- reduce your carbon footprint
- reduce energy bills
- heat your home and water (with a back boiler)
- some financial return
Wood burning stoves are suitable for heating a single room that has a chimney or an outside wall suitable for the installation of a flue. They come in all shapes and sizes, and can burn logs or wood pellets.
Modern wood-burning stoves are a huge improvement on the open fire for room heating. The more efficient pellet stoves operate at up to 90 per cent efficiency. They spread the heat through convection, rather than traditional radiation, which means the room is heated more evenly and efficiently using a fan. They are clean and easy to use, with automatic ignition and a thermostatic control. They have a small integrated hopper, which automatically tops up the fuel. These generally hold enough fuel for one to three days operation.
If you want to attach a back boiler to a stove to heat water, you will need to check with your installer or plumber whether additional changes to your plumbing are necessary, especially if you have a combi boiler.
Your stove will also need to meet air quality standards if you live in a Smoke Control Area. A DEFRA exempt stove will do this.
It’s important to think through carefully the supply, storage and handling of fuel before you invest in a wood burning stove. There are generally some trade-offs between each fuel type, and they will be specific to your site
Wood pellets are the most convenient fuel used in wood burning stoves and made from compressed sawdust and wood shavings and other biomass products and are uniform in size and shape. They have higher energy content and so take up less storage space than logs. Wood pellets are more expensive than logs and can only be burned in a stove specifically designed for them.
As part of the Clean Air Strategy, government has pledged that from spring 2021 all wood sold in units of less than 2m3 with a moisture content of more than 20% will be banned, in an attempt to encourage owners of stoves and open fires to move to ‘cleaner’ alternatives such as dried wood, which cause less pollution. The Ready to Burn certification scheme will come into force in England from 1 May 2021 for most wood suppliers.
Log burning stoves should be kept clean and swept regularly to remove ash. This is likely to be weekly and never more than once a day. If the ash is not cleaned out regularly, it will build up and adversely affect combustion conditions, which can lead to boiler failure and shutdown. Burning pellets produces a lot less ash than a log burning stove and usually have a large ashpan. You are likely to be able to go for a couple of weeks before needing to empty the ashpan, depending on how often you use the stove.
You should also carry out an annual maintenance check on your stove, and the chimney and/ or flue pipe must be swept regularly to remove all soot deposits and prevent blockage. HETAS recommend that this “should be done at least twice a year;’ preferably before the heating season and at the end of the heating season.
Logs should always be seasoned (air-dried) for at least a year before being burned. Burning wet wood increases the amount of soot in a chimney and with it the chance of a chimney fire.
From a search of the web in January 2021, indicative prices for a sophisticated pellet stove with a back boiler were in the region of up to £5,000. A pellet stove without a back boiler is likely to cost £1,500 to £2,000 excluding installation. Log burning stoves are cheaper – from £400 excluding installation.
Unlike other renewable technologies there is also an ongoing fuel cost with biomass heating.
Wood pellet costs will depend on the size and method of delivery. For a pellet stove you are likely to be buying bagged pellets. If you have room to store a pallet of bagged pellets this will be cheaper.
Logs are cheaper and if you can buy them unseasoned and store them somewhere where to season (dry) you can save money. Buying small bags of netted logs is not a cost-effective option.
Suppliers’ costs will likely vary according to the distance the supplier has to travel. Make sure there is at least one, or preferably a choice of, local fuel suppliers.
Biomass systems are deemed permitted developments unless the flue exceeds the height of the roof by one metre or more. You will also need to make sure that your installation meets the standards of the relevant building regulations on clean air, ventilation and safety. It is usually recommended to have an existing chimney lined with a flue before using it with a biomass stove in order to ensure that there is sufficient draw of air and no leakages of flue gases.
Contact your local planning department for all installations to check conditions will be met
Pellet stoves with a back boiler are eligible for the RHI.
Additionally, to be eligible your system must provide some space heating, must meet air quality standards, and you must buy fuel from a supplier on the Biomass Suppliers List found here.
The Ecodesign Regulations, developed in the wake of the Clean Air Strategy, set out new minimum seasonal efficiency and maximum emission requirements for solid fuel burning room heater stoves, room heater stoves with boilers, and cooker appliances to make them more efficient and environmentally friendly. Only those appliances that have been tested and verified as meeting these new limits will be able to be sold and installed legally within the UK after 1 January 2022. For more information on this initiative visit HETAS’s website.
A ClearSkies label on a wood burning appliance means that it has been certified and meets all the energy and efficiency criteria set out by Ecodesign.
YouGen recommends that you use an installer registered with HETAS for the installation of a log or pellet burning stove. A HETAS registered installer will have the competencies required to ensure that your new stove installation is compliant with the building regulations and can advise you on the most suitable stove for your home.
For a pellet stove with a back boiler you should use an MCS certified installer to install your system. This means that the installer should adhere to technical standards of installation and you can benefit from financial incentives like the RHI. You can discover more information on helping you find an installer here.
