Bakeheart and Warmheart meet new emissions standards without compromising performance or control
Master stove-maker ESSE has confirmed that its range of wood fired stoves and range cookers will meet stringent new air quality emissions standards without compromising performance.
ESSE’s announcement follows the publication of the UK Government’s new Clean Air Strategy, which will introduce more stringent checks on wood-burning stoves and cookers.
Contrary to some recent media reports, the UK Government has no plans to ban the use of wood-burning stoves in urban areas or anywhere else, but from 2022 only the cleanest burning appliances will be permitted to be sold in Britain.
Existing owners of wood-burning stoves will remain unaffected by the new standards, but the Government has announced a crackdown on the sale of poor quality solid fuels, which are significantly more polluting than properly dried and seasoned firewood. Local authorities will get additional smoke control powers to tackle air pollution.
Manufacturers have been given from 2018 to 2022 to phase in new models and re-engineer existing models that comply. ESSE’s multifuel stoves all comply with current standards.
The Warmheart and Bakeheart are the first models to benefit from a strategic re-engineering programme which will future-proof ESSE’s range of clean-burning wood-fired stoves and range cookers.
Since 1854, ESSE has manufactured some of the cleanest-burning solid fuel stoves in the world. The company’s twin catalytic combustion technology – which reburns any smoke particles it produces – has been awarded a British patent.
In August 2017, the Lancashire-based manufacturer announced that all its stoves would meet the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) ‘Smoke Exempt’ emissions standards for use in designated smoke control zones.
ESSE engineers are now utilising their world-leading expertise in clean combustion technology to further reduce particulate emissions without compromising on performance or control.
The recently launched Bakeheart and Warmheart already comply with the new emissions standard thanks to a ground-breaking adjustable filter control which minimises the release of particulates into the atmosphere. With an Energy Efficiency Rating of ‘A’, these compact wood burning stoves operate at 77 per cent efficiency.
ESSE technical director Craig Nutter said:
“Today’s stoves and range cookers are built to much tighter tolerances than they were just a decade ago. Consequently, modern solid fuel appliances’ combustion is much cleaner.
“We’ve been working towards meeting these new standards for some time now, but we don’t believe ‘quick fixes’ are appropriate to meeting this particular challenge.
“All our bestselling stoves will meet the new standards before 2022 and we are committed to taking real world operating conditions into account. The quality of the installation of the stove and flue and the moisture content of the wood burned are also critical to achieving a sustainable long-term solution.
“We believe that the stove should perform well on low, medium and high settings and that’s what we are working towards. If we don’t get the combustion calibration exactly right, the precision control our customers expect will be compromised.
“As our friends in the automotive industry learned to their cost, trying to ‘game’ emissions testing regimes may have unintended consequences.”
