Summer sale 2016 - now on!

Our fabulous summer sale is now on and will run throughout June and July.

We have some great bargains - come and pay us a visit to find out more and to help us find you the perfect stove or fire for your home!

Christmas and New Year 2015-16

Our opening hours for the festive season are as follows:
24th of December: 9:00-13:00.
Christmas Day - January 3rd: CLOSED.
Normal opening hours will resume on the 4th of January (10:00-18:00).

 We would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Best wishes from all the team at Westcombes!

Summer sale now on

We have some fabulous special offers on a number of our stoves and liner packs for the summer. Come and visit us to take advantage of our summer prices.

We can offer quicker fitting dates during the summer months too - and you'll have your stove installed and ready for the first chilly autumn evenings.

Christmas and New Year

We'd like to wish you all a very merry Christmas - and to thank you for your continued custom.

We're going to be closed over the Christmas period from lunchtime on December 24 and will be open again on January 2.

Best wishes to you all for a happy New Year from all the team at Westcombes!

National Chimney Fire Safety Week

You probably won't be aware that this week is National Chimney Fire Safety Week.  With weeks for pretty much everything nowadays, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is one that you may not need to bother about - but in fact it is all about reminding you to check your chimneys before you start using fires or stoves as the chilly weather approaches.

One of the main causes of chimney fires is people using unseasoned or wet wood or not having their chimney swept. Over the years, we've had a number of customers who've thought they had a problem with their chimneys only to discover that they hadn't swept them for years and a visit from the sweep quickly sorted out the problem. All chimneys should be cleaned at least once a year - and you should get a sweep certified by the National Association of Chimney Sweeps to do the job. At Westcombes, we can recommend someone to you.

Chimney fires may not sound dangerous, but they really can be extremely dangerous so do stay safe and get your chimney swept regularly and use good quality fuel.

Why the summer is the ideal time to buy your fire or stove

The summer holidays are just beginning, and enjoying a sunny day in London is probably the priority for many of us in the coming weeks. Heating may be the last thing on your mind right now, but the summer months are the ideal time to buy a fireplace or woodburning stove.

Don't wait until that first chilly autumn evening arrives to think about getting that stove or fire, come and pay us a visit at Westcombes now and have your stove or fireplace ready and installed for when the sun goes in and the colder weather arrives!

Bank Holidays

We are closed on Bank Holidays so we are shut this Monday, but will be open for business as usual on Tuesday morning!

Easter Opening

We are OPEN today - Saturday 19 April - until 6pm.

We will be CLOSED on the Bank Holiday Monday.

Unfortunately, all three of our phone lines are currently down. You can get in touch with us by email - enquiries@westcombes.co.uk or by calling the shop mobile on 07587 178481

Our phone lines

Apologies to anyone trying to get through to us by phone. Unfortunately there is a fault on the line which BT Open Reach are apparently aware of and are trying to fix. The line went down on Thursday morning and we were promised it would take a maximum of 48 hours to fix.

At the time of writing, it is still not up and running. Talk Talk, our provider, are helpfully closed at Bank Holidays and weekends. We are extremely unhappy with the service which is affecting all three lines into the shop and would like to pass on our apologies to all our customers.

We can assure you that will be looking into finding a new provider once the Bank Holiday is over!

Picking up wood

There was an interesting item recently on BBC Radio Four's You and Yours programme about wood theft from forests.  Although many people think it's fine to pick up any wood which you may see lying around if you're out on a walk in woods or a forest, it is actually theft and you  need to get permission from the landowner before collecting wood. Apparently, some offices of the Forestry Commission offer members of the public the possibility of purchasing the rather wonderfully titled Firewood Scavenging Permit which will allow you to pick up wood for your woodburner. Rotting wood is an important part of the forest ecosystem, which is why landowners don't want it all taken away.

It is, however, legal to pick up drift wood from a public beach below the high water mark!

We'd always advise caution when using wood you've picked up yourself anyway as you need to leave it to dry out first and this takes a long time. We sell moisture meters at Westcombes which will help you to work out when your wood is ready to use.  Never use unseasoned, damp wood as it will not burn properly, will produce a lot of smoke and can clog up your chimney and stain the glass.

We sell a range of kiln-dried logs, kindling and flamers which we always recommend to our customers as you will find it easier to light your stove and it will burn more effectively and efficiently.

Happy New Year

We wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you to all our customers past and present, and to wish you all a very happy 2014.

It has been a busy year for us, and we've been extending our range of woodburners, stoves and fireplaces (now we just need to find time to add them all to the website!)

Our wonderful logs, kindling and flamers have proved popular along with our smokeless coal, and it has been great to see so many of you coming back to stock up on fuel.

Happy New Year from all the team at Westcombes!

Christmas and New Year

Please note that we are closed between Christmas and the New Year and will be reopening on January 2.

We would like to wish all our customers a very merry Christmas and send best wishes for a happy 2014.

Sweeps on TV...

