Select one of the following questions to find the answer. These frequently asked questions will be updated as we receive them.

• Are there any grants available for the installation of a wood stove

  The Energy Saving Trust can provide impartial information on home energy efficiency.  

   

  They have a good knowledge of your area and understand the local housing stock, for example, they can help you find out whether or not your house has cavity walls and can advise you on any grants and offers that may be available to help towards the costs of installing energy saving devices.  

   

  To contact your local Energy Saving Trust advice centre call 0800 512 012 or visit their website http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk.

   

  It might also be worth contacting the Low Carbon Buildings Programme on 0800 915 0990 or visit their website http://www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk.

• How does a modern wood-stove work?

  New generations of clean burning stoves are much more efficient than models of the past. Most modern wood-burning stoves burn the fuel not once, but twice by introducing warm air just above the normal height of the fire.

  The effect is to allow the combustion of unburned hydrocarbons in the smoke stream. This in turn provides not only a ‘cleaner burn’ (i.e. less soot particles going up the chimney / flue and into the atmosphere) but also generates up to twice the heat output from the same amount of fuel.

  Furthermore, you will enjoy the sight of even more flames.

• Are Wood stoves environmentally friendly

  Wood-burning stoves are possibly one of the most environmentally friendly and efficient forms of heating there is.  

  By connecting a wood burning stove to the boiler or central heating, a whole house can be heated on logs alone.  

  This will cut carbon emissions by 100% and will also save money on heating bills.

  Wood is cheaper than fossil feuls and it's also green to burn - it's totally carbon neutral.

   
• Will a wood stove reduce our heating bills?

  From our own personal experience, the installation of a wood-burning stove can reduce your heating bills by as much as one third, however it is vitally important to burn well seasoned or preferably kiln dried wood. So what you may save on your heating bills will be spent on good quality wood, however your home will be much warmer with a wood burner installed!

  Heating with wood is not only environmentally friendly, but can also make good economic sense. Timber for fuel is typically up to 30% cheaper than oil or gas and with recent price rises in both, the savings are only likely to increase. An additional environmental benefit is that timber is usually sourced locally, so transport miles and associated emissions are kept to a minimum.

  In addition to this, if you choose a stove with a boiler option and heat exchanger, you can even provide yourself with domestic hot water or run radiators from the same fire.  Alternatively, you can augment your existing oil or gas fired central heating system, or reduce your reliance on it as a single source by feeding hot water from the stove into the system via a neutralising chamber.

   
• What are the fuel options with a stove

  Most of the stoves we sell are designed for multi-fuel or wood only.  Multi-fuels include logs, smokeless fuels or peat/turf briquettes.

   

  Multi-fuel stoves have a riddling grate which allows ash to be riddled into a built-in ash-pan to create the conditions for optimum combustion.  Wood only stoves have a fixed grate and no ash-pan because wood burns best on a bed of ash.

   

  Wood – a carbon neutral fuel

   

  Trees during their lifetime absorb carbon dioxide and generate oxygen. Whether those trees are burned as fuel or left to decay in the forest, they release the same amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Healthy trees from well-managed forests absorb three times as much carbon dioxide than will be released during combustion. Using timber from organised forestation reduces the need to burn fossil fuels, and when burnt in efficient stoves, provides sustainable warmth for homes without damaging our environment.

   

   

  Wood – a fuel for the future

   

  Consumers are increasingly turning to sustainable wood in the search for environmentally friendly renewable energy resources. During its life, a tree will have provided as much as twenty times more oxygen than is required for combustion and forests are able to absorb much of the Earth’s carbon dioxide imbalance helping to reduce global warming. 

   

  Organised forestation can reduce our need to burn fossil fuels and decrease our need for nuclear power and supplementing your heating with an efficient stove or stoves is a significant step towards energy independence.

   

  Wood is also a renewable resource particularly when sourced from plantations and cultivated woodland and most logs supplies will come from local sources.
• Can I run a wood-burning stove 24 hours a day?

  The majority of modern day wood burning stoves are designed to be supplementary heat sources because most of us have some kind of central heating system.  Therefore the majority of us don’t need to run our wood stove 24 hours a day.  If this is a requirement there are certain models that are particularly suited to constant burning, please ask us for more information.

• Wood-only or Multi-fuel?

  Should you get a wood-only stove or a multi-fuel stove?  As the name suggests wood-only stoves are designed to burn only wood, whilst multi-fuel stoves can burn both wood and smokeless fuels such as anthracite.  It is not advisable to burn coal in a multi-fuel stove because coal is very carcinogenic and over time it will damage the stove.
  
