Heating & Cutting Bills
How a Wood-Burning Stove Can Lower Your Heating Costs in 2026
A stove can genuinely slash a heating bill — or barely dent it — and the difference comes down to two things: where your wood comes from, and how much of the house you're trying to heat.
The headline numbers
Used sensibly — evenings and weekends from mid-October to mid-April — a log burner gets through about 3.5 cubic metres of wood a year, for an annual heating bill of roughly £420–£490. Compare that with the £1,600–£2,200 a typical UK home spends heating on gas or electricity, and the appeal is obvious. But there's an important catch in the detail.
Per kWh, gas is often the cheaper fuel
Here's the honest bit the sales pages skate over. Measured purely per unit of heat, the gap is small — gas runs around 7p per kWh and a log burner around 6p per kWh (as low as 3.3p if you burn dry wood efficiently, far more if you buy pricey nets). If you bought kiln-dried logs in small bags to heat your whole house, a stove could actually cost more than gas. So where does the big saving really come from?
The real saving: heat one room, not the whole house
It's not the fuel price — it's heating less space. Central heating warms every room whether you're in it or not. A stove lets you sit in a warm living room on a cold evening with the boiler switched off entirely. Drop the thermostat a couple of degrees, warm the room you're actually in with the stove, and that "zoning" usually saves far more than the per-kWh difference ever could. That is the mechanism behind every genuine wood-stove saving.
Everything above assumes bought wood. Fell, split and season your own — from your land, tree surgeons, pallets or windfall — and the fuel cost drops towards zero. That's the point at which a stove stops being "a bit cheaper" and becomes the cheapest heat there is.
What your wood actually costs
| Where the wood comes from | Rough cost | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| You fell, split & season your own | ~Free (your labour) | Cheapest heat there is |
| Bulk seasoned/kiln-dried by the m³ | £120–£160/m³ | Good value stored right |
| Kiln-dried logs in handy nets/bags | £5–£7 a bag | Convenient but the dear way |
Don't forget the running costs
Be honest in the sum. On top of fuel, a stove needs a chimney sweep once or twice a year (£80–£200 each), the occasional rope seal or firebrick, and the up-front install to recover over time. None of it is much, but factor it in before you call it "free heat". A worked example: burn mostly your own wood, sweep twice, replace a seal — you might spend £200–£300 all-in for a winter of evening warmth that would cost four figures on the boiler.
The honest exception: if you have to buy every log in kiln-dried nets and you want to heat the whole house, a stove can genuinely cost more than gas once you add sweeping and the install. Wood heat rewards the self-sourcer and the one-room heater; it punishes the person trying to replace central heating with bought bags. Be honest about which one you are before you commit, because it flips the answer completely.
Where we stand
A wood stove lowers your bills most when two things are true: your wood is cheap or free, and you use it to heat where you actually are rather than the whole house. Get both right and it's the cheapest warmth going, by a distance. Buy kiln-dried nets to heat every room and the savings evaporate — you may even lose money versus gas. Source your wood well, zone your heat to one room, and the stove pays for itself and then keeps paying, winter after winter.
Read on: the full case for a wood stove → · would a pellet stove suit you better? →