Buying guides
Which one, for the house you are heating
A hub compares one family against itself. A guide takes one question instead — a budget, a first stove for somebody who has never lit one, what has to be bought before the flue is even assessed — and answers it with a short ordered list and the reasoning that produced that order.
- Wood stoves
A first wood stove, and the four figures that decide it
Four stoves read in the order a first-time buyer needs: the output, the flue spigot, the draught the appliance wants, and whether the chimney is already spoken for.
- Installation
Sharing a chimney, and the door that makes it possible
Three appliances that state approval for multiple connection, and what the self-closing door has to do with it — read before a second appliance is ordered.
- Pellet stoves
Water-carrying pellet stoves, and the figure they are specified on
Three hydro pellet appliances compared on the split that matters — how much of the output reaches the radiators rather than the room the stove stands in.
- Wood cookers
Wood cookers, read on the firebox rather than the hob
Four cookers ordered by what they will actually take: the log length, the oven cavity, the clearances to the wall and the draught the flue has to produce.
- Splitting axes
Splitting axes and mauls, ordered by the wood they are for
Four tools from a 1.39 kg head to 3.6 kg, read on head weight, total weight and how the head is held to the shaft.
- Log splitters
Log splitters, sorted by what is in the wall
Five machines from a hand-pumped twelve tonnes to a tractor-driven fourteen — read on the supply first, the log length second and the force last.
- Kindling splitters
Kindling splitters, pulled, struck or screwed to a wall
Four tools for turning offcuts into kindling, read on the wood each one states it is for and on where it has to be fixed before it works.
- Firewood saws
Rocker saws, and the supply that decides which one
Four saws read on the socket they need first, the cut they publish second, and the guarding each listing is willing to describe.
- Stove fans
Stove fans, and the start temperature that decides everything
Four fans read on the one figure that says whether yours will turn at all — and on the two mountings, one for hot stove tops and one for cold.
- Sweeping sets
Sweeping sets, sized to the flue rather than to the catalogue
Four sets from a metre and a half of cable to twelve metres of rod, read on reach, thread and which bristle belongs in which flue.
- CO alarms
CO alarms, read on the standard before the features
Four alarms compared on the standard each one names, the sensor life it states, and whether the room it will live in is heated.
- Chimney liners
Twin-wall chimney kits, and the four things a listing must say
Four kits and elements read on the steel grades, the insulation, the standard named and — on one of them — what the flue must never burn.