Wood Burning Stoves: Why Wood?

Relaxing in front of a modern Wood burning stove is not the only reason to own one. As well as a source of heat, today's wood burning fires are very clean and extremely efficient. Between 70 and 90 pence in every pound is transferred into usable heat and after installation cost is recouped your fuel bills will reduce.

This efficiency is similar to modern gas fired boilers; however the price of fossil fuel is rising fast. Environmental concerns give other reasons to find alternative fuels. When a tree grows it absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2) releasing oxygen (02) as a bi-product. When a tree is felled this CO2 is released back into the environment whether it is burnt in your fireplace or by natural decay. If your wood is from a renewable source then this cycle continues, sourcing your wood locally also helps the environment. Coal is by far the most environmentally hostile fossil fuel.

Wood Storage

We also build in-house custom log stores in both hard and soft wood so your wood will stay dry. Having a log store will enable you to buy unseasoned (green) wood which is less expensive and which you can use at a later date after its drying out period.

Wood logs should have maximum 20% moisture content; you can ensure this by using a simple moisture meter. Using logs with a higher moisture percentage will not only give poor performance in your Stove but will severely increase Creosote build-up within your Chimney or Flue.

The best all-round woods for use in your Stove are Ash and Beech; they are both dense hard Woods with high calorific values. This means less time topping up the stove. These hard woods also occupy far less storage space for the same heat output of a softwood alternative.

Things To Consider

Your house may not even have a Chimney but this does not necessarily preclude you from having a log burner installed, in most cases we can fit a twin walled stainless steel flue system.