At The Stove Yard we've been saying it for years (since we first opened our doors in fact): wood burning stoves deliver renewable, low carbon, affordable heat. Many of today’s wood burning stove owners are happy to tell you that they have been doing their bit for the environment long before carbon reduction and air quality targets made daily headlines. In the last five years it's estimated that nearly 750,000 homes have installed a new stove – many of them replacing open fires and older stoves, ensuring that stoves also make a genuine contribution to economic growth. It's vital therefore that we do not overlook this well-established and much loved method of heating our homes as the country rises to the challenge of the new carbon reduction targets that are soon to become law...read more
The Northern Ireland Assembly's Climate Bill and the stove industry's response
In February 2020 the Northern Ireland Assembly declared a climate emergency. The Climate Bill aims to ensure that Northern Ireland meets legally binding net-zero carbon emissions targets by 2045. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK without such targets. In March of this year the Republic of Ireland approved a similar bill with a net-zero target by 2050. All of this is to limit the consequences of climate change.
Whether you like it or not heat pumps are coming. The government has big plans to make them play a major role in the UK's domestic heating mix. Carbon-loaded coal fired electricity generation is now virtually a thing of the past and next on the Governments hit list is doing away with fossil fuels, such as oil and gas. Since domestic heating is one of the biggest users of these fuels, then removing them from our homes has to be a priority. The Government is planning for some 600,000 heat pump installations per year until 2028. But what are they like to live with...
At The Stove Yard, you’d expect us to love our wood, but it has to be said that we love our living trees and woodlands even more, for apart from being great at absorbing harmful greenhouse gas where else would we eventually get the wood we fire up our stoves with? We were therefore keen to read the Woodland Trust's first ever report of its kind on the state of our woods and trees which has just been published. It’s depressing.
At some time from this Sunday until Tuesday most of The Stove Yard showroom staff from both Cheshire and County Down will be visiting the stove industry's big trade show, Hearth & Home in Harrogate.
