It’s that time of year again; where we’re all swapping out the summer duvets for winter ones, blowing the dust off those old thick woolly jumpers and beginning to set timers for our heating to automatically come on at the crack of dawn. (Well, if you have central heating that is – we actually don’t!) We’ll do almost anything to stay warm and cosy! And as the temperatures start dropping across the country, wood-burners are getting lit and dominating our Instagram feeds and it gets you wondering – how much does it cost to install a wood burning stove? And should I get one?
Good question – I wondered the same thing before we bought our wood burner too. Thing is, I couldn’t find much info online about it. And even after getting a few quotes in, I had no clue how realistic or reasonable they were. So, I thought I’d share our experience, how much we paid, and what’s likely to affect your quote and how much you’ll pay too.
Can You Install a Wood-Burner Yourself?
Absolutely. You can do most things yourself (no, not gas), but installing a wood burner or multi-fuel stove does come with building regulation requirements, which means any new installation needs to be fully certified. AKA, you need to have it checked off with building regs, which is something you pay for. Prices vary depending on where you live, so it’s worth researching and taking this into account before you decide to go ahead and get stuck in yourself. From what I’ve read online, this charge can be between £100 to £300 depending on your local council. If I remember rightly, our area would have been around £250. YIKEZ.
Fitting a wood-burner is relatively straightforward in theory, however, getting up onto a roof whilst carrying a giant length of steel flue liner and all the necessary tools isn’t. Unless you have scaffolding, this definitely isn’t for the faint-hearted. Personally, we decided to opt for a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario and do some of the work ourselves, and some we paid for.
What Costs are Involved?
So I thought I’d share a breakdown of what exactly is involved in a wood-burning stove installation and why costs can vary. If you’ve never had one installed before, it can be hard to understand why they cost so much and where exactly that money goes. So I’ll share how we kept costs down and the parts of installation which can considerably up your quote.
Cost of the Stove
You can buy both wood-burner stoves and multi-fuel stoves from as low as £300 all the way to over £2000 and more. Needless to say, the bulk of the cost comes from the actual cost of the burner itself. How much you’re willing to spend on one can considerably increase how much you’ll spend overall. So, what’s the difference between a £300 stove and £2000 stove?
Well, when buying a wood-burner, here are a few things you should think about:
- Size of Burner – A bigger stove means a bigger heat output. A bigger stove is often more expensive but may be necessary depending on how big your room is. It’s worth nothing any stove over 5KW will require an additional air vent in the room and this may mean more work and more costs involved if you don’t already have one.
- Efficiency – How efficient your stove is, generally relates to how much actual heat your stove produces from the logs you put in it. The higher the efficiency, the better and the less you’ll spend on fuel (logs). I personally think it’s worth splurging a little more to get a decent efficient stove.
- Designer Look – Some of the most expensive stoves have a very unique and designer look about them. The size of the viewing window is one of the more favourable features of an expensive stove. Is it worth the extra cost to you?
- Quality – Some very cheap stoves, particularly ones bought from eBay are often imported from China. In the past, these have been known for their poor quality design, with door seals that won’t last, paint that flakes and even glass that breaks. I’m not saying a £2k stove is the best quality stove out there, but it’s definitely worth looking at reviews of any stove before you buy it. This site is a pretty good starting place for reviews.
- DEFRA Approved – There are certain areas of the UK where you can only use a smokeless stove. In this case, you would need to buy a DEFRA approved stove which has been tested and certified to use in these areas.
Our stove is a 7KW Saltfire ST3. It was just under £500, well reviewed and one of the cheaper models you can buy for this size stove. We’ve now had it installed for two years and have had no troubles with it. For an affordable model stove, I can definitely recommend it. If you want to read about the Saltfire range, I recommend this post.
Length of Flue Liner
I’m sorry to say it, but the taller your house and chimney, the longer your flue will need to be and the more it will cost. If you’re going to spend anywhere though, spend here. Always opt for a quality stainless steel liner, because the last thing you want is a cheap one which can easily break and become incredibly dangerous. Do your own research, (or just READ THIS ARTICLE) but I personally wouldn’t scrimp on my flue.
