Wood stoves
A first stove is chosen twice — once for the room and once for the chimney — and most listings only help with the first. Output is the figure everyone looks at and the one least worth chasing: an appliance larger than the room needs gets run throttled, and throttled is the condition in which glass blackens and a flue tars, so the smaller of two plausible figures is the safer error. What actually decides a purchase is further down the page. The flue spigot diameter is the number every pipe, elbow and wall sleeve is ordered against. The required draught, published by two stoves in this whole family, is the only input the appliance contributes to the calculation that says whether your chimney suits it. And the appliance type — whether the door closes itself — decides whether the flue can also serve something else. The four below are ordered by how much of that they put on the page.
The chimney is the fixed part of the installation and the appliance is the movable one, so the chimney decides first. Its internal size, its height and the draught it produces are what a stove has to suit, and the only figure the appliance contributes to that calculation is its required draught — published by two stoves in this entire family.
If nothing else is known about the chimney, that is the question to take to a sweep before a purchase rather than after it.
A nominal output is the point an appliance is held at during a standardised test. It is not a range it roams across, and it is not a quality.
An appliance larger than the room needs is run at its lowest setting most of the time, which is where glass blackens, where a flue tars and where the declared emission figures stop describing what is coming out of the chimney. Where two plausible figures exist, the smaller is the more forgiving error.
Four things, and most listings give one or two: the output, the flue spigot diameter, the required draught and the appliance type. Where a page here prints only two of the four, that is what the listing published — the rest is on the plate riveted to the appliance and in the instructions, and it has to be read before any connecting part is ordered.
9 kW, 77.8 %, Ø 130 mm top, 12 Pa
The most completely documented listing in this family: output, efficiency, flue diameter, required draught, flue gas temperature and emissions, all published.
Best for: A buyer who intends to have the flue calculation done properly and needs the appliance’s inputs
5.2 kW, glass door, anthracite
Three published lines — a glass door, an output and a colour. The least documented listing in this family, and the one that costs least.
Best for: A small room where the buyer already knows the flue and is not relying on the listing for it
12.1 kW, oven 345 × 370 × 190 mm, Ø 130 mm, 3.9 kg/h
Ten published lines including a fuel moisture limit, an hourly wood consumption and an oven cavity — the only listing here to publish any of the three.
Best for: A larger room where the oven is part of the point and the flue has already been assessed
7 kW, soapstone, self-closing door, multiple connection approved
The only appliance here approved for multiple connection and for coal, with an automatic air regulation for continuous burning and optional storage stones.
Best for: An installation where a shared flue is already the situation and the maker’s approval is what is needed
This site does not rule on that, because the answer depends on the building rather than on the appliance — insulation, volume, how many rooms the heat has to reach. What the pages here do is print the output each maker publishes, and say when a coverage claim carries no insulation assumption behind it, which is most of the time.
The flue spigot diameter, and it has to come from the appliance rather than from the shop. Two of the four stoves listed here publish it; the others leave it to the plate riveted on the back or to the instructions. Nothing on the connecting side can be ordered until that number is known.
It is the pressure the chimney has to pull for the appliance to burn as it was tested — 12 Pa on the two stoves in this family that publish it. It is missing because it belongs to a data sheet rather than to a sales listing, and because most sellers never expect it to be asked for. It is what a sweep needs to size a flue.
For : A buyer who intends to have the flue calculation done properly and needs the appliance’s inputs
Main strength : Publishes the required draught — one of only two appliances in this family that do
Main limitation : The flue gas temperature is the highest published in this family
For : A small room where the buyer already knows the flue and is not relying on the listing for it
Main strength : The smallest published output in this family, which is the direction that gets run at its intended setting
Main limitation : Three feature lines in total — the thinnest listing in the family
For : A larger room where the oven is part of the point and the flue has already been assessed
Main strength : The only listing in this family to state a fuel moisture limit, which is the variable that outweighs the appliance
Main limitation : No efficiency percentage, despite ten feature lines
For : An installation where a shared flue is already the situation and the maker’s approval is what is needed
Main strength : The only appliance in this family stated as approved for multiple connection
Main limitation : No efficiency figure on the most expensive appliance in this family
Head-to-heads already published between two models from this guide or this aisle.
The models here come from the catalogue of this site. Specifications are those published by the manufacturer and on the Amazon product page; prices are what Keepa reported on the date below, and both move. The ranking uses declared specifications, the balance of stated strengths and limitations, and price. No product on this site has been physically tested, and nothing here claims otherwise.
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Wood heating is bought when the house is already cold, and that is the worst moment to judge a figure: demand for this shelf climbs through the winter and falls away in spring, so a struck-through price in November tells you nothing at all about what the same reference cost in June. UniverTrack keeps a weekly history for each retailer, so a discount is weighed against a figure somebody actually paid rather than one composed for the banner — and it says when ordering is genuinely the moment.
