From a Garage, a Bicycle and a Bag of Coals...

2010 — It Started in a Garage

The Stove Wizard was founded in 2010 after its founder lost his job working in banking.

Before banking, he'd worked in operations and logistics for a national transport carrier and for major workwear distributor Ralawise, gaining experience in warehousing, pick-and-pack operations and getting products from A to B efficiently.

Suddenly, though, there was a rather more important logistical challenge.

He was a single father with two children, aged 10 and 12.

Whatever came next had to do two things: provide an income to support his family — and allow him to be the dad his children needed.

So, from the garage at home, he started selling replacement gas fire coals sourced from local manufacturer Clwyd Refractory Fibres.

The first marketplace was eBay.

Soon came gas fire pebbles and ceramic logs. Amazon followed towards the end of 2010, and eventually The Stove Wizard's own website.

Orders started at perhaps 10–15 parcels a day.

Then winter arrived.

They doubled.

Then trebled.

The First Member of the Team Was 12

The business was never really a one-man operation for long.

At 12 years old, his daughter started helping to pack the orders.

There weren't many at first, but as the business grew and winter demand arrived, evenings increasingly involved boxes, labels, ceramic coals and getting the next day's orders ready.

What started as a way for one father to support his children was quietly becoming a family business.

Nobody knew quite how far it would go.

Then Our Supplier Disappeared

By 2013, the local company supplying our ceramic coals was experiencing difficulties.

For The Stove Wizard, that created a fairly serious problem.

We were selling around 1,000 coals a day.

There were two choices:

stop selling them...

or learn how to manufacture them ourselves.

Naturally, we chose the difficult option.

Two Shipping Containers, a Farm and a Slightly Mad Idea

Two 40-foot shipping containers were placed on a friend's farm.

They became our first manufacturing plant.

The containers were actually the straightforward part.

We then had to work out how to manufacture the products.

Almost all of the machinery required was bespoke, apart from the vacuum pump. There wasn't a ready-made production line we could simply order.

So we designed, experimented, modified and tried again.

There was considerably more "miss" than "hit" in the beginning.

The team at that point consisted of the founder, a friend he'd employed, his future wife and his daughter.

Five months into the project came one of those moments we'll never forget.

After around five or six hours of work, the machinery finally produced something resembling a proper tray of ceramic coals.

About 25 of them.

We needed to manufacture roughly 1,000 every day.

So, objectively, we still had a small problem.

But you should have seen our faces.

Those 25 coals might as well have been gold.

Tiny acorns.

Six Months Later, It Worked

After around six months of development, experimentation and persistence, production finally reached the level we needed.

And the timing couldn't have been better.

Our original supplier ceased trading.

Instead of losing one of the products on which the business had been built, The Stove Wizard had become a manufacturer in its own right.

Necessity had pushed the business into something completely new.

That willingness to understand products, solve problems and make things better has stayed with us ever since.

2015 — Goodbye Farm, Hello Flint

Eventually, we outgrew the farm.

Our daughter headed off to university and the business continued with the founder, his wife and two employees.

In 2015, The Stove Wizard moved into its first proper premises in Flint, North Wales.

The business was becoming a recognised name.

Our model was simple.

Understand the products.

Offer good products.

Talk directly to the people actually using them.

And make enough noise online that customers could find us.

It turned out that customers weren't the only people who noticed.

Then HBO Called...

One of our most unexpected opportunities came from the world of television and film special effects.

Our first major special-effects contract wasn't exactly a small one.

It was for HBO.

And the production?

The final season of Game of Thrones.

The Stove Wizard manufactured more than 4,000 ceramic logs for use within the production, including castle fires and braziers.

For a family business that had started with parcels strapped to a bicycle, seeing products we'd made being used on one of the biggest television productions in the world was a fairly special moment.

We were incredibly proud.

From Fireplaces to Film Sets

Game of Thrones wasn't the end of the story.

Since then, The Stove Wizard has regularly supplied products for television, film and special-effects use.

Many projects are covered by non-disclosure agreements, so unfortunately we can't put a giant list of productions on the wall.

What we can say is that our products have been supplied to major production companies and broadcasters, including work associated with organisations such as the BBC, ITV and Netflix special-effects productions.

The best compliment?

They keep coming back.

2018 — We Needed More Room. Again.