We were delighted to see a fascinating item about our recommended sweeps on TV yesterday!  The Pearce family have been sweeping chimneys for hundreds of years and have some amazing stories to tell.  You can catch the item featuring them on the BBC's One Show by clicking the link below - but it's only there for a few days, so don't delay!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03ktcgb/The_One_Show_10_12_2013/

Special offer on our kiln-dried logs this autumn

It's not quite cold enough to put the heating on, but getting home after a day in this wet weather nothing is more welcoming than a warming fire or stove. We've had more and more of our regular customers coming over the last few days to stock up on kiln-dried logs and kindling, and we wanted to let you all know about our new offer on logs.

If you come into the shop to buy your logs and can take ten bags or more, we are now selling them at a discounted rate of £5.50 a bag. For fewer than ten bags, they are still priced at a competitive £6.

We've been selling kiln-dried logs at Westcombes for a couple of years now, and we've found that practically every customer who has come in to buy a bag has returned   for more. They really are completely different from the bags of logs you may be used to buying at your local garage which are often damp and unseasoned. Our kiln-dried logs contain very little moisture which makes them easier to light, and means a cleaner burn - which will help reduce the chance of smoking and a stained glass window in your stove.

Come and try a bag next time you're passing - we're sure you'll see the difference!

Our new stove showroom

If you've been to visit us at Westcombes this week, you may have wondered what's going on! We're currently renovating one of the upstairs showrooms into a new room which will be just for stoves.  We've been laying a new floor there and so the remaining space in our three other showrooms in the shop is rather over-busy with our huge range of stoves and fireplaces.

Most of the major work is now done, so it's a bit less dusty and we're on our way to having a lovely new showroom for our stoves so we hope you will bear with us until the work is done.

Chilli Penguin

We first came across the Chilli Penguins at the Hearth and Home show in Harrogate, and we fell in love with them at first sight.  We admit, the quirky name did catch our attention, but we knew right away that these stylish British-made stoves were something our customers would appreciate.

Chilli Penguin make their stoves to order in Wales, and they're a top of the range, high-performance product.  We were delighted to take stock of our first Chilli Penguins yesterday, and they are now on display in the stoves showrooms here at Westcombes.

The Chilli Penguin range is fairly small, and you can always spot them by their distinctive penguin logo.  They come in 5 kW and 8 kW versions,  and the smaller models can be used on canal boats - you can even choose one with an oven box so you can cook on it!  There's also a little stove in the range which has been specifically designed for use in log cabins, yurts and beach huts - perfect for a garden shed or studio.

Chilli Penguins come in a variety of beautiful colours to complement any home.  Come along and have a look  - we'd be delighted to know what you think!

Email

We've had a problem with our email this month, and for ten days things weren't getting through to us properly.  If you've emailed us between 10 and 20 July and haven't heard back, please get in touch again - we love to hear from our customers and always reply to all our mail - so don't think we're ignoring you, it's just that we might not have received your message!

Hearth and Home show

We've just spent a great day at the Hearth and Home show in Harrogate - the key annual event on any fire and stove retailer's calendar!

For us, it's a great opportunity to meet up with suppliers and to find out about the latest new developments in the field.

We saw some interesting new stoves and fires, and we'll be bringing you more news on some of them in the weeks to come.

We go up to the show every year - it's held in June in Harrogate.  We always enjoy our visit, and yes, we do try to sneak in a quick trip to Betty's tea rooms - a Harrogate institution - while we're there.

The exhibition fills three large halls at the Harrogate International Centre, and this year there were manufacturers from across the globe as well as a good range of British firms.  It is always a little HOT with so many fires and stoves blazing away on the stands - and every manufacturer keen to show quite how much heat their products can throw out.  We always like to visit the show though, to make sure that we are able to offer our customers a range of the latest products and designs on the market and to keep ourselves up to date too.

What to do with wood ash?

If you've been using your woodburning stove right through the last few chilly months, you may have been wondering whether there's anything useful you can do with the leftover wood ash.  We were very pleased to hear the issue covered in last week's Gardeners Question Time on Radio Four when the panel were asked whether it could be used on plants in the garden.

The experts on the programme concluded that wood ash is useful for gardens - and that now is the ideal time to use it.  However, although it is high in potash, it is also quite limey so is best used on fruit bushes, especially gooseberries, or around Clematis.  It seems that you need to put quite thick layers onto the soil - up to an inch - and then rake it in a bit.

Of course, it's generally during the winter months that you've got lots of wood ash, but the panel said it wasn't as good to use it during the winter because it tends to get washed away very quickly.  They advised collecting your ash during the colder months and then using it at this time of year on your fruit bushes and Clematis - so now you know!

It's that time of year again...

Now that some warmer weather finally seems to have arrived, getting a new fire or stove is probably the last thing on your mind - but in fact, it's the perfect time of the year to be considering this. If you plan ahead, you can have your stove or fire ready and fitted for the first chilly day of autumn - and make the best of it throughout the colder months.  As it is, we always find that we get a huge rush of customers the moment the weather changes, and in the run up to Christmas there are sometimes longer waits to get stoves from the manufacturers and fitters are often working some weeks ahead.  So, if you want to ensure you get the maximum benefit from a stove or fire this year, we always suggest coming to see us at Westcombes during the warmer weather!