Perhaps foolishly, I started researching wood-burning stoves early and wrote about their environmental impact for the Evening Standard. Wood is billed as an eco alternative to fossil fuels – and it certainly can be carbon neutral if the wood is replenished – but it can also be terrible for air quality. This is a problem everywhere but especially in cities like London, where pollution from traffic means invisible particulates in the air are already causing a health crisis.
My research led me to the latest breed of woodburning stoves, certified Ecodesign Ready because they burn so cleanly. Installed well, they emit very few particulates thanks to secondary combustion. If an open fire is a diesel car, an Ecodesign Ready stove is a hybrid.
I chose the Opus Tempo 70 from Stoves Online. It emits 82% less particulates than the Defra limit for Smoke-Controlled Zones and puts out 5kW of heat. It also looks gorgeous.
The lovely Bernd (I know, right) from Stove London installed it. In fact, he came three times. First he came to measure for the flue installation and order all the relevant parts (we didn’t have a chimney breast, so the flue had to run up the corner of the upstairs rooms and be boxed in). The second time he fitted the flue upstairs. And then finally, once downstairs was decorated and we had flooring, he returned to fit the stove itself and teach me how to use it.
I can’t recommend Bernd, or the Tempo 70, highly enough. He’s a superstar and the stove looks beautiful and chucks out plenty of heat when it gets going. The idea is that we can close the doors and have a cosy living room or open them and have the stove heat the whole house.
Wood being too damp is also a big factor in particulate emission, so it needs seasoning for a long time and checking with a moisture meter if you’re in doubt. Mick built a wood store to the side of the patio and we only live a block from the forest, so gathering waste wood and seasoning it shouldn’t be a problem.