  There are differences in the way wood and smokeless fuels burn; wood burns best on a bed of ash whilst the smokeless fuels burn better on a grate that lets more air in from underneath. 
  
  Multi-fuel stoves are as a general rule less efficient than wood only stoves and the majority of people who buy a multi-fuel stove end up only burning wood.  If you are intending on only burning wood, getting a dedicated wood-only stove is advisable.
  
  Also bear in mind that if you are buying a stove to be more environmentally friendly, smokeless fuels are not a carbon neutral fuel like wood.
  
  On the same day in 2012 we installed two identical stoves into two identical semi-detached properties in Twickenham.  A year later we went back to the customers to do an annual service and chimney sweep.  The first customer had been burning mainly smokeless fuels whilst the second had been burning only kiln dried firewood.  On inspection the first stove was filthy and a huge amount of soot came out when the chimney was swept.  The second stove however, was very clean and hardly anything came out of the chimney.  This demonstrated to us that burning good, dry wood is by far the best option.
   

• Seasoning firewood

  Freshly harvested wood contains a naturally high amount of water between 65-90% depending on the species.  Removing the water is known as seasoning and for natural air drying it can take up to 2 years.  The moisture content for burning in wood burning stoves should ideally be below 25%.  Firewood can be tested using moisture meters – ask us for more information.

• Kiln Dried Logs

  Kiln dried logs are perfect for all types of wood burning.  Kiln dried logs have a average moisture content of less than 20% and the advantages of burning kiln dried wood are considerable:
  Generates greater heat output
  Better fuel efficiency and less smoke
  More economical and easier to light
  Minimum stove and flue problems
  Very clean burning and create very little soot and tar
   

• Burning unseasoned logs

  Your wood stove is only as good as the fuel you are burning.  Burning damp unseasoned logs produces lots of tar and creosote which clogs up the chimney and blackens the stove glass.  It’s also a considerable waste of money because it can take up to 3 times as many logs to generate the same amount of heat as burning logs with a low moisture content (less than 25%).  So to get the most out of your stove, only burn well seasoned or kiln dried logs.

• Open fires vs wood burning stoves

  Open fires run at only 20% efficiency so 80% of the heat generated is disappearing up the chimney and only 20% is being delivered into the room.  Whereas wood stoves run at approximately 80% efficiency, so only 20% of the heat is going up the chimney and the rest is being delivered into the room.
  
  Open fires require quite a bit of clearing and cleaning and are quite messy.  Wood stoves however are so efficient that they incinerate everything that’s put in them so there’s very little mess.  The ash pan in an average wood burner will only need emptying every 3-4 weeks.  The wood ash can be emptied on to your compost!
   

• Stove pipe thermometers

  We leave a stove pipe thermometer with every stove we install.  The thermometer is magnetic and fixes to either the stove pipe or the stove door (when fitted to the door it will give a slightly higher reading) and it will teach you how to run your stove.  If the stove temperature is too low, there will be a build up of soot and tar, and if its too hot you run the risk of damaging the stove.  The optimum operating temperature is between 300 and 400 degrees.  As the gauge drops, you add another log and/or open the air controls on the stove.  If the temperature is too high, close the air controls and the stove will start to cool.  Its never advisable to close the air controls completely because this results in incomplete combustion, dirty glass and a build up of lots of soot and tar – a little bit like trying to pull away in 4th gear in your car!

• Does my chimney need lining?

  Yes!  The reason we line chimneys is primarily for safety.  You’ll also probably find it’s a stipulation on your house insurance.  Lining a chimney is all about maintaining flue gas temperatures – flue gases leaving an open fire are very hot and travelling very fast and have generally left the chimney before they start cooling and forming tar and creosote deposits.  Stoves on the other hand are very efficient and because most of the heat comes out into the room the flue gases are cooler and travelling more slowly when they leave the stove.  This means they are cooling and forming tar and creosote as they are travelling up the chimney.  So by lining the chimney we’re reducing the diameter of the flue to maintain flue gas temperatures and get rid of the gases as quickly as possible.

• I haven't got a chimney, can I still have a stove?

  In the absence of a chimney, we install a wood burner with what’s called a twin-wall flue system.  Twin-wall flues are double insulated pipes that are safe to pass through combustible materials such as walls and ceilings.  When the stove is on, the pipe will get warm but is perfectly safe to touch.  Twin-wall flue systems can either come off the stove and out through the wall and then up the outside of your property or if you live in a terraced house with no outside wall or if there isn’t an outside wall where you want the stove, the twin-wall flue can go up through the house passing through bedrooms, landings etc and out through the roof.  It is then terminated with a lead flashing kit to make the hole in the roof water tight.  When going through the upstairs of the house it’s quite common for people to build an airing cupboard around the flue pipe to make the most of the residual heat coming off the pipe!

