What is a wood burning stove?

Woodburners

A woodburner or woodburning stove usually has a flat base with no grate in the firebox and you just burn the wood on that. Assuming there is no grate then its good to let a bed of ash build up because that forms a nice insulating base to help the wood burn better. Stoves without a grate also have a bit more space in the firebox to fit wood in.

You might like to view the range of wood burning stoves that we offer.

Slow burning on a Woodburner

However, even using a dedicated woodburner, its generally a bad idea to fill the stove up and "turn it down for the night". That is an inefficient way to burn which makes far more smoke and particulates. So please try to avoid slow burning or keeping it in for the night.

For information on which types of wood to burn and how to best prepare it visit our wood for burning page

Woodburner Chimney Liner

It is always good practice to line a chimney when fitting any stove, whether it is a woodburning stove or a multifuel stove, modern high efficiency stoves have colder flue gasses, which can lead to more tar build up in the chimney and an insulated liner is one way to reduce that. If you are planning to do a serious amount of woodburning then I'd say that lining and insulating the chimney is really a must (though its not a regs requirement as such) - see Lining a Chimney.

The Carbon Consequences of Burning Wood

Trees are mostly made of carbohydrate. To grow, trees take in carbon dioxide from the air and using the energy from the sun, turn it into carbohydrate. We chop the trees down, let them dry and then burn them for heat. As well as heat being produced the carbon dioxide that the trees originally trapped from the air is also released. Most firewood available in the uk comes from sustainable forestry - where a tree is felled another is planted. So the carbon that has been released is effectively trapped again by another tree. This means that overall carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere stay the same and so this does not contribute to the greenhouse effect - apart from the carbon released by processing and transporting the wood.

For more information on the CO2 content of fuels please see our CO2 emissions of fuels graph.