Businesses from around Scotland told The National that the sky-high price of energy is sending waves of customers through the door with shops struggling to fulfil demand.

UK Google searches for wood-burning stoves have doubled since this period last year with interest particularly high in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Bill McDade, managing director of the Scottish Stove Centre in Croftamie, said while sales tend to pick up as the cold, winter months approach this year has been has seen the industry go “ballistic”.

“There’s always a rise in sales this time of year,” he said. “We’ve had so many inquiries this year we are backed up. And we hear that the industry in general is going ballistic.”

Scottish Stove Centre has been in business for more than 72 years but McDade said the need for alternative heating is greater now than it was previously.

“Gas and electricity bills are skyrocketing,” he said. “They’re going through the roof, and people are trying to make an impact on that and they’re able to successfully do that with a wood-burning stove.”

That’s if they can get one installed. McDade said many stores are now booked out until March.

John Hornal, owner of the Falkirk Stove Company, is one of the sellers who’s experiencing a five-month wait on installations.

He said he has so many orders that’s he’s running out of stock.

Hornal said it takes months for deliveries to arrive as he only orders from the UK and Scandinavia.

READ MORE: How much does it cost to install a wood-burning stove?

One store in Glasgow was so busy they were unable to talk to the newspaper.

Dawn Menzies, director of the online Central Stoves Chimney Engineers, said sales have “exploded” but said she’d found it increasingly hard to source stock following Brexit.

She said: “We have a lot of stoves out of stock because of demand. We’ve also had issues with manufactures after leaving the EU. It’s a bit of a nightmare.”

She said her firm is booked out until December, being bottlenecked by a lack of staff.

The Stove Industry Alliance (SIA) has reported a huge jump in sales across the UK this year.

The industry body found that sales of wood-burning stoves jumped 40% in the second quarter of 2022, compared with the same period last year.

The group told The National that it suspected the use of stoves would be even greater in rural Scotland where many homes are not connected to gas and suffer colder weather than the rest of the UK.

With the average energy bill sitting at £2500 per household, businesses are expecting even higher sales as the winter approaches.

The SIA says using a stove can be a third the price of electric heating and 13% cheaper than gas, based on the April 1 price cap. With October 1’s price cap even higher, the group said savings will rise.

The cost of running a wood-burning stove has also risen though, with businesses telling The National that the price of wood has increased.

Shops say that with high power bills, a stove is still likely to be cheaper than gas central heating.

Savings will depend on each household, with the price of a stove varying from £400 to more than £2000, with a good quality appliance costing around £1000.

Installation itself can be around £2000 or higher while the running costs for colder months can be around £600 – with all these figures having huge variations depending on use.

The rise in wood-burning stoves has come despite concerns over their impact on the environment and people’s health.

Recent regulations mean all stoves sold in the UK must incorporate Ecodesign which drastically cuts back on the release of unhealthy particulate matter (PM).

However, a study by the European Environmental Bureau found even Ecodesign models can produce high levels of PM pollution.