There is a fireplace in living rooms all across Ireland that is costing its owner money every single time they light it. It looks familiar. It feels like home. And it is, by modern standards, one of the most wasteful ways to heat a room. The traditional open hearth, the open fire built into a chimney breast that has warmed Irish homes for generations, operates at efficiencies as low as 15 to 25%. That means for every euro you spend on fuel, you are getting perhaps twenty cents’ worth of actual heat into your living room, with the rest disappearing straight up the flue.
Replacing that open fire with a properly installed Ecodesign stove changes that equation completely. The Soot Doctor has been advising homeowners across Dublin and Wicklow on exactly this kind of upgrade for over twenty years, and in this guide, we are going to walk you through the full picture, the savings, the regulations, what Ecodesign actually means, and how the transition works in practice. Read on to learn more.
The Ecodesign 2022 regulation, EU Commission Regulation 2015/1188, which came into force on 1 January 2022, is an EU directive that sets legally binding minimum standards for the efficiency and emissions of all new solid fuel stoves sold in Ireland and across the EU. From that date, any new stove manufactured and sold in the Republic of Ireland must comply with these standards. It is not a ban on stoves, and it does not affect stoves that were already installed before 2022. What it does is ensure that every new stove coming to market is built to a genuinely high environmental and efficiency standard.
The key numbers are these. Ecodesign stoves must achieve a minimum thermal efficiency of 75%. The old EN13240 standard required only 60%. That is already a significant step up. But the comparison that matters most for homeowners with an open hearth is the one against the open fire itself: Stove Industry Alliance research has shown that modern wood-burning stoves reduce particulate matter emissions by approximately 90% compared to an open fire, and by 80 to 84% compared to a stove that is more than ten years old. Ecodesign also requires the testing and limitation of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and organic gaseous compounds, four categories of emissions that older appliances were not tested for at all.
In practical terms, an Ecodesign stove burns hotter, cleaner, and more completely than anything that came before it. And because it burns more completely, it uses less fuel to produce the same amount of heat. That is where the savings come from.
To understand why this upgrade matters so much financially, it helps to understand what an open fire is actually doing.
An open hearth draws cold air from the room, mixes it with burning fuel, and sends the resulting gases up the flue. The fire produces heat in all directions simultaneously, upward, outward, and backwards into the chimney breast, and only a small fraction of that heat actually enters the room as useful warmth. The rest is radiated into the surrounding masonry or pulled straight up the flue by the draught. When the fire dies down overnight, the open flue continues to draw warm room air upward, acting as a chimney even when nothing is burning. Your heating system then has to work harder to replace that lost warmth.
This is why the efficiency of an open fire is typically quoted in the 15 to 25% range, and why some traditional open fireplaces can actually make a room cooler overall by drawing more warm air up the flue than the fire produces. It is not a criticism of the open fire as a tradition, it is simply a physical reality that modern technology has found a far better solution to.
A stove is a sealed combustion appliance. The firebox is enclosed on all sides, with a controlled air supply fed through vents that can be adjusted to manage the burn rate precisely. Because the combustion environment is sealed and insulated, it reaches far higher internal temperatures than an open fire can sustain, and those high temperatures drive secondary combustion, the re-ignition of the gases and particles that would otherwise escape as smoke.
In an Ecodesign stove, pre-heated secondary air is introduced into the top of the firebox through jets or slots. This air ignites the combustion gases before they can leave the firebox, converting what would have been smoke and wasted energy into additional heat. The result is a fire that burns visibly cleaner; you will see a heat shimmer from the flue rather than thick grey smoke, and delivers a far greater proportion of the fuel’s energy as warmth into the room.
The sealed glass door, which in modern stoves stays clean for much longer than older models thanks to the air wash system that keeps glass clear, also means that the stove can be damped down overnight without extinguishing, holding heat in the firebox, continuing to warm the room slowly, and not drawing cold air across the floor in the way an open fire does.
The savings from switching an open hearth to an Ecodesign stove come from several directions simultaneously, which is why the cumulative effect is often more significant than homeowners expect.
Fuel efficiency is the most obvious. If your open fire runs at 20% efficiency and your new Ecodesign stove runs at 80%, you are getting four times as much heat from the same amount of fuel. In practice, that means you need significantly less wood or solid fuel to achieve the same room temperature, or alternatively, the same amount of fuel heats your room for considerably longer and to a higher temperature.
Reduced draughts and heat loss are the second factor. An open flue,even one in which no fire is currently burning, creates a persistent draught through the room. Closing a stove door eliminates this. Some stoves also include an external air kit option, which draws combustion air from outside the house rather than from the room, eliminating the cold floor draughts that open fires cause entirely.
Sweeping costs are also affected. An open fire burning damp wood at low temperatures produces enormous amounts of creosote and soot, requiring regular sweeping and increasing the risk of chimney fires. An Ecodesign stove burning dry, seasoned fuel at the correct temperature produces very little soot by comparison. While a professional chimney sweep is still essential at least once a year, and we would never suggest otherwise, the condition of the flue after a season of clean burning in a well-used stove is markedly better than an open fire.
