toe into the water so to speak, a small old Rayburn costing no more than £100 max' (you can sometimes get them for nothing) is the way to start.
When you've got the hang of it , there's nothing nicer than coming downstairs on an icy Winter's morning, to a snug cosy kitchen.
A range will save you money too. I made myself a drying rack which hangs above my current range. Some lengths of wooden skirting board (donated by my neighbour who was refurbishing his home, some lengths of dowel that I bought, some nylon rope which was left over from a roll I'd used to make washing lines outside, and some heavy duty screw in hooks and a couple of pulleys was what I used. If you are rich, you can buy a rack with cast iron ends. It'll cost you around £70 for a little 4 foot one. They are called 'Sheila maid', or 'laundry maid'. Mine is Pammy made and is 7 feet long with a total of 42 feet of drying space!
I built a box frame by screwing the skirting board together. It's 7 feet long and 18 inches deep. You'll need a centre brace to make it strong. Drill holes through the centre brace and the end bits, to allow you to place your dowelling to make the bars which your laundry will hang over. Make sure they line up. Screw an eye into each corner of the frame and on each end, tie a length of your strong nylon rope from one eye to the other to form an arc or loop.
I took some photos this morning to explain it all and I hope this will give you more of an insight than the written word.
note cord (green) from the right hand end of the rack, does not go through the pulley, but over the heavy duty hook in the ceiling.
Now, your Aga (Aaaaarguh) was the range they had up at the manor house. Cook used it. It was fueled by anthracite. It didn't run radiators. The cottager (peasants like myself) had a Rayburn. It was the right size (small) to fit in our humble hovels. The Rayburn was designed to burn just about anything, logs, coal, anthracite, peat. Much more versatile. On my range I burn, old shoes, junk mail, cardboard from packages I get, all the wrappings if I buy anything in packages, plus old cat litter including the turds. I use wood based cat litter and have lots of cats. The litter gets used by them first, the litter trays get cleaned twice a day, sifting the turds from the dry pellets and scooping any wet litter too. It goes into a bucket then tipped into the range. In India they burn cow poo, in Africa, elephant and Rhino poo, in Norway reindeer poo so it seems that poo = fuel. I have to pay for the wood based cat litter so I may as well get full use out of it, plus it saves on disposal. It doesn't up in land fill.I also smash up broken pallets and burn those. I get them free by going to builders merchants and industrial places and asking nicely. I always leave the areas tidy when I'm collecting and am always polite.
It helps the companies as they don't have to hire a skip and pay for the removal.For this though you really need to have access to either a van, or a car and trailer such as I have.
I also use old damaged furniture even if it's chipboard or MDF. There is controversy about whether these should be used because of how they are made, but frankly if the glue is nasty stuff when burned, it'll still be nasty stuff in landfill when it leaches out into the soil and groundwater, so I burn it. If you hoose to burn just ordinary untreated wood, this then is still not useless once it's been burned. You add the ash to your compost heap or raised beds. Never waste anything!
If you have properly installed your range, and your flues and chimneys are clean and clear, you won't smell the burning poo or cat litter or anything else. It all goes out of the chimney.
I once went through one of the coldest winters we have had, cooking, using the oven, boiling the kettle, heating the whole of the downstairs and drying my laundry........................for free, by using scavenged scrap wood!
BRRRRR but I was toasty warm indoors.
So, this is why I advise people to install a range if they can, and if they want to save money. After all, the money I save on boiling kettles, drying laundry, cooking and heating, can be put to better use elsewhere.
Here's my trusty old Wamsler. I did bedding yesterday and even folded over, the double duvet covers were dry in half an hour. On the table (lower right) is the double duvet I had washed and dried on the rack, with the door mat (home made by myself by knitting a huge ball of twine I'd been given) laying on top. You can see the tea pot sitting on the hob ensuring lots of hot tea.
The reason I now have a Wamsler instead of a Rayburn is because I like to cook. The whole of the top of the Wamsler, is the cooking area, as opposed to a small hob on a Rayburn. The Wamsler also has several useful functions, like the ability to raise and lower the grate inside the fire box. This means that in winter, you can put really big long bits of wood, or, if you are to be away from home for some hours, load it up with the appropriate anthracite, and close all the vents once it's glowing, meaning that it will burn slowly all day long. That's what I did here. You can't see the temperature gauge on the oven door but it is showing only 90C. That's barely warm.(just perfect to put a rice pudding in overnight)
The other function it has is that by moving a lever on the front, I can open a vent inside, allowing heat to either travel around the oven if I need to roast or bake. Or close off the oven and heat the hot plate, if I need to fry or boil the kettle, and of course, by making all the vents shut, plus closing the flue, it just burns slowly with little heat. I would not hang my laundry so close to a Rayburn as they simply aren't as controllable.
I paid £60 for my Wamsler on ebay. It was sited down in the west country and I live in north Cambridgeshire. I used a pallet company to transport it. The seller had it on a pallet in his barn so it was easily shifted onto the lorry and brought right to my house at a cost of £35.
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