Joanna Rossiter
The cult of the wood-burner
They're hot property – but will they cut your energy bills?
The British middle-classes are a predictable breed. We love nothing more than to take goods that were once prudent and pragmatic and give them a luxury edge. From the Mini Cooper, first marketed as an affordable car for the masses, to Land Rover Defenders that we have no intention of spoiling with mud, we like our creature comforts to be rooted in a make-do-and-mend mindset, even if they have long outgrown their original purpose.
It’s little wonder, then, that the British have been so quick to embrace wood-burners. Because what embodies that no-nonsense, post-war mentality better than huddling around the hearth to keep warm or stacking logs into a shed on a cold October morning? Woe betide the homeowner who doesn’t immediately rip out their unsightly 1970s gas fire with its fake glowing coals and install one of these instead.
Ask any member of the chattering classes how they're going to get through the energy crisis this winter and they’ll most likely wax lyrical about their wood-burning stove. Wood-burners have gained a cult following in recent years and have almost overtaken the Aga as a symbol of middle England. The surge in gas prices has only bolstered their popularity; sales of stoves are up 40 per cent on this time last year.
As the nights draw in, the appeal of a wood-burner is hard to deny. Keeping the central heating off for a few extra weeks feels more manageable with one of these crackling away in the corner. They're more efficient and less messy than an open fire and conjure up a faintly Nordic picture of snuggling by the hearth with the snow outside, book in hand, dog at your feet. If anything embodies the Swedish fad of hygge, or the British trend of cottagecore, it's surely a wood-burner.
Despite being popularised by the rise of Scandi chic, the wood-burner was actually the brainchild of Benjamin Franklin. He wanted to find a way to increase fire heat and reduce the volume of smoke that would be circulated around a room and so invented a metal box with a chimney to do the job.
Perhaps the key to their popularity is the sheer range of designs available. Unlike the rigid aesthetic of the Aga, it’s relatively easy for homeowners to find a wood-burner that matches their choice of décor – from pretty, French-inspired rococo numbers to sleek modernist cylinders, or ‘Kakelugn’ as they’re known in Sweden. Whatever your taste, there's a fire out there for you. Prices start at £200 for the more basic models but can easily exceed £4,000 for an authentic cast iron stove.
Are they really the answer to soaring energy bills, though? According to Certainly Wood, Britain’s largest supplier of firewood, it will cost around £600 to keep a wood-burner going during evenings and weekends this winter. The price of firewood is on the rise as transport costs increase and larger numbers of households install stoves and stock up on logs.
But with the energy price cap at £2,500 and the average household energy bill expected to come in at £2,100 this winter, logs do seem to offer a viable alternative to gas, at least on paper.
The Energy Saving Trust estimates that wood-burners can account for 10 per cent of the heating needs of the average home, and in a survey by Which? 60 per cent of wood-burning stove users reported making savings. But it’s a rare household that can keep warm using a wood-burner alone. Many find the stove onlys heat a small proportion of the room, so unless you spend the evening huddled around it like a scene from The Swiss Family Robinson, it’s likely the central heating will have to stay on as well. The danger is that wood-burners become an expensive extra during what is already a costly year for energy.
For the health- and climate-conscious, wood-burning stoves also come with a warning. Despite being safer than open fires, they still emit polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which are carcinogenic. A study last year found that wood-burning stoves were responsible for almost half of cancer-causing chemicals found in air pollution in urban areas, while research released in February claimed that wood-burning in British homes was responsible for more small particle pollution than all of the UK’s traffic.
But before you snuff out the stove for good, there are some simple steps that homeowners can take to reduce their exposure to toxins and the damage done to the environment. For example, burning wet fuel can result in five times more emissions than dry fuel, so investing in dried firewood and weatherproof storage is sensible, and more efficient too.
Limiting the number of times you open the door of the wood-burner to refuel can lessen exposure to particles. Air purifiers also help improve air quality in the room where the wood-burner is used.
Yet no amount of doom-mongering seems to dampen that atavistic desire to light a good, old-fashioned fire. Wood-burning stoves have become a national indulgence. And as November looms, when the drizzle sets in and it’s dark by 4 p.m., who can blame us?
Four wood-burners to suit every type of home
Modernist
Norwegian wood-burner company Jøtul specialise in fire ‘inserts’ such as this one that can be placed into the centre or corner of a wall. These suit modern homes with sleek lines where a traditional iron wood-burner would look out of place.
Swedish
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Traditional
French
The French love to add rococo-inspired flourishes and splashes of colour to their iron stoves. A wood-burner doesn’t have to come in the form a staid black box. Why not embrace a little bit of Gallic playfulness instead, such as this one from Stove Hunters?