Service & Maintenance

Keep Your Stove Working Efficiently

Stove Care

Professional Wood Burner Cleaning, Repairs & Servicing

A woodburning stove is an attractive and useful addition to your home, but like any heating device its continued safe and efficient operation is dependent on keeping it in good condition.

Having HETAS approved stove engineers and certified chimney sweeps like those based at Humphries Stoves in Hungerford, Berkshire to provide proper cleaning, maintenance, and servicing of your wood burner has several advantages, like:

Improved safety: Regular cleaning, maintenance and servicing of a wood burner and its flue can help to reduce the risk of fires and health hazards.
Increased efficiency: A well-maintained woodburning stove will operate more efficiently, which means that you will use less wood to heat your home more economically.
Longer lifespan: Proper maintenance and servicing can help to extend the lifespan of your woodburning stove.

Proper wood burner care is also usually required by home insurance providers, and to keep any warranties valid.

Providing proper cleaning, maintenance, and servicing of your wood burner

Regular Stove Service

Healthy Wood Burners Live Longer

The average lifespan of a woodburning stove is between 10 and 20 years, though they have been known to work well much longer when well cared for. If you neglect your wood burner it is likely to need replacing far sooner.

A lack of regular maintenance will render a wood burner increasingly hazardous as regards the emission of particulates, with poor performance in respect of heat output.

A neglected wood burner can also suffer from physical damage such as rust, with cracks, gaps or separations forming in the casing. Worn seals or door gaskets can result in noxious smoke escaping into the room.

It’s not just the stove itself that is at risk because of lack of care. The flue (or chimney) can become clogged with creosote, obstructing the airflow and increasing the risk of fire.

Prevention is better than cure, so if you want your stove to keep burning merrily through many a cold season then it’s worth investing in an annual service.

Professional engineers will inspect the stove and flue inside and out, checking not just the current condition but also picking up on any potential problems. Any damage is noted and repaired or rectified, so that the stove is left operating efficiently with the cleanest combustion possible.

Troubleshooting

Common Problems with Woodburning Stoves

If your wood burner is properly installed by experts, then a demonstration of the correct care and operation of your stove should be part of the process. Many people, however, “inherit” a wood burner when they purchase a property, and don’t know how to manage one correctly and to best advantage.

Humphries Stoves are always happy to help with advice and troubleshoot any problems that you may experience with your wood burner. Here’s a tip – many problems can be avoided by making sure you burn the correct fuel in your stove: usually well-seasoned or kiln dried logs.

Some of the main problems with wood burners that Humphries can help with are:

Difficulty with lighting the stove.
The stove getting too hot – “overfiring” – with too much oxygen feeding the fire.
Deterioration of the bars or grate.
Dirty sooted up glass (although most modern stoves have an air wash facility to keep the glass clean while burning).
Smoke and/or fumes issuing into the room – usually the result of flue problems.