Will a Woodburner Save Money on Your Energy Bills? What the October Price Rise Means for Your Home.

As the evenings get darker and thermostats across Dorset start creeping upwards, there's one subject that is firmly back on the agenda: energy bills.

And this autumn, there's another increase on the way.

Will a Woodburner Save Money on Your Energy Bills?

From 1 October 2026, Ofgem's Energy Price Cap for a typical household paying by Direct Debit will rise from £1,663 to £1,723 a year – an increase of around 4%.

Perhaps more significantly for households using gas central heating, the average capped gas unit rate increases from 7.33p to 7.97p per kWh.

And there could be another sizeable increase coming in January.

So, unsurprisingly, we're being asked:

Could a woodburning stove actually help reduce our heating costs?

Will a Woodburner Save Money on Your Energy Bills?

The answer is: potentially, yes – but perhaps not in quite the way you think.

What's happening to energy prices?

The October increase is now confirmed.

According to Ofgem, higher wholesale gas prices are the main reason behind the rise. For a typical dual-fuel household paying by Direct Debit, the headline annualised figure increases by around £60.

But remember: the Energy Price Cap doesn't mean your bill is capped at £1,723. It limits the amount suppliers can charge per unit of energy and the standing charge.

Use more energy and you'll still pay more.

And attention is already turning to January 2027.

Early forecasts published in September are suggesting that the January Energy Price Cap could potentially increase by more than 20% again, with current supplier forecasts averaging around 22.9%.

That figure is absolutely not confirmed – Ofgem won't announce the January cap until 25 November and forecasts can change considerably as wholesale markets move – but it's another reminder of just how unpredictable household energy costs have become.

So, can a woodburner lower your bills?

This is where we need to separate reality from some of the claims you see online.

A modern woodburning stove isn't necessarily about switching your boiler off permanently and heating an entire four-bedroom house with a few logs.

For most homes, it works much better as secondary, or zoned, heating.

Imagine a typical winter evening.

You're sitting in the lounge for four or five hours, but your central heating is warming the lounge, bedrooms, hallway, bathroom and perhaps rooms nobody is actually using.

A stove gives you another option.

Light the woodburner and you can concentrate a substantial amount of heat into the part of the house where you're actually spending your evening.

Depending on your property and heating system, that may allow you to turn the central heating down, delay switching it on or run it for fewer hours.

That's where the potential saving comes from.

But aren't logs expensive too?

They can be.

There's no sensible way for us to promise that burning wood will always be cheaper than gas because it depends enormously on where your firewood comes from and what you pay for it.

Someone buying small bags of kiln-dried logs from a petrol station will have a completely different running cost from somebody buying properly seasoned hardwood locally in bulk.

And someone who has access to their own responsibly sourced and correctly seasoned timber has a different calculation again.

The important comparison isn't simply "How much is a bag of logs?"

It's the cost of the usable heat you're getting from the fuel.

Modern Ecodesign stoves are designed to extract far more useful heat from wood than an open fireplace, but the quality of the fuel and the way the stove is operated matter enormously.

Dry wood matters

If there's one piece of advice we'd give anyone who owns a woodburner, it's this:

Don't waste money burning wet wood.

In England, wood sold in volumes below 2m³ should carry the Ready to Burn certification, showing a moisture content of 20% or less.

Why does that matter?

Because when you put wet wood onto your stove, some of the energy produced has to boil off all that excess moisture rather than heating your room.

You get less useful heat, poorer combustion, more smoke and increased deposits within the appliance and chimney.

Dry wood burns hotter, cleaner and more efficiently.

A simple moisture meter is one of the most useful accessories a stove owner can have.

Don't buy a bigger stove to save more money

This is another misconception we come across surprisingly often.

A bigger stove doesn't automatically mean a warmer or more economical home.

In fact, an oversized stove can do exactly the opposite.

If an 8kW stove is installed into a room that really only requires around 4–5kW, you'll quickly find the room becoming uncomfortably hot.

The temptation is then to shut the stove down and make the fire smoulder.

That's not how a modern woodburner is designed to operate.

Correct stove sizing is incredibly important, which is why we look at the room, insulation, property construction, glazing and intended use rather than simply recommending the biggest stove that will physically fit into the fireplace.

A woodburner gives you another heating option

For us, this is probably the biggest advantage.

Energy prices rise and fall.

Gas prices fluctuate.

Electricity prices change.

But a woodburner gives your household an independent secondary source of heat.

It doesn't necessarily replace your central heating.

It complements it.

And for many of our customers, particularly those living in rural Dorset, having that choice is increasingly valuable.

Thinking about installing a stove before winter?

Autumn is traditionally when enquiries start increasing very quickly.

If you've been thinking about installing a woodburner this winter, we'd recommend starting the conversation sooner rather than waiting until the first genuinely cold week arrives.

Bring us photographs of your existing fireplace or the area where you'd like the stove installed, along with some approximate room dimensions.

We can talk you through the options, expected heat output and installation requirements – and help you decide whether a stove makes sense for your home, rather than simply selling you the biggest woodburner we can.

Southwest Woodburners | Dorset Woodburning Stove Showroom & HETAS Installation Specialists