Clean-Burning Woodstoves Ignite a Greener Heating Trend
No need to rely on oil or gas to heat your home — new woodstove designs burn cleanly and are beautiful to boot
Who doesn't love the warm, crackling blaze of a real fire in fall and winter? While nothing can replace the deep, radiating warmth and meditative flicker of a good fire, the smoke, dust and poor air quality that traditional fireplaces and older woodstoves cause can leave you feeling less than cozy. If you want to enjoy your fire while making an environmentally sound choice, it's time to look to the new woodstoves. Designers in northern countries (who know their cold weather) have led the way in developing stoves with maximum efficiency and minimal environmental impact — and thankfully, many of the same models are now available in the States.
Discover for yourself the pros and cons of using a woodstove to heat your house, from installation and aesthetics to long-term costs and efficiency.
Discover for yourself the pros and cons of using a woodstove to heat your house, from installation and aesthetics to long-term costs and efficiency.
Used for both heat and cooking, woodstoves were once a common sight in nearly every home — they're what many of us still picture when imagining the "hearth" at the heart of the home. But as other fuels became widely available, woodstoves lost favor. Today we are seeing a resurgence in their popularity, largely thanks to leaps forward in efficient designs that are both beautiful and environmentally friendly.
Pro: Some models are carbon neutral. European woodstoves using the Nordic Ecolabel system are so efficient that the carbon emitted when they're used properly is equal to the carbon a tree naturally emits while decomposing in the forest. Some of these stoves (such as the one by Rais, shown here) are also available in America.
Stove: Gabo, Rais
Stove: Gabo, Rais
Pro: Lower long-term heating costs. According to Popular Mechanics, the average annual fuel cost to keep a woodstove going is nearly half the price of oil and still slightly less than natural gas. Those able to responsibly harvest their own wood have the potential to save even more.
Stove: Edofocus, Focus
Stove: Edofocus, Focus
Con: More work. Firing up the woodstove every once in a while is a pleasant activity for a cold night — but chopping and hauling wood on a daily basis is another matter. If you commit to using a woodstove as your primary heat source, you must be willing to deal with purchasing, storing and chopping all of that wood, as well as the daily work of tending the fire.
Stove: Rais
Stove: Rais
Pro: Biomass fuels reduce reliance on fossil fuels. By choosing renewable wood instead of oil, natural gas or propane to heat your home, you are cutting down on nonrenewable energy consumption. And with the woodstove gaining steam again, it is possible we may even see new homes — or even entire buildings — designed with integrated efficient woodstove heat in our future.
Stove: Shaker with short bench, Wittus
Stove: Shaker with short bench, Wittus
Pro: Aesthetically pleasing. Scandinavian-designed woodstoves are a thing of beauty. From utterly simple to strikingly modern, and wall mounted, built in or floating, there are options to suit every space.
Stove: Heterofocus, Focus
Stove: Heterofocus, Focus
Con: High cost for the initial purchase and installation. With whole-house models ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 (and up to $10,000 or even more for custom designs), woodstoves with the highest efficiency ratings do tend to cost more at the outset than other systems. The one shown here is $3,199.
Stove: model 7648, Morso
Stove: model 7648, Morso
Pro: The coziness factor. When your home is heated by a flame you can see dancing in your own little woodstove, coziness and warmth are givens.
Stove: Morso
Stove: Morso
Certification. When shopping for a clean-burning woodstove, look for a model that has been certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Underwriters' Laboratories of Canada (ULC) or an international labeling system such as the Nordic Ecolabel.