Tag Archives: Alpine Stoves

Environmental Benefits

Alpine wood burning stoves are becoming better in an environmental sense due to no small part of the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere being the same as that absorbed by the tree during growth.

It is also a renewable fuel source; this is most effectively so when wood is taken from cultivated woodland. When using your alpine wood burning stove, for the best results, we recommend logs that have been seasoned for 2 years or more. This will give you up to twice the output of freshly chopped timber and help prevent a build-up of tar in your alpine wood burning stoves flue.

Burning wood with advanced Alpine wood burning stoves, a stove that is CE certified makes the flames big and colourful; this makes a huge difference form the dark, ragged flames you would get in an open fireplace.

Not only do the advanced modern alpine wood burning stoves burn much cleaner and more efficiently than older conventional stoves, but the view of the flames are better to boot!

These are some of the benefits of upgrading to CE certified Alpine wood burning stoves, you can save wood (fuel), reduce smoke pollution and enjoy a great view all winter.

Carbon Benefits

The Forestry Commission (recognized by UK government) have begun steps to plant millions of trees to cover an extra targeted 4% of the UK in forest, this equals up to an estimated 29,000 football pitches, they are going to make this a yearly goal to create an increase of 16% the UK’s total land.

A recent study from the Solid Fuel Technology Institute said that logs are in fact the cheapest form of heating fuel. The cost per KW of fuel is now around 4p (estimate). The comparison is 5p for anthracite, 7p for gas, 8p for oil and 12p for electricity. Therefore Alpine wood burning stoves are a great environmental alternative to regular heating solutions.

Stoves Buyer Guide Part 2

Are Alpine Wood Burning Stoves an Eco Friendly Choice?

Wood as a fuel is an eco-friendly choice in itself. Sustainable, renewable, and if used correctly and cleanly can become a completely carbon neutral way of heating at living space/home. Wood pellet stoves burn pellets made from recycled wood waste or sawdust; don’t be shy to browse our Alpine Stoves collection. However, the flame effect of a pellet stove is not as good as a log-burning stove.

Size of Alpine Stoves

Wood burning stoves from Alpine push out far more heat than a traditional open grate where nearly most of the heat escapes up through the chimney. Heat output is measured in kilowatts and the stove size as well as the type of chimney, flue used and wood burned are all factors that determine how much heat is radiated. If you place an Alpine stove that is too big for the room, the room will become too hot on standard settings. If you attempt to run the stove continuously on a lower setting to reduce heat output, this can cause a build-up of resin. Over time, this increases the risk of a chimney fire.

Where Can Alpine Stoves be Placed?

Alpine stoves need a flue to take the expelled gases out of the room. In a large fireplace opening or inglenook, the stove’s flue pipe rises straight up the chimney, while stoves set in front of a smaller fireplace have a short horizontal flue leading to the chimney opening.
In a contemporary setting Alpine stoves can sit in the room rather than before the chimney, and the flue can be on view, rising straight to the ceiling instead of up the chimney, but beware if you have a young family, the body of the stove gets very hot so wherever you site it, you’ll need a good fireguard. The stove needs to sit on a ‘constructional’ hearth made from concrete, stone, slate or terracotta.

Alpine stoves

Wood Burning Or Multifuel?

Being clear about what each term means is therefore invaluable and will help you to come to a final purchasing decision more easily. Many of Alpine stoves for example the 250 cast iron stove, are made to be either log burning or multifuel burners, it is necessary to be clear on which would best for your individual heating needs.

What is a multifuel stove?

A multi-fuel wood burning stove is designed to burn a range of fuels:

Wooden logs
Smokeless fuel

This is possible by the central riddling grate and ash pan, or a raised grate that has bars which allows the stove to efficiently burn many types of materials. Unlike wood burning stoves, the fuel bed needs to be de-ashed to help create and manage for the best combustion and the best burning as well. The design of Alpines multifuel stoves includes an ash pan underneath the grate to both collect and enable the safe removal of the ashes that are created during burning times.

Innovations in Alpines stoves design have helped with this burning process and make a quicker, easier and cleaner air wash process. It is worth noting also the improvement that an air inlet makes to efficient combustion as it introduces air from underneath the grate.

What is a wood burning stove?

A wood burning stove runs far more effectively when the fuel is allowed to sit on a bed of ashes. For this reason you will note that a wood stove usually has a fixed grate with a flat base. This ensures that the ashes created when logs are burning are collected in the base of the firebox to allow fresh logs to be placed on top: this greatly assists the combustion process.

Cast Iron or Steel?

If you’re speaking of great quality steel stove versus quality cast iron stoves then, giving that the stove is used directly with the manufacturer’s intended instructions, it shouldn’t really matter. Poor quality cast iron stoves have well known reputation for cracking under high temperature exposure, that as well as poor quality steel wood burning stoves have a reputation for warping when at high temperatures. The difference between the two types of stoves are that steel wood burning stoves heat up quicker and expel more heat to the room it is in much faster than cast iron. In which is the traditional material for wood burning stove building, since it is much heavier than steel and provides a greater mass of the metal, it tends to take longer to build up heat and expel it to the room.

In history steel was regarded once as a poor material for wood burning stove manufacturing, this would result in warped steel stoves. Steel quality however has now greatly improved so there really is not that much difference between cast iron anymore. In some cases cast iron wood burning stoves are built more heavily and more sturdy than their counterparts steel stoves, and in some cases may have the quality edge.

Cast iron stoves, which are known to be generally heavier than steel bodied stoves, they have the advantage that the mass of the metal in the body of the stove acts like a heat storage radiator dispensing the heat stored into the room for few hours after the fire been expelled. A steel bodied stove will do this too but it won’t retain its heat for quite as long. So, essentially it’s a lifestyle choice – if you need fast heat then chooses steel and if you want longer lasting heat, say overnight, then choose cast iron.

What size of stove do I need?

Here at alpine stove we will help you in choosing a wood burning stove, the task of buying one in itself is difficult, to know what size stove to buy for your home. An important thing to note is that people buy stoves that is often really too big for the room they are placing it in, whilst it may seem simpler to just buy the biggest stove possible, this however isn’t the best option. One of the first thing anyone should know is any stove over 5kw needs an air brick or ventilation kit for the room that the wood burning stove is installed in to ensure good air flow, but it is recommended altogether for any burning appliance.

An important factor to consider and one that Alpine stove recommend researching is when buying what is the physical size of the wood burning stove?, you need to have enough room for the stove as well as allowing 6 inches of clearance to the sides and rear as well as 9 inches to the front of the hearth to comply with the necessary building regulations. Your wood burning stove should also be 40 inches away from any combustible materials.

All alpine stove wood burning stoves have optimal performance efficiency, they achieve this by running at their nominal heat output. If they run at less or more than the output they of course become less efficient, meaning the cost of fuel goes up as well as the exhaust is more damaging to the environment. Getting a wood burning stove with a nominal heat output that matches the room it is installed in is what you should be aiming for, to get a better idea of what heat output you will need from a wood burning stove you can use our heat output calculator. You should remember that this is only a guide as factors such as how well insulated your room is.