How ‘air-tight’ a home is can have a significant impact on its energy rating. Investing in a stove or gas fire (or any form of heating for that matter) will help warm your home, and so the last thing you then want is for your warmed air to escape, but at the same time ventilation is essential to allow toxic gases to be vented into the atmosphere.
There is a balance between having an ‘air-tight’ home and allowing adequate ventilation, and of course not needing to mention the carbon footprint of the fuel you are burning.
Installing a wood-burning stove for heating both the air and water in your home can help you become much more energy-efficient, and as a result, reduce your carbon footprint.
Wood is the most environmentally friendly fuel as it is sustainable and is almost carbon neutral.
What is Carbon Neutral?
Carbon neutral is a term that is used to describe the action of individuals (also businesses) to remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they put into it. Wood comes from trees (obviously!) and the natural cycle of planting and harvesting trees has created a sustainable process. Burning wood creates a little carbon dioxide, but carbon dioxide is taken out of the atmosphere by growing trees too.
Approx Carbon Dioxide (kg/KWh) by Fuel Source:
Electricity – 0.53kg
Oil – 0.26kg
Dual Fuel (Wood & Mineral) – 0.22kg
Gas – 0.2kg
Wood Pellets – 0.02kg
Wood Logs – 0.008kg
Stove Efficiency:
Stoves are very efficient and burning wood is almost carbon neutral. A good quality stove should be around 80% efficient. This means 80% of the heat that is being produced from the stove is being used to heat the room. So what happens to the other 20%? This is mostly lost by heat rising up the chimney. An open fire has an efficiency of around 32% and a room open gas effect fire has in the region of a 55% efficiency.
A wood-burning stove makes an excellent choice for heating a home, whether it is just for heating a home’s air, or better still, if you wish to use it for heating the air and water.
PureVision Wood Burning Stove Efficiency
Total efficiency is measured using well-established methods from harmonised EU standards EN 13240 and EN 13229. This is an indicator of the ability of a stove to turn fuel into heat for you. Below is the total efficiency of some of our PureVision stoves:
PureVision 5 & 5i – 80.2%
PureVision 5W & 5iW – 82.2%
PureVision 85 & 85i – 76.7%
Below is the CO2 emissions of the same stoves:
PureVision 5 & 5i – 0.1%
PureVision 5W & 5iW – 0.08%
PureVision 85 & 85i – 0.1%
To view our range of wood-burning stoves, request a free brochure online here.