All over the UK are areas a lot of us live in that are smoke controlled zones, this basically means it is an offence to cause smoke in such an area.
What some of you may not realise is this also applies to the fire or stove you have fitted in your home, if you do live in a smoke controlled zone you will be only allowed to burn smokeless fuel.
If you have a stove which is DEFRA approved for use in smoke exempt areas this will also allow you to burn wood as well as smokeless fuels.
The reason for this is they have been tested on the emissions form the stove and they comply with the law to the amount of smoke they emit and are these are then certified to use in smoke exempt areas.
Any stove that has this certification can be used to burn wood legally with no pollution to the atmosphere.
Those people who use wood in a none approved stove will be served with a prohibition notice from the council only to burn recommended fuels.
The laws are tightening all around the UK and we have been contacted on many occasions from customers who have been forced to use a DEFRA approved stove.
So before ordering a new stove contact your council to see if you live in a smoke controlled zone and if you do make sure when you buy a new stove it is Clean Burn DEFRA approved stove