Our Top Tips To Get The Most Heat From Your Wood Burning Stove!

Wood burning stoves are a fantastic addition to a space; they bring warmth, light and often a real sense of homeliness. Most wood burners these days have particularly high efficiency levels, however it’s always useful to know all the tips and tricks to get the most heat from your wood burner as possible, particularly as we move into the winter months! If you’re not quite sure how you can do this – here are our top tips on getting the most heat from your wood burning stove!

Use properly seasoned wood

To get the maximum heat from your wood burner, you need to ensure that you are using wood that has been correctly and substantially dried – also known as seasoned wood. Seasoned wood is firewood that has been left to dry for a prolonged period, and therefore usually has a moisture content of 20% or less. You would not ideally want to be using wood with a moisture content higher than this, as it would require more energy for your stove to burn off the excess moisture, in turn reducing the heat output. Seasoned wood is easier to light than non-seasoned wood, will create stronger flames producing more heat and is also likely to release less smoke! You can easily buy ready seasoned wood, or why not have a go at seasoning your own?

Maintain your fire

Another way to keep your wood burner producing the maximum heat, is by ensuring your fire is maintained at all times. Rather than waiting for the fire to burn down at any point, aim for a layer of hot wood with a couple of logs burning on top at any one time; you are ideally looking for red-hot embers that will allow for a substantial amount of heat. Also avoid overfilling your stove, this can cause damage to the stove as well as inefficiently heating – you will burn through fuel far too fast, and it is likely that a lot of your heat will escape via the chimney.

Keep the door closed and control the air vents

If your wood burning stove has a door, it is there to be closed! Leaving it open will not allow your heat to distribute faster, it will in fact make it more difficult for your stove to produce maximum heat.

When the stove door is closed, you can control the airflow through the air vents. There are usually two air vents on a stove: the primary air vent and the secondary air vent. The primary air vent needs to be open when lighting your stove to get your fire started, then once your flames are roaring it can be slowly closed – allowing the secondary vent to step up and control the fire from here. The secondary air vent is likely to always need to be open a little, as your stove will always need some air in order to create heat, however opening it too much could reduce in inefficient heating. Here, it is about finding a good middle ground once you’ve got to know your stove and how it works best.

Circulate the heat

In order to push the heat from your stove around your room, heating up the entire space as quickly as possible – why not think about using a stove fan? Coming in different sizes to best fit your room size, the fan attaches to your stove and circulated the hot air around your space, rather than just allowing it to rise upwards. We have a range of stove fans here at Stove Supermarket for you to have a look at!

Keep your stove clean

It’s not necessary to be continuously cleaning your stove, but ensure that any excess ash and debris is swept away where appropriate to avoid any blockages. We would also recommend an annual chimney sweep, to ensure your flue can work as efficiently as possible. If you’re not quite sure how to clean your wood burning stove – watch our video!

And there we have it – our top tips for getting the most heat from your wood burning stove! Here at Stove Supermarket, we are always on hand to answer any of your queries, so if you’d like any further information, don’t hesitate to get in touch! Drop us an email at sales@stovesupermarket.co.uk or give us a call on 01226 816 051!

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