Efficiency Levels

There are two areas of efficiency to be concerned about when looking at wood-burning stoves:

1. How efficient is the stove at burning the fuel?
2. How efficient is the stove at delivering the heat into the home?

Modern woodburning stove manufacturers will tell you that their products are super-efficient, but usually they are only talking about the first efficiency: the burning of the wood. See below for a discussion of the different efficiency levels.

Zero- Efficiency Most, if not all, fireplaces and kivas fall into this category. They burn a lot of wood, produce a lot of smoke and blow nearly all of the produced heat up into the night sky.

Single- Efficiency These are generally the stoves you'll find in modern showrooms and include any wood-burning stove that has a vertical chimney right out of the box. They may burn wood efficiently, but blow nearly all of the produced heat straight up into the night sky.

Mid- Efficiency Most vertically vented masonry stoves (Russian, Finnish, German) fall into this category. These burn the wood efficiently and make an effort at keeping the produced heat inside the house.

Dual- Efficiency Horizontally vented masonry stoves are Dual-Efficiency stoves. These burn the wood efficiently and deliver a vast majority of the produced heat into the house.