Chimney liners come in different diameters, (usually 5″ or 6″) and which one you need will depend on which stove you buy. (So make sure you buy your stove first!). As a rough guide, our flexible 9m length of stainless steel flue liner cost £300. If you don’t have a chimney and need an exposed twin-wall liner, this can cost even more.
Side note: some chimneys may not *require* a flue liner, providing they can be proven to meet certain requirements, however, greater risks are involved in relation to chimney fires, carbon monoxide and even smoke escaping to your neighbours house as sometimes chimneys are interconnected in any way (this is actually the case with our chimney!). 99.9% of information online strongly urges you to use a liner. And I do too.
Do You Need Scaffolding?
If scaffolding is required to install your flue liner, your quote is likely to be higher, as renting scaffolding isn’t the cheapest. Some installers always request scaffolding, others are bit more fearless and are happy to just scramble up a ladder. I think a large part of whether you need scaffolding also depends on your house and how easy it is to reach the chimney. Our chimney can’t be reached with a ladder, however, our installer just used a ladder at the front of the house and scrambled across the roof to the back. A neighbour further up the street, on the other hand, had scaffolding erected during their install, even though their chimney could be directly reached by a ladder. Go figure.
What Type of Hearth?
The hearth is the flooring beneath your wood-burner. This also must adhere to certain building regulations as it must be fire-proof, free from combustible materials and able to withstand any falling flecks of burning logs from the burner. Which yes, does happen. So for this reason, it needs to protrude from the door of your stove a minimum of 225mm and be at least 12mm thick. I recommend reading this guide for more information and remember building regulations do change often.
The cost of a hearth can vary dramatically. If you decide to go for a solid slab of granite, you’re going to need a bigger bank balance. If you can find some suitable tiles on the cheap and fit it yourself though, it’s going to cost a lot less. We used a dark Cathedral Ash Limestone tiles, which cost £56 and we cut and fit it ourselves (blog post on that can be found here). Inexpensive and simple.
Lining Inside the Chimney Opening
The inside of your chimney where the wood-burner resides must also be fireproof. Until you have a wood-burner, you can’t really appreciate the amount of heat it emits. It’s HOT! For this reason, you can’t simply install plasterboard to the inner walls, as it’s likely to burn. You’ll need either to line it properly with cement board or render it. We used cement board called ‘hardiebacker board’ and it cost £48 to fit ourselves. (Blog post with all the info here) I know some people have plastered inside theirs, however from my own research, this is likely to crack due to the heat, so should be avoided.
If you want to save money here, you can also opt for leaving it as exposed brick and unlined, as brick obviously isn’t combustible. Of course, you would need to have bricks in decent condition for it to look visually pleasing, but this could definitely save you a job and a small amount of money.
Does Your Chimney Require ‘Opening Up’?
So all the points above assume you already have a chimney that’s relatively ‘log burner ready’ with an opening that’s big enough to fit a log burner. However this isn’t always the case, your opening may be too small, or it may have been bricked up altogether. Taking a chunk of brickwork away from your chimney can seem like quite a daunting thing to do, but it’s completely doable and nothing to fear. You, of course, pay to have this done with your log-burner install, but it will add an additional chunk to your quote.
We’ve opened three chimneys up in this house so far, so if you want to save on labour – this is definitely a DIY that can save you a wad. Here’s a link to our latest chimney opening venture.
Is a Lintel Required?
After opening up a chimney, you may discover to your horror there’s no lintel, a cracked lintel, or a makeshift lintel made from random pipes, like us. In which case, you will need to fit a new lintel. For us, this was the least expensive part of the wood-burner installation, and we did it ourselves too. A lintel cost us £14 and it was much easier to fit than you might expect. You can read all about how we DIYed this here, but if you choose to have an installer fit your lintel, it will certainly cost more.
