The practicalities: What do they burn?
This will depend the type of stove you buy.
Stoves come in three main types, wood burning, multi fuel and pellet stove.
A wood burning stove is only capable of burning wood due to the flat base and it not having an ash pan or grate.
A multi fuel stove, these are capable of burning coal, peat or wood.
Then a newer and less common type of stove is a pellet stove. Despite been hugely popular in Europe and the USA they are yet to catch on in the UK. Pellet Stoves burn small compressed sawdust and produce a lot of heat.
The most environmentally friendly stoves are wood burning stoves and pellet stoves as these are classed as carbon neutral but it is important when burning wood that you burn seasoned dry wood with a maximum moisture content of 20%.
There’s no fire without smoke. And, particularly in America, people are starting to be concerned about the levels of particulate pollution produced by wood burning stoves. Through out the UK there are smoke control areas where it is illegal to burn wood. These are normally in build up towns and city centres.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t have a stove you can either use a multi fuel stove and only burn smokeless coal or if you want wood burning stove there are now stoves that are have been approved by DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) for use in smoke control areas. Wood burning stoves that are exempt from the smoke control restrictions are usually highly efficient.
Please follow this link to view our range of DEFRA Exempt Stoves.
click here for stoves
