More and more Sussex homeowners are making the switch from
oil, gas or electricity to log burners to heat their Brighton homes. Biomass fuels, including logs and firewood,
have increased in popularity as they are considered carbon-lean solutions for
heating. Many home owners searching for
a more eco-centric outlook believe that installing a wood burning stove may
greatly help them when it comes to achieving this aim.
When deciding which kind of wood burner to buy, there are a
few important factors to take into account quite apart from the aesthetic
considerations.
1. The Size of the Worthing Wood Burner.
Log burners have different heat outputs which should be
taken into consideration as the space to be warmed should be right for that
burner. A stove for heating an average sized
room should be rated at about 4-5 kW, whilst a stove with 8kW rating will be better
for a much larger space. The age of the
house, especially in historic towns like Chichester or Horsham, and any other
energy-efficiency measures already in place may affect what wood burner you
decide to purchase. E.g. a brand new house will only need a fraction of the
stove’s overall output when compared to a much older house.
2. Consider the efficiency of the Brighton
stove.
Current UK Building Regulations set a minimum efficiency
level for all types of heating appliances.
A log burners efficiency is measured by the extent which the
stove can extract heat from its fuel and then deliver it to the space it
occupies. This efficiency is then quoted
as either net or gross. The difference between the two stated values depends on
how the initial fuel content is to be calculated. For a dry burner, the minimum accepted gross
efficiency is 65%. For a stove which
incorporates a heating boiler, the minimum gross efficiency is 67%.
3. Intermittent or Continuous Wood Burning Stove?
A continuous stove burning at full output will last for four
hours without needing to added new fuel when burning a solid mineral fuel
(coal), or 1.5 hours when burning wood.
When working at a low burning rate, such a stove will keep the fire going
and not need to be revived for 10 hours when burning wood, which increases to
12 hours when burning coal. Continuous
stoves are used as a primary source of heat.
On the other hand, intermittent stoves have much shorter refuelling
intervals of around 45 minutes for wood or an hour or so for coal. These stoves are the more suitable when you
wish to have just an evening fire or a secondary source of heating.
4. Dry or Wet Stove?
Dry stoves just generate heat directly into the room they
are in. The wood burner is attached to a flue which goes up the chimney. Wet stoves have the addition of boilers
attached to a water tank. Such stoves
generate part (or sometimes even all) of the Sussex household heat needed to supply
hot water. Wet stoves can also work in
conjunction with solar power to provide an alternate energy in both the winter
and summer.
5. Wood fuel, multi fuel or solid fuel
stove?
A wood fuel stove uses just firewood, or other types of
solid biomass fuel. It requires seasoned
or unseasoned logs to work best. A solid
mineral fuel stove runs on fuels like coal, whilst a multi-fuel stove will use a
combination of either wood or solid fuel.
So, after considering all of the above questions, you should
now be in a good position to purchase a wood burning stove to suit your own particular
needs.