Labour Costs
So I think that brings us nicely to the cost of labour. If you’ve read all the above, you’ll see how much work needs to go into fitting a log burner, before you’ve even fitted the actual log burner. The more work involved, the more it will cost. If you pay an installer to knock out an opening in your chimney, fit a hearth, line the inner walls, replace your lintel, whilst renting scaffolding, you’re going to pay a lot more than just connecting a log burner to a new flue liner.
I gathered multiple quotes for varying degrees of labour and the most expensive came in at £1000 (excluding materials) for a couple of days work completing all of the above. I then gathered quotes for just connecting the log-burner to a flue, which was a days work and this was just £400. Again, this does exclude materials and please do bear in mind – location is a huge factor for deciding labour costs. We’re in the Nottinghamshire area and these prices are in relation to 2016, now two years ago.
If you’re able to do half the work yourself – install your own hearth and do the inner decorative work, the labour cost can literally be cut in half. This is the route we went for and it also meant our installer was able to self-certify his work, meaning there was no additional sign-off charge.
Where to Find Installers?
If you are looking for a wood-burning stove installer, I recommend checking out the HETAS website. These are fully certified installers who can sign-off their own work. They work independently from stove shops, so in my experience, are far more reasonable in their charges. And, they may even be able to get you trade-rates on a stove.
Additional Material Costs
So aside from everything I’ve already mentioned above, there are still a few more costs involved. And those are in regard to the additional materials you need. Things like fire cement, a chimney cowl/bird guard, connectors, a chimney pot, a register plate (this is the ‘board’ that blocks off the rest of the chimney so you don’t have a huge hole above your burner and around the flue) and even a carbon monoxide alarm, which is required under building regs. All of these things aren’t particularly expensive, but they do add up. £30 here, £60 there. You can expect to pay up to £300 for all the additional extras depending on what exactly is required.
Wood Burner on a ‘Budget’: How Much We Paid
OK, so let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. We handed over £1051 to our log-burner installer and this is the breakdown of the costs and materials involved:
Labour + Certification £400
Stainless Steel Flexible Liner £300
Adapters + Bird Guard £120
Register Plate £75
Vitreous Pipe £36
Materials (Fire Cement etc) £30
Carbon Monoxide Alarm £25
Chimney Pot £65
The additional work we did ourselves (opening the chimney, fitting a lintel and making it all ‘log burner ready’ totalled £156 and broke down as follows:
Lintel £14
Mortar £5
Hardiebacker Lining £48
Limestone Hearth £56
Tile Adhesive + Grout £33
The cost of the stove was £499 which gave a Full Total of £1706 on the whole job.
OVERALL SPEND INCLUDING STOVE: £1706
So, is that a good price? Well, it’s a lot less than the majority of quotes we had, I’ll tell you that! Stove shops, in particular, were offering installation from £2000 upwards excluding the cost of the stove! Say what now?! So yes, we’re vastly beneath that amount.
Aside from paying the £400 labour fee, I don’t think we could have done it for much cheaper. I even checked out our installers spending on things like the chimney pot, adapters and register plate and in all honesty, all his spendings seemed reasonable and fair – I only found a couple of things a bit cheaper, but not by much. If we had installed the chimney liner ourselves, we may have saved £400 but we’d have had to pay for the building reg certification instead, which would have been a couple of hundred in itself. So really, I don’t think there is much else we could have done to make this installation any cheaper on a considerable scale.
£1700 all in is still expensive, I can admit that. It’s not exactly budget, is it? But, a wood-stove is a luxury item, is it not? I mean let’s face it – it’s not an essential household item and luxury = expensive. However, we are super chuffed with our wood burner and SO GLAD we went for it. It is bloody brilliant! For those of you who don’t know, we don’t actually have central heating here, so this truly is a lifesaver. Even the dogs love it, see!
So, in summary (a case of ‘too long, didn’t read’) the cost of a wood-burner can vary considerably depending on your requirements and how much work is involved. If you’re on a budget though, here are my tips for keeping costs down when it comes to wood-burner installations…
Tips for Keeping Wood-Burner Installation Costs Down
- Do some of the work yourself.
