A wood burning stove can be a great focal point in your living room, creating a warm, cosy feel. It can also be a practical way to cut or avoid rising heating bills.
Whatever your reasons for getting a stove, our guide will help you to choose whether a stove is right for you and what things you need to think about before spending you money – stoves can range in price from £500 to well over £2,000, depending on the type.
As well as all the information here, we have a handy downloadable checklist to help you through buying, installing and using your stove - just visit the stove installation page to do so.
every time you start the fire. However, you can get stoves that will light automatically, usually pellet stoves, although these are more expensive.
There are a few key things you should think about before you buy a stove, which will save you money and make using the stove easier.
1 Do you want to heat one room in the house or the whole property?
Stoves are generally used to heat one room, but you can attach it to the central heating system to heat other parts of the house. Take a look at our page on wood heating systems to find out more.
2 Do you live in a smoke controlled area?
A lot of towns and cities are smoke controlled areas, meaning you will need to get a Defra (Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs) exempt stove or only burn smokeless fuels, such as anthracite, on a multi-fuel stove. Check the
Defra website to find out more, including an approved list of smokeless fuels.
3 How often will you be home and therefore able to light the fire and clean the ash away?
Keep in mind that stoves can take time to light and some need the ash cleaned out
In addition, some multi-fuel stoves can be run on ‘slumber’ overnight, but wood burning stoves can’t. It’s also worth noting that you will need to get the chimney swept at least once, preferably twice, a year and pellet stoves will need to be serviced once a year as well.
4 What type of fuel do you want to burn?
Wood is a carbon-neutral fuel, as the carbon it gives off is counteracted by the carbon it takes in while growing. Coal, on the other hand, is far less eco-friendly. But you’re choice on what fuel to burn may depend on what supply you have locally.
Take a look at our guide to multi-fuel vs wood burning stoves to help you decide.
5 How much space do you have to store fuel?
You’ll need plenty of room to store fuel, especially if you will be burning logs – based on the average amount people use per year, you need about three to four cubic meters of space - and it will need to be a dry area that is easily accessible for deliveries.
6 Do you have a reliable fuel supply close to your home?
There are a number of websites that list local fuel suppliers, or you could check what free fuel there is near you - such as a nearby factory that would be happy for you to take items being thrown out. Find out more about sourcing and storing fuel in our guide to using a stove .
7 Will you be able to comply with building regulations?
All stoves must meet UK building regulations. For example, there are specifications around how the flue is fitted, the size of the hearth or the distance of the stove from combustibles. These can all affect the type of stove you buy, so make sure you speak to an installer before buying. In addition, if you live in a listed building, this may affect your options. Visit our page on installing a stove to find out more.
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Go to www.which.co.uk/woodburningstoves for more information

Always make sure you buy a stove with the CE mark and preferably a Hetas stamp - this gives you assurance that the stove has been checked and is not only as efficient as the claims made by the manufacturer, but also safe.
A key part of choosing the right stove for your home is getting the right size and heat output, which is measured in kilowatts (kW) and ranges from 3kW to over 15kW. If you get a stove that has too high an output for your home, you may end up having the windows open all the time to cool it down - or running the stove at a lower temperature, which will create more tar and smoke and be less efficient.
The size you need can be affected by:
The size of the room – you’ll need to measure the height, width and length
The layout of the room and your house
- for example, if the room you want the stove in is open plan
The size of the windows and whether you have double glazing
If the room has insulation of any kind, such as wall or cavity
The age of the property
As a rough guide, if you multiply the height, width and length together and divide this by 14, you’ll get a gauge of what size stove you need.
However, we strongly recommend that you only use this as a guide, and don’t buy a stove online based on this alone. As there are a number of factors that affect what stove you need, from the size of your home to what chimney you have, it’s advised to get a Hetas approved installer to do a survey on your home before buying.
Approximately speaking, to make your room
21°C when it’s 1°C outside, you will need 1kW of heat output for every 14 cubic meters of space.
Our guide to getting your stove installed explains all you need to know and what you should ask the installer before spending your money.
Make sure you buy a stove with a CE mark and preferably a
Hetas symbol so you know it's as safe and efficient as claimed
In the UK, building regulations state that new heating appliances must meet a minimum efficiency rating, which is
65% for a stove, and 67% for one that incorporates a boiler. The higher the percentage, the more efficient it will be, and therefore the less fuel you’ll need to heat your home.
Most stoves have an efficiency rating of between 60% and 80%, and boilers between 80% and 90%. When compared with an open fire, which has about 32% efficiency, and a gas fire at around 20% to 50% efficiency, stoves are a good option.
Some stoves also come with cleanburn or cleanheat technology, which essentially means that air is introduced to the stove, helping to burn off more of the smoke and gasses - making these types of stove more efficient.
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Go to www.which.co.uk/woodburningstoves for more information

