In the ongoing drive to reduce our carbon footprint here at chez ECOutlet, we recently acquired a wonderful wood burning stove. Our mission was to heat the office through the cold winter months as sustainably as possible and burning wood is a great way of achieving this goal. Wood is a carbon neutral fuel source in that it only releases as much carbon dioxide as it absorbs when the tree is growing. So long as we replace the fallen tree with a new sapling it’s sustainable too.
We’ve been getting our wood deliveries from Certainly Wood who source it from sustainable, well managed British woodland and they also kiln dry their wood (to make it more efficient) using wood to power the kilns.
Choice of stove is also crucial, as the more efficient it is, the more heat you get for the smallest amount of fuel. Most of urban Britain is also a ‘smoke control area’. That means its legal only to burn wood (or smokeless fuel) in a stove that meets the requirements of the clean air act.
After a consultation and visit from the experts we opted for a Scan Anderson Multi Stove which was installed by a really nice team from Embers Fireplaces and Stoves. We’ve been saving up for this one for a while, they don’t come cheap but after a couple of months of use we’ve already seen a considerable drop in our fuel bill and the place is much warmer than the last few years even in this cold snap.
If you want to know more about Wood Burners there is a good article on the Channel Four site, the only thing it fails to mention is how lovely (and occasionally distracting) it is to have a warm, flickering fire at work.
PS That’s one of our Recycled Planters in the pic which we’ve found is the perfect vessel for storing wood and it looks really cool next to the wood burner too!
