How to choose your wood heater.

How to choose your unit? What heaters in Australia provide a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to heat your home? Taking the time to understand how a wood heater works and assessing your heating requirements will ensure you have the right amount of heat and a correctly operating unit.

 

There are two basic types of wood heaters in Australia, radiant and convection heaters. Radiant heaters heat like the sun, they radiate heat in all directions and are excellent for large open areas. A convection heater heats up the air in and around the unit and circulates it around the house by fan force convected airflow. Convection heaters are best for moving warm air up hallways and into other rooms.

 

The First step is to work out the space you require to heat, measuring the area will give a starting point for your requirements, but it’s not the only factor to keep in mind. Make sure you know the size of the room or all the rooms you want to heat, as well as the ceiling heights. The level of insulation within your house will greatly affect heating requirements. Most modern houses have the wall and roof insulation making them a lot more efficient, however, older style houses can be less insulated causing heat to leak from the house.  Widow glazing and furnishings are also important to calculate the amount of heat loss from the dwelling, double glazing and heavy window furnishings will greatly increase the house’s efficiency to contain heat. Windows without curtains and blinds will leak warmth via heat transfer through the glass.

 

The style and layout of your house will also affect the unit’s ability to distribute heat.  Factors to consider include split level and double story houses and where you locate your fire in the house for better heat distribution, the more central the location of your fire the better. The geographic location of your house is also important colder climate areas to the South of Australia will have a greater demand than warmer northern climates. Placing greater demand on your unit.

 

Having the correct size unit in your house will ensure the unit can operate correctly. An under-capacity unit means you’ll run the risk of having to over fuel the heater to have enough heat. Oversizing can lead to the unit needing to be closed down all the time creating inefficient burns, dangerous creosote build-up in the flue and excess smoke.

 

Find the Australian Home Heating Association video here.