Wood Heat News: June 2026

June is the quiet month for burning and the busy month for the industry. The advertising watchdog has pulled up a council over its anti-stove campaign, the year’s biggest solid fuel trade show has been and gone, and the trade descends on Birmingham later this month. Here is what happened and why it matters if you heat with wood.

ASA bans Brighton council’s “cosy killer” wood burner advert

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned a Brighton & Hove City Council poster that blamed wood burners and open fires for a 78% winter rise in particle pollution near four primary schools, branding them “the cosy killer”. The ASA found the council did not hold evidence to show domestic burning caused that increase, so the ad was likely to mislead. For stove owners the ruling matters because it draws a line under the loosest anti-stove claims: councils can still discourage burning, but they now have to back the numbers. Full report at Brighton and Hove News, and the ruling itself is on the ASA website.

Doncaster trade show: retrofit and emissions dominate, “stoves are not going anywhere”

The Trade Stove & Fireplace Professional Show ran at Doncaster Racecourse on 30 and 31 May with 79 exhibitors, and HETAS’s write-up is a useful temperature check on the industry. The themes were retrofit technology, cleaner combustion and emissions reduction, with the clear message that manufacturers are modernising rather than retreating while Defra weighs up tighter smoke limits. If you are planning a stove purchase this year, expect the next wave of appliances to be built well inside the proposed 1g/hour smoke limit. HETAS’s takeaways are here. If a new stove is on the cards, size it properly first with our wood burning stove size calculator.

Recoheat flue heat-recovery device gets the HETAS spotlight

HETAS has profiled Recoheat, a heat-recovery coil that sits inside the flue and pumps warmth that would otherwise go up the chimney back into the room. Independent testing found it can recover up to 1kW of extra heat in good conditions, and the maker also claims cleaner refuelling with up to 48% less particulate, with the unit staying in place for routine sweeping. Worth knowing about if you burn a lot and want more heat from the same logs, though as ever the cheapest efficiency gain is properly dry wood: our firewood seasoning time calculator tells you when yours will be ready. The HETAS profile is here.

InstallerSHOW 2026 runs 23 to 25 June at the NEC

The UK’s biggest heating event, InstallerSHOW, returns to the NEC Birmingham from 23 to 25 June with over 900 exhibitors and around 20,000 installers and specifiers expected, HETAS among them. Solid fuel sits alongside heat pumps and plumbing on the bill, and it is where many installers get briefed on whatever Defra announces next on stove emissions. If your installer seems unusually well informed in July, this is why. Details on the HETAS InstallerSHOW page.