Why a Wood Burning Stove Should Be Properly Sized and Installed
Wood stoves are a fantastic way to provide clean, economical heat for your home. However wood stoves need to be properly sized and installed to maximize efficiency.
Avoid opening and shutting the doors to your wood stove regularly. This creates a vortex which pulls smoke and unburned volatile compounds into the room.
Energy Efficiency
Radiant heat is used to warm the home instead of hot air that's forced into the house through its ventilation system. This is an efficient method of heating since it gives powerful warmth that radiates across the entire stove, warming the entire home rather than just an area in the middle.
Modern wood stoves are designed to be as energy efficient as they can be. Manufacturers are expected to comply with more and more rigorous regulations with regards to emissions and the best way to achieve this is by making their stoves more efficient. The majority of our stoves (both DEFRA approved and EPA certified) have official efficiency ratings of more than 70%, meaning that a significant portion of the heat generated is actually used to warm your home, rather than being lost to the chimney.
Another benefit of a wood burning stove is that it offers an entirely independent source of heat. A wood burner can provide warmth during power outages or gas shortage, as long as you have enough logs.
Wood burning stoves are also more reliable than other types of heating as they do not rely on oil or electricity to operate. This is especially true in remote regions where other sources of energy can be disrupted for a long time.
A good quality log burner will operate at around 80% efficiency which means that a significant portion of the heat produced is used to heat your home. This is an enormous improvement over older stoves which typically operated at less then 20 percent efficiency. It is also one of the reasons a new stove is a good investment.
A catalytic wood stove will re-burn the unburned gasses and smoke that escapes the firebox by secondary combustion to further increase efficiency. However, non-catalytic stoves are becoming more popular since they don't require expensive catalyst technology to achieve the same efficiency and can be considerably cheaper to purchase. This is particularly beneficial for those looking to save money on cost of fuel and reduce their carbon footprint.
Clean Burning
A wood stove burns wood and generates heat however, it also releases particulates and gases into the atmosphere. This can cause poor air quality in some areas and affect our health. This is why it is essential to make use of clean burning technology for your wood burner.
If you have a brand new, modern wood stove that has Clean Burn technology, it significantly reduces the amount of airborne dust and particulate emissions. This will not only make your home more healthy, but it can also save you money since you will get more heat from each log.
Today's ECO design stoves meet one of the most stringent standards in the world when it comes to particle emissions - they are permitted to emit less than 5 grams per kilo of wood used. At Jotul we have higher ambitions - we want to provide you with the absolute highest quality in terms of the environment and your health. We have developed a solution that lets our wood stoves emit less than half the required standards - in certain cases, even less than one grams!
Modern stoves offer a variety of ways to optimize the efficiency of combustion. It is important to monitor air flow and only reduce it after the fire has become hot and stable.
Cleaner stoves also produce less creosote. This is an impervious substance that forms on the inside of the chimney and can be a serious fire hazard. Reduced creosote production can also help save time and money on chimney sweeping.
The pre-heated air in our new wood stoves is a key factor in their top-level performance. It is an additional layer of air that is introduced above the fuel and assists to ensure all particles are completely burned. This is the reason for a significant portion of the superior performance in our new stoves, such as the Defra-approved Hi-Flame Graphite 5
You must ensure that your wood stove is used only in smoke control zones (or exempt areas) where it is legal to do so. Smoke from the wood stove isn't only harmful to those in the immediate area, but it can travel far distances and contribute to poor air quality in neighboring communities.
Eco-Friendly
Wood burners are a low carbon alternative to fossil fuel stoves. As part of the closed carbon cycle trees absorb CO2 from air and release it when they are burnt. This process is less harmful to the environment than releasing CO2 into the air through gas, oil or electricity for heating at home.
Modern stoves are more efficient than older models. This means you can heat your home with less firewood. Some models are so efficient that they emit virtually no smoke, generate minimal ash and require 70% less logs than traditional stoves. Newer EPA certified stoves also include safety features such as an automatic shut off to avoid overheating.
Alongside being a great source of heat, eco-friendly stoves are the best way to cut costs on your energy bills. Gas and electricity prices seem to be rising year after year. With a wood-burning stove, you will be able to take control of your heating requirements and cut out the middlemen.
You can also make use of recycled wood or salvaged wood to make your stove more eco-friendly. Many people gather wood that would otherwise be thrown away in building projects or disposed in the garbage, but it is crucial to ensure that it is dry before you burn it. This is particularly important for those who reside in a smoke control zone where it's an offense to use wet or damp wood.
Wood burning stoves are environmentally sustainable because they make use of renewable energy sources. If you purchase your wood from a sustainable forest, then one tree will be planted for every one that is cut down to be used which helps counteract the deforestation caused by fossil fuel production.
While wood burning stoves emit fewer emissions than other stoves, they do emit fine particulate pollutants. These are tiny, toxic particles that can penetrate deep into your lungs and are extremely dangerous to your health. The independent body that sets standards for heating appliances HETAS has led a campaign to improve the efficiency of wood stoves so that they minimize this kind of pollution as much as possible, and a number of manufacturers are creating eco-friendly wood burners that meet the most recent standards.
Cooking
When properly used when they are used properly, wood stoves are extremely safe. However, if you're not familiar with wood burning, it's best to consult a professional to inspect your fireplace and ventilation system to ensure that they're operating properly. Modern wood burners make use of a firebox and chimney to draw in air and then release smoke. The ventilation pipe and the chimney work together to limit the amount of creosote generated by burning wood. Creosote accumulation in the chimney could lead to reduced efficiency and create a fire risk therefore it is essential to maintain your stove.
The crackle of the fire and the scent of burning wood create a cozy atmosphere which can take you back to simpler times. In addition, cooking with wood burning stoves adds a distinct flavor that cannot be replicated using electric or gas stoves. The smokey smell of roasted meats and hearty soups adds meals a distinctive and memorable flavor that cannot be achieved with other forms of cooking.
It is also well-known that cooking on wood-burning stoves is healthier than other methods of cooking. For instance, if roast vegetables or meats in your wood-burning stove, the heat of the flames helps to retain nutrients that could be lost when cooking food for extended durations.
Many people prefer using a wood burning stove as an alternative to gas or electricity to heat their homes. fireplacesandstove is a reliable method for heating that is particularly beneficial during power outages or in areas where fossil fuels are scarce. A majority of people also believe that a wood stove can be a more economical way to heat their home, as opposed to purchasing an gas or electric stove. It is also environmentally friendly because wood is a renewable fuel source and emits less CO2 into the atmosphere when it is burned properly.