Replacing an open hearth with a stove is a more involved project than many homeowners initially expect, and it is important to understand what the process entails before committing to it.
The first and most important step is the chimney. An open fire typically operates on an unlined brick flue that is larger in diameter than a stove requires. Stoves produce a more concentrated flow of hotter gases, and they need a correctly sized, properly lined flue to work safely and efficiently. In almost all cases, installing a stove into an existing open chimney requires fitting a flexible stainless steel liner, a twin-wall insulated tube run from the stove collar up to the chimney pot. This liner reduces the flue to the correct diameter, prevents condensation and creosote from soaking into the old brickwork, and ensures the appliance draws properly.
Choosing the right size stove for the room is critical and is something The Soot Doctor can advise on during a site survey. The common instinct is to choose the largest, most powerful stove available. In practice, a stove that is oversized for the room it is heating cannot be run at its optimal temperature without overheating the space, which means it ends up being slumbered, run with restricted air, exactly the operating condition that produces poor combustion, soot, and creosote. A 5kW stove running efficiently in a well-insulated living room will outperform a 10kW stove running in a throttled, low-temperature condition every time.
The hearth must meet minimum dimensions as set out under the Building Regulations and the stove manufacturer’s installation requirements, and the distance from the stove’s surfaces to any combustible materials must be observed precisely. Your installer will confirm all of these clearances as part of the installation process.
Finally, the installation must be certified. In Ireland, all solid fuel appliance installations require certification by a competent person, a registered specialist who can sign off that the installation complies with the current Technical Guidance Document and Building Regulations. The Soot Doctor handles this certification as part of every stove installation we carry out.
The Flamestyle showroom in Bray carries a range of Ecodesign-certified stoves suited to the range of chimney configurations, room sizes and heating demands typical of Irish homes, from compact apartments and terraced houses to larger detached properties with older unlined chimneys.
For homeowners replacing an open hearth, the most relevant choice is typically between a wood-burning stove and a multi-fuel stove. A wood-burning stove is designed specifically for logs and delivers the cleanest, most efficient burn with timber fuel. A multi-fuel stove accommodates smokeless solid fuels in addition to wood, giving you flexibility if your fuel supply varies or if you want to use certain authorised smokeless fuels during the autumn and spring shoulder seasons.
Both categories are available in Ecodesign-compliant models from a range of manufacturers. The Flamestyle team can demonstrate the different flame presentations and build qualities side by side in the showroom, which is the only reliable way to compare appliances before committing. Photographs do not give an accurate sense of how a stove sits in a room or how the flame quality appears in practice.
Read More: The Clean Burning Revolution: Best Practices for Sustainable Stove Use in Ireland
For homeowners who are undertaking broader home energy improvements,insulation, heating system upgrades and so on, it is worth noting that stove installations may form part of a broader SEAI-supported home energy upgrade programme. The specific grant structures and their applicability to heating appliances change periodically, and we recommend checking the current SEAI offering directly or speaking to an energy assessor who can advise on what is available for your specific home and planned upgrade works.
In most cases, yes. An open fire chimney is typically unlined and larger in diameter than a stove flue requires. A correctly sized stainless steel flexible liner must be installed from the stove collar to the chimney top. This is not optional; it is required for safe and efficient operation and for the installation to be certifiable under the Building Regulations. The Soot Doctor handles chimney relining as part of every stove installation.
In most cases, yes, provided the chimney is sound, the flue route is clear, and the room has adequate volume for the stove size chosen. The Soot Doctor carries out a site survey before every installation to confirm suitability, check the chimney condition and recommend the correct stove size for the space.
Yes. Even a clean-burning Ecodesign stove burning well-seasoned wood produces some soot and tar deposits in the flue over the course of a heating season. Professional sweeping at least once per year is required for safe operation and is typically a condition of any stove’s warranty. The Soot Doctor provides chimney sweeping and inspection services for stove-lined flues throughout Dublin and Wicklow.
The open hearth is one of the most familiar features of the Irish home and, for many people, carries real emotional weight. That warmth does not disappear when you install a stove; if anything, the quality of warmth from a well-chosen, properly installed stove in front of an attractive installation is a significant step up from what the open fire provided. What does disappear is the waste, the draughts, and the cost of heating a room at 20% efficiency.
If you are ready to find out what an Ecodesign stove upgrade would involve for your specific chimney and room, call The Soot Doctor on 01 902 0758 or contact us through sootdoctor.ie. And if you want to see the stoves in person first, visit the Flamestyle showroom in Bray. It is the best way to understand what is available and what will work for your home.
DISCLAIMER: This article provides general information only. Stove suitability, installation requirements and Building Regulation compliance depend on individual property circumstances. Always arrange a professional site survey before committing to an installation, and ensure any installation is carried out and certified by a competent registered installer.