Although wood is the typical type of fuel people think of to burn in a stove, you can also burn other fuels such as coal in a multi-fuel stove. Here we talk you thorough the types of stove so you can work out what would be best for your home.
We’ve also compiled all of this information into our downloadable stove-buying checklist, which you can access on our stove costs and saving page , to make sure you get the best, save money and buy safely.
Also called solid mineral-fuel stoves, multifuel stoves can burn wood, smokeless fuel and coal.
There are differences in the ways these fuels burn, and not all multi-fuel stoves are optimised for burning all compatible fuels equally efficiently.
How different fuels burn
Coal needs air to reach it from below through a grate. Most multi-fuel stoves have a riddling plate that allows you to remove any ash that’s built up, letting more air through from underneath.
Wood, on the other hand, burns best when sitting on a bed of ash (also called a firebox, which is where the fuel burns), with air circulating from the top.
Because of these differences, a multi–fuel stove may not be optimised for burning both types of fuel. In our survey of 1,199
Which? members in September 2013, 45% have a wood burning stove and 35% have a multi-fuel stove. But the Stove Industry
Alliance (SIA) found that 77% of people that have a multi-fuel stove only burn wood.
If you are planning on only burning wood, getting a dedicated log burner is advisable. However, if you think you may not have regular access to wood and so would like the option to burn coal occasionally, then a multi-fuel stove is a good option. Some stoves have a control allowing you to circulate more air from above or below, depending on the type of fuel.
Also called wood fuel stoves, these run solely on wood logs, pellets or chips
(although chips are really only used for large buildings such as community centres).
Ideally, it’s best to work out what type of fuel you want to burn and what you have access to first, and then base your buying decision on that. If you live in a smoke controlled area, you will need a Defra– exempt stove or to only burn smokeless fuel on a multi-fuel stove.
Log burner
There is a lot less manufacturing involved in logs than there is with pellets and chips – or indeed none if you collect already fallen wood yourself – making burning this type of wood very eco-friendly.
Also keep in mind that if you are buying a stove to be more eco-friendly, coal isn’t a carbon-neutral fuel like wood. Take a look at our guide to buying a stove to find out what things you need to consider.
However, you need to factor in time for drying the wood - ideally around one to two years – to make it most efficient, which means you will also need the space. You can buy ready-dried wood, but at a higher price.
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Take a look at our guide to using a wood burning stove for more information on sourcing wood, drying it yourself and prices.
Go to www.which.co.uk/woodburningstoves for more information

These stoves, which can look quite different to log burners and tend to cost a lot more, use pellets made from wood by-products, such as sawdust, or other organic materials such as corn, which are tightly compacted together. Check which type of pellets the stove can burn before you buy.
Many wood pellet stoves have a ‘hopper’, which feeds the pellets into the stove so it needs filling less frequently. Many also have an automatic ignition to light the pellets electronically, a timer for turning the stove on and off, and a back-up power supply in case there is a power failure – something worth looking out for.
Use materials that may otherwise go to landfill
Requires less storage space for fuel
Produce less ash than burning logs
Pros
Drier and denser than wood logs, making them more efficient
Cons
Making the pellets does have an environmental impact – they produce
3.5 times more carbon per kWh than wood logs
Wood pellets can be harder to come by than logs
Rely on electricity so you will make an impact to your electricity bill
Need to be maintained more regularly than a log stove - they need to be serviced as well as having twice yearly chimney sweeps
Find out more about the costs of a stove , as well as installation, by taking a look at our guide.
Want all this information on buying a stove in one bite-size chunk? Then take a look at our stove-buying checklist on our stove installation page to make sure you get the best, save money and buy safely.
Stove brands
When we asked 1,119 Which? members in
September 2013 about which brand of stove they own, Stovax came top with 15% of members owning one.
Clearview came second with 9%, then
Moroso (7%), Charnwood (4%) and
Jotul (4%).
Take a look at our image gallery of stoves and stove brands by visiting our guide to multi-fuel stoves vs wood burning stoves .
Find out what is involved in installing a stove
Make sure you choose the best for you with our guide to buying a stove
Have you considered getting a whole wood heating system ?
Gain access to all of our guides and reviews, based on rigorous research and lab tests, by signing up to a
£1 trial subscription to Which?
Go to www.which.co.uk/woodburningstoves for more information