Understanding Wood Stove Certification

All our models except Clasica, Rustica, Salamander Range, and America are UL-certified.

We often get asked if our wood stoves are certified. To properly answer this question we present a short overview of "certification" as it relates to wood stoves in USA, incl. cooking stoves. "Certification" means one of two things or both:

1) EPA Certification

All newly manufactured wood stoves sold in USA have to be EPA certified. EPA certification has to do with clean burning only and nothing with the safety of the appliance. It basically means that the stove has been tested by a third party lab and was found to be acceptable to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) in terms of the pollution it creates, or more specifically the level of wood smoke particle emission. 

Luckily, cooking stoves that meet certain criteria are EPA exempt! EPA recognizes that such stoves are used primarily for cooking and since they are used a lot less than traditional wood stoves EPA found no compelling reason to restrict their use. However, not all cook stoves are exempt! In EPA's words:

Cook stove means a wood-fired appliance that is designed, marketed and warranted primarily for cooking food and that has the following characteristics:

(1) An oven, with volume of 0.028 cubic meters (1 cubic foot) or greater, and an oven rack;

(2) A device for measuring oven temperatures;

(3) A flame path that is routed around the oven;

(4) An ash pan;

(5) An ash clean-out door below the oven;

(6) The absence of a fan or heat channels to dissipate heat from the appliance

All our stoves fit this definition perfectly! So, to answer the first question: our stoves are not EPA certified nor do they have to be: they are EPA exempt. This exemption applies also in Washington State, to verify please follow the link below and the Note on WA State's website: Cook Stoves in WA

2) Safety Certification

The second kind of certification has to do with safety of the appliance and is usually expressed on the back of the appliance with UL, Intertek or CSA marks. Uncertified wood stoves are completely legal in USA! In fact, the majority of the stoves used in homes today are not safety-certified because they either preceded the appearance of safety standards or were simply never certified. Safety certification means the stove has been tested by a third-party lab for the purpose of checking the overall safety of the appliance, venting requirements, and required clearance to combustibles. European certifications (CE etc) are not usually recognized in North America. If the appliance was never UL or CSA tested it has ramifications in 2 ways:

a) The stove has to be installed according to the local building code which is usually based on NFPA211, the federal fire code for uncertified wood burning appliances. This means that clearance to combustibles will be higher than they would have been if the stove was certified. However, if you are using heat shields to protect your walls then the practical difference between a certified and an uncertified stove will be only a few inches, and sometimes not even. If your walls are not combustible then there will be no difference at all (for the legal definition of a non-combustible wall please see NFPA211). In other words, if the stove is not UL or CSA approved the manual of the stove which specifies clearances is simply ignored and instead the blanket rules of NFPA211 are used.

b) Your home insurance company. Each company has its own rules and they may or may not cover an uncertified stove. If you are calling them to find out please make sure to tell them that the stove can still be installed by a certified installer. Quite often this is all they will care for.

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