- If you use an installer, use independent HETAS installer rather than a shop installation prices.
- Avoid scaffolding, if possible.
- Opt for a budget-friendly stove.
- Choose inexpensive hearth tiles.
Need Info on Installation? Read the Stovefitters Manual!
If you want more information about the installation of wood-burning stoves, regulations and all the rest, I HIGHLY recommend checking out The Stovefitters Manual as you honestly won’t find a better guide online – it literally has ALL the answers for every possible query you might have. Additionally, there’s a whole bunch of stoves reviews on there as well, with top recommendations (pleased to say our stove is one of their fave choices!), and there’s even a shop to buy the supplies. I referred to this guide throughout all the DIYs we completed above and it was a MASSIVE resource of help. If you click any link on this blog post, make it this one.
I hope this was vaguely helpful. As ever, if you have any questions about our stove or want the contact details of our installer (Notts/Lincoln area) then feel free to hit me up!
2 Comments
I wanted to thank you so much for your fireplace posts. They were invaluable when we planned the opening up of our fireplace to install a wood/multi fuel fire. In the end we paid someone else to do it (a mixture of exhaustion from a full renovation similar to yours and knowing we would need to hire the necessary equipment, also I wanted it installed asap in the current winter and knew we would take too long to get to it) but your post on how to do this was helpful as it helped us to make this decision.
I thought it might be helpful to other readers to know how much this cost us. We wanted the chamber to be lined with brick slips and the same stone hearth as you got (thanks for the inspo). We got the Portway Arundel Ecodesign Ready Wood Burning Multifuel Stove MK3 which was £499.
I will reinforce the need to get several quotes as here is what we were quoted:
Quote 1 – getting several people in to complete it:
Builder to open up fireplace and line the chamber with brick slips – we were expected to supply the hearth, adhesive and grouting £1,200
The fire installer would install the fire, flue, chimney pot, Hetas cert £1,000 incl VAT
The fire installer stated he would need scaffolding to get onto our roof. He referred me to a local person who quoted £390 (unclear whether VAT was included)
Quote 2: We had another person quote us who pretty much told us we wouldn’t be able to open up the fire and that it would take over a week just to open it up!
As you may imagine, by now I was having a heart attack and re-thinking whether we really needed this fire. But then a friend had exactly what we were wanting and had used a person charging much less. Needless to say we were full of anticipation to get the quote, but had to wait a week whilst they were on holiday.
Quote 3: £1,850+VAT to include everything except the cost of the stove:
Open up the chimney breast to form a recess
Line the back and sides of recess using brick slips
Lay a hearth using grey limestone slabs
Supply and line the chimney using a 904-grade SS flexible liner.
Make and fit a steel closure plate
Backfill around the liner using vermiculite insulation.
Supply and fit a rain cap/bird guard cowl.
Install your stove accordingly.
Supply and fit a carbon monoxide alarm.
Provide a Hetas certificate on completion.
He advised that he didn’t need scaffolding – a major cost on quote 1
Needless to say we went with this person and they did an excellent job and finished everything in 1.5 days and I am now writing this in front of my cosy fire. I would have thought from the look of their company website that they would be the most expensive, so it just goes to show how important it is to get quotes.
FYI for those wanting a wood surround there are strict rules about this and the distance required from the fire. Quote 1 installer said I couldn’t have one. Quote 3 gave me the opening measurements that I needed to meet the safety requirements. I wanted to keep costs down by buying second hand but no standard ones were big enough. However, I did find someone that made pine ones to order on Etsy for around £150-£200. But in a twist of luck I found an antique oak one being sold for £15 locally that fitted perfectly – I love when that happens!
I live in Lincoln – so prices may vary depending on where people are located.
Ohhh amazing – thanks so much for sharing this!! It’s so interesting how different quotes can be and funny how some installers want scaffolding and others don’t. The guy we used was the same – happy to just go straight up a ladder!
I hope you’re enjoying your new fire! It gives a totally feel to the house doesn’t it? I almost look forward to every winter now we have ours 😉