Personal style will be your next consideration and you’re likely to be spoilt for choice with a wide variety of stove designs to suit all tastes from traditional to contemporary. Matching the heat output of a stove with the room it is going to heat is very important and it is best to take advice on this from your local independent stove retailer.

These businesses will be able to offer you advice on choosing a stove that is right for you. Many retailers have joined the SIA Retail Group and signed up to following pledge.

Members of the SIA Retail Group pledge to help improve UK air quality and reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by advising their customers on the very latest environmentally friendly and low emission wood burning stoves.

Members will explain the benefits of replacing open fires and older stove models with advanced Ecodesign Ready appliances.

By offering expert advice on choosing, installing, using the right fuel and maintaining a wood burning stove, members of the SIA Retail Group are committed to helping the public realise the benefits of low carbon wood burning stoves, which provide renewable and sustainable heating for the future.

Find your local SIA Retail Group showroom.

Ecodesign Regulation

As well as it being compulsory for a stove to have a UKCA mark, all wood burning and multi-fuel stoves and fireplaces manufactured and placed on the UK marked since 1st January 2022 must adhere to Ecodesign.

Ecodesign Regulation sets maximum emission levels and minimum efficiency levels and has been welcomed by the stove industry as a way of ensuring high efficiency heating appliances with a low carbon impact and low emissions. This makes Ecodesign compliant stoves and fireplaces, such as a clearSkies certified appliance, cost effective to run and reduces their emissions by 90% compared with an open fire.

The particulate emissions limit for Ecodesign Ready stoves is 55% lower than Defra Exempt stoves so the recommendation, not only from the SIA but also for example The Mayor of London, Defra and the Welsh Government, is to install a stove that is Defra exempt and Ecodesign Ready. All clearSkies Level 3 and above appliances have been independently verified as meeting Defra exemption and Ecodesign requirements.

Heat Efficiency

Appliance efficiency is another key consideration – this is the amount of heat that is delivered to the room. The good news is that along with significantly lower emissions, modern Ecodesign ready appliances are much more efficient than open fires, some offering over 80% efficiency.

Installation

Your local independent retailer will also be able to advise you on the installation of your new stove and chimney system. All SIA Retail Group members have made a commitment to organise installation via an appropriately qualified installer, registered under a recognised competent persons scheme (e.g. HETAS, OFTEC). A competent person can certify the installation safe. This is really not a DIY job, but if you do have the skills to tackle it yourself, you must then get your installation inspected and approved by your local Building Control department.