Choosing a stove and fuel: a buying guide

This is the question most consultations start with. Here is how the options compare, and what each needs from your home.

Solid fuel gives you the real thing: live flame, radiant heat and the ritual of lighting it. It needs a sound, lined flue, a suitable hearth, often a dedicated air supply, somewhere dry to keep fuel and a regular chimney sweep. It asks the most of you, and of the house.

Wood-burning or multi-fuel? A wood-burning stove is designed to burn logs on a bed of ash. A multi-fuel stove adds a grate and ashpan so it can also burn approved smokeless fuels. In a smoke control area you can only burn authorised fuels unless the stove is an exempt appliance, which is worth checking before you choose a model.

Ecodesign. Since 2022, new wood-burning stoves sold in the UK have had to meet Ecodesign emission limits. Modern stoves burn far more cleanly and efficiently than older ones — especially with well-seasoned wood.

Dry wood matters. Logs should have a moisture content below 20%. Dry wood lights more easily, gives a better flame, produces fewer particulates and leaves fewer sooty deposits in the flue.

Gas is the practical middle ground: instant, controllable and convincing on a good high-efficiency model, with no fuel to carry. It needs a gas supply and a suitable flue, although balanced-flue models can vent through an outside wall where there is no chimney. Many stove makers produce gas versions of their wood-burning designs that are hard to tell apart.

Electric asks the least of the building — a power supply and somewhere to stand or fit it. That makes it the usual choice for media walls, flats, conservatories and rooms with no chimney. Most electric fires include a heater of around 2kW, and many let you run the flame effect with the heat off.

Sizing a stove. A common rule of thumb is roughly 1kW of heat for every 14 cubic metres of room, adjusted for insulation, windows and how open the room is to the rest of the house. An oversized stove is a false economy: run turned down, it burns less cleanly and can make the room uncomfortably hot. It is worked out properly at the survey.

The short version. A sound chimney and a love of real fire points to solid fuel. A gas supply and a wish for warmth without work points to gas. No chimney, or a media wall, points to electric — and the survey confirms which your home can actually take.