• Burning properties of different species of wood

  Species	Burning Speed	Comments
  Ash	Good	Low moisture content when green - little seasoning needed
  Beech	Good	Season for a year; excellent deadwood species
  Hornbeam	Good	Season for a year; more common in southern Britain
  Hawthorn	Good	Season for a year; thorns make handling more difficult
  Crab apple	Good	Gives off pleasant smell - useful for cooking
  Oak	Good	Season for a year; excellent for keeping fire lit overnight
  Field maple	Good	Season for a year; grows better on more fertile soils
  Elm	Good	Season for a year but often found dead and ready to burn
  Hazel	Good	Good coppice species; important for wildlife conservation
  Birch	Fast	Burn with slow burners such as wild cherry
  Wild cherry	Slow	Burn with fast burners such as birch; pleasant smell
  Blackthorn	Slow	Season for a year; burn with fast burners such as birch
  Rowan	Slow	Burn with fast burners such as birch; attractive berries
  Holly	Slow	Burn with fast burners such as birch and alder
  Yew	Slow	Very dense timber and slow growing
  Alder	Fast	Burn with slow burners such as wild cherry
  Poplars	Fast	High moisture content - season for a year
  Willows	Fast	High moisture content - season for a year
  Lime	Slow	Good coppice species; burn with fast burners such as birch
  Rhododendron	Good	Very invasive non-native species on acidic soils - eradicate
  Sycamore	Fast	Invasive in ancient woodlands - eradicate
  Sweet chestnut	Fast	Not invasive but gradually remove and replace with hazel
  Conifers	Fast	Season for a year - pine, spruce, cypress burn quickly;       Douglas fir, larch burn slower

• How well does a wood burning stove heat your home?

  If you’re thinking of buying a wood burning stove you’ve probably at least wondered how much of a difference it will make to the temperature of your house. Will it really reduce the heating bills? Will we still need to use the radiators? It’s important to understand the kW output your stove will need before you can get an idea of how much of a difference the stove will make to your home. You can calculate this by working out the volume of the room you want the stove in (length x width x height). Calculating Your kW Need So if your room is 5m long, 4m wide and 2.5m high, your calculation will be: 5 x 4 x 2.5 = 50. This means your room is 50 cubic metres. Now you need to factor in for things like insulation, windows and doors. So let’s look at 3 different numbers we can use based on the properties of your room: 10 – for very draughty rooms or those with at least 2 single pane windows and/or doors, or poor insulation 15 – for reasonably insulated rooms and double-glazed windows and doors 20 – for a well insulated room with few windows and doors We then divide the cubic meters of the room by the number associated with the properties of the room. So if our example room was well insulated, this would be 50 / 20 = 2.5. That means your wood burning stove needs to have about 3kW output to adequately heat your room. The Right Wood Burning Stove for You This simple calculation makes it easy for you to get a much more accurate idea of the kW output you need. For the room in our example, an 8kW wood burning stove would be far too powerful, using too much fuel and providing too much heat than is required. At a maximum, we would recommend a 5kW stove for the example room – if there are other rooms or stairs leading off it. This figure is designed to accommodate the room in question when temperatures outside are around freezing, so there should be no need to have your radiators on when your wood burning stove is on. So if you use your wood burning stove to heat your ‘main room’ every night over winter, you can most certainly expect to see a reduction in your heating bill!
• Can I install a wood-stove if I live in a “Smoke Control Area”?

  Can I install a wood burner if I live in a Smoke Control Area? Yes you can but there are conditions: If the stove is what’s called an ‘exempt’ appliance (approved by DEFRA to be used in Smoke Control Areas) you can burn wood in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions but it must be well seasoned or preferably kiln dried in order to burn ‘cleanly’ with low emissions. If the stove is not DEFRA approved, you can only burn fuel listed on the Government list of authorised fuels which includes; anthracite, semi-anthracite, gas or low volatile steam coal. Many of the latest wood-stoves carry the Swan Mark or DEFRA stamp which means that they have been tested to exacting European standards for both heating efficiency and emissions and are approved for use in Smoke Control Areas. Some stoves can be retrospectively fitted with a smoke control kit so if you’ve discovered that you are living in a Smoke Control Area and your stove is not an approved appliance, contact your local stove shop or the stove manufacturer to see if a smoke control kit is available. It’s worth noting that a good wood burner correctly fitted, burning well-seasoned wood will not emit smoke from the chimney. Once lit and up to temperature you will just see a heat shimmer above the chimney and no smoke.