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Once you've decided that you want a wood burner and you have a rough idea of where you would like it positioned in the new build then this is probably the ideal time to talk to your stove dealer – bring your plans if you can. They'll be able to quickly tell you if your idea is feasible, whether there's a better, possibly more practical and cost-effective alternative to position and flue the stove, what type of stove will best suit you and your lifestyle and critically the heat output you'll need for the proposed living space. You might like the look and price of a particular stove for your new build project, but it may not necessarily be suitable.
Today's highly insulated new build, low energy houses have much higher standards of insulation and airtightness and therefore require nothing like the heat of the homes that we grew up in, even in the dead of winter, and stove makers have acted accordingly. Ideally you need a stove that will keep the living space comfortably warm and that you can happily live with, but one which will deliver a high output when you need it – one that will quickly warm the bones.
Low energy homes have limited the demand for high output stoves (10.0kW + ) and manufacturers have opted to create a wide choice of stoves with lower and medium heat outputs which make them ideal for these new buildings. Many stoves have now also been tested to provide practical heat output ranges, depending on the fuel load, which will greatly extend the periods throughout the year that you can use them and also help you avoid unnecessarily heating the whole house with the central heating system when it's not really needed.
As a rough guide to the heat output you could require multiply the width x length x height of the room where the stove will be installed (in metres) and then simply divide by 14. Generally speaking a good quality modern wood burning stove with a nominal heat output of around 4kW to 5kW will provide sufficient controllable heat for a typical new build room space of around 20m2 with a standard ceiling height of 2.4m. Heat output ranges for these stoves usually start around the 3kW mark and go up to about 7kW, again depending on the size of the fuel load.
These days many stove manufacturers not only quote a tested nominal heat output but also a heat range with the best of these showing a very low starting point, depending on the fuel load. It's quite possible to find a stove with a miserly 2.0kW lower limit, a practical 4.0kW nominal output and a generous freeze-busting upper rate of 6.0kW – a range that's suitable for most typical living spaces. Unlike stoves from say just ten years ago, modern stoves now provide a much greater degree of control over the heat output and this combined with flexibility on the size of fuel loads means that you can, not only precisely manage the heat, but also maximise your fuel economy – especially without the need to slumber burn which will create excess smoke and emissions.
Finally, don't be tempted to choose a physically large stove with a higher heat output just because you like the look of it or because you have a big space or want it to fit within an imposing fireplace. In such cases you're unlikely to ever be able to live with the excessive heat it produces in a smaller room when it's operating the way that it's meant to. Further, if you continually slumber burn it or use small fuel loads in its large fire chamber then the subsequent inefficient and incomplete combustion could create excessive, environmentally damaging, soot and smoke. It is always much better to use a small stove burning at nominal heat output rather than a large one operating inefficiently.
Fortunately most modern stoves have been designed to maximise the size of the window to almost to the full height and width of the fire chamber so that even on a 4kW stove you get a really impressive view of the fire and flame pattern, despite the modest physical size and heat output of the stove.
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