At Cosy Stoves & Fires we want you to choose the right stove that will best suit your home. You may have several questions regarding the size of the stove or the choice of fuel that may suit your individual requirements. We hope this leaflet will answers some of these questions and possibly raise some more considerations that you may need to think about before buying your stove. Cosy Stoves & Fires sell leading brands of stoves to heat an individual room or heat several rooms through your existing central heating. You can choose your fuel option of solid fuel, gas, oil, pellets or electric. The technology available today means greater efficiencies of our stoves and the luxury of remote control or the ability to switch on or off your pellet stove via
Convecting Insert Stoves
These stoves operate slightly differently to a conventional stove as it convects its heat rather than radiating it. It allows you to insert the main body of the stove in to the recess of your fire opening and gives you all the benefits of a solid fuel stove without encroaching into your living space. Because the stove body is recessed the hearth does not usually need to be extended into the room. These stoves still give you all the control of the air systems depending whether you want a roaring fire or a lower burning fire allowing the fuel to last longer.
Solid Fuel & Wood Burners
With rising energy costs more and more people are turning to solid fuel as a back up to their existing oil central heating. This fuel type has the following advantages lower fuel costs, better for the environment (if your using seasoned logs), doesn’t need electricity to run and gives a cosy real flame fire that you can control via the air flows on the stove. The only downside to this fuel type is that it is labour intensive. Available in cast iron, steel or soapstone finish these stoves can be traditional or contemporary styled.
Some of our stoves are specified multi-fuel, meaning they can burn solid fuel such as coal, briquettes or logs. This can mean they are more versatile but often results in more ash to be disposed of. Other stoves are specified wood burning only this means they have no grate and the logs burn in their own ashes with the airflow coming in on top of the logs. Seasoned logs that have been stored dry for 18 months or more are all that can be used in these stoves and often offer a higher heat output with less ash and are a carbon neutral fuel.
These stoves can be used to heat an individual room or can be ordered with a boiler to connect to your existing heating system. The stoves with boiler can heat hot water only or up to 19 radiators depending on the model chosen. It’s important to check both the KW (kilowatt) output of your stove and of the boiler on the stove to make sure it meets your heating requirements.
The size of the stove depends on several factors like the size of the room the stove will be in and how much heat you require for the heating system if choosing a boiler model. A common pitfall is to oversize the stove so that it gives enough heat to the heating system but makes the room that the stove is situated in unbearably hot. Some stoves give off a different proportion of their heat to the room than to radiators. Our trained staff will be pleased to explain the differences to you. The heat from an individual stove also depends on several factors from the fuel used to the installation of the stove. A stove built back into the chimney will produce less heat to the room than a stove left fully exposed. A fully exposed stove will also need a larger hearth area to facilitate the cleaning of ashes from the stove as well as providing a non combustible area in front of the stove for safety.
Many people ask us the advantages of one stove over the other. Most branded stoves are of a high quality to take most fuels but all manufacturers will not allow some smikless coals or petroleum coke products as these are very severe fuels on the grate and firebox walls. Branded stoves have the advantage of being around a long time with parts usually easily accessable, cast iron and steel both give similar outputs of heat. Steel heats up quicker and cools down faster while cast iron takes longer to heat up but takes longer to cool down. Soapstone is another finish with great heat conducting properties. It can continue radiating heat from the soapstone long after the fire has gone out and is superior to either cast iron or steel. It’s usually only available on continental style stoves and has a visual appeal all of its own.
