Ventilation for stoves and fireplaces

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Ventilation for stoves

Stoves require less air than a fireplace to function, but they do still need some. Without this air supply the stove will smoke as there will not be a movement of air through the chimney to carry the smoke away. This is annoying and potentially dangerous. Building regs state that for each kilowatt above five, 550 sq mm of ventilation is required for a stove. The best plan is to fit ventilation near to the stove so that the cold air coming into the house does not have to travel so far. We can supply a stove ventilator which can easily be fitted with a 5 inch core drill. It has a series of baffles to reduce wind noise, a louvred grille for inside and a hood to prevent rain entry outside. Read more about this in our Building regulations subsection - stove room ventilation page

Ventilation for fireplaces

Fireplaces require a lot more air than a stove. This is because of the large opening size of the fireplace. The maximum opening size of a stove (the firebox opening when the stove doors are open) is small compared to the aperture of even a small fireplace. Inadequate ventilation is a common cause of a smoking fireplace. If your fireplace has a throat (where the chimney opening narrows above the fire) then you need to provide permanently open vent(s) of at least 50% of the cross sectional area of the chimney at the throat. If the fireplace does not have a throat then you need to provide permanently open vent(s) of at least 50% of the cross sectional area of the flue.