First and foremost – efficiency – and therefore running costs. Today the amount of fuel that you use, compared to the amount of heat that you get in return and what that heat will cost you to produce is naturally of great concern for most of The Stove Yard's customers.

You'd expect us to say this, but the truth is that open fires are incredibly inefficient with one study showing that they can actually make the rest of the house colder because of the amount of combustion air that they need to consume, including most of the warm air the fire is creating. Open fires, at best, operate around 15% efficiency compared with efficiencies of over 80% for some modern stoves (eg the Horse Flame Precision I is 84.3% efficient). Many of The Stove Yard's customers are happy to tell us that they save between two thirds and half of the wood that they previously used on their open fire – a huge saving if you have to buy your wood fuel (or even if you have to chop it!). Stove owners will also get much more heat output per fuel load than from the same load in an equivalent open fire and the stove's heat is also very controllable. Heat from multi fuel stoves and wood burners is also cleaner and therefore kinder to your decor and furnishings because the products of the combustion process are all contained within an enclosed fire chamber. This has the added advantage that smoky smells are virtually non-existent.

Finally, stoves are much safer when properly used compared to open fires. The stove's heat-resistant glass will screen any potential sparks and prevent lighted fuel from rolling out.