By 2018, we'd outgrown our premises again.

This time we purchased our first warehouse in Flint.

The Stove Wizard range had expanded far beyond the gas fire coals with which we'd started.

Gas fire coals, pebbles and logs were joined by an increasingly comprehensive range of stove products, including stove rope and adhesives, stove polish, stove paint, replacement fire materials and vermiculite products.

Where possible, products have been developed specifically for us and to our requirements.

Our approach remains simple:

If we're putting The Stove Wizard name on it, we want it to be something we'd be happy to use ourselves.

Becoming Vermiculite Specialists

Vermiculite board became another major part of The Stove Wizard story.

Rather than simply stocking generic board, we invested in the ability to cut and process vermiculite for customers who need replacement fire bricks and boards in specific dimensions and shapes.

Today we source our vermiculite boards from Skamol in Denmark, one of the recognised specialists in high-temperature insulation materials.

It took around six months of conversations before we convinced them that this relatively small family business in Flint was serious.

They know us rather well now.

The Stove Wizard has grown into one of their significant customers, while our in-house cutting capability allows us to offer everything from standard boards to made-to-measure pieces.

Our cut-to-size service is built around a very simple idea:

Your stove doesn't care whether its replacement board is a convenient standard size.

So we'll cut the board to fit the stove.

Products Developed by People Who Actually Use Them

As the range expanded, we increasingly worked on products made specifically to our requirements.

Today The Stove Wizard range includes specialist stove ropes, high-temperature adhesives, stove polish, stove paint, replacement fire products, vermiculite boards and other fireplace maintenance products.

We don't want to sell something simply because a factory happens to manufacture it.

We want products that do the job properly.

That philosophy has helped The Stove Wizard grow into a major online seller of stove and fireplace-related products.

2025 — Warehouse Number Two

Apparently one warehouse wasn't enough either.

In 2025 we added a second warehouse in Flint to give the growing business the additional space it needed.

But something even more important was happening.

The next generation was arriving.

The Children Who Packed the Boxes Are Taking Over

The business was originally created so a father could support his children while still being there to raise them.

There is therefore something rather special about what happened next.

His son joined the business in February 2025.

Together with his daughter, the brother-and-sister team began introducing new systems, improving efficiency and helping push The Stove Wizard into its next stage of growth.

Today they are taking over the family business.

The same daughter who packed some of those first orders as a 12-year-old is now helping lead the company.

For their parents, watching the two of them take responsibility for the business — with the same work ethic and commitment to customers — is probably the proudest chapter of the story so far.

2026 — Then We Discovered Smoke

In 2026 we expanded into premium BBQ smoking woods.

Predictably, we didn't want to buy a generic range and stick our name on the bag.

The inspiration came from Andalucía in southern Spain — a region we had visited repeatedly and grown to love, not least because of its culture of outdoor cooking.

The Mediterranean landscape provides an extraordinary variety of woods and flavours.

So we went looking ourselves.

We sourced a range of smoking wood chunks, chips and dust from Andalucía, choosing distinctive woods and flavour profiles for BBQ and smoking enthusiasts.

The range includes Mediterranean and traditional smoking woods selected to give outdoor cooks something genuinely interesting to experiment with.

Customers noticed the difference.

Despite only launching in 2026, The Stove Wizard smoking wood range has already developed into a strong seller alongside established international brands.

Who knows?

Maybe next year we'll be chasing the number-one spot.

We've never been particularly good at thinking small.

The Stove Wizard Today

A lot has changed since 2010.

The garage became two warehouses.

The bicycle was eventually retired from commercial delivery duties.

Ten parcels a day became a serious ecommerce operation.

A desperate attempt to make 25 ceramic coals became our own manufacturing capability.

And two children who once watched their dad build a business are now taking that business into its next generation.

But the principles haven't changed very much.

Know what you're selling.

Make or source it properly.

Treat customers fairly.

Keep learning.

And never forget that there is a real person at the other end of every order.

Why The Stove Wizard?

• Specialist knowledge

  More than 15 years working with fires, stoves and replacement fireplace products.

• Family business

  Built by one family and now being carried forward by the next generation.

• Real manufacturing experience

  We don't just list products online. We've designed machinery, manufactured products and solved real fireplace problems.

• Cut-to-size expertise

  In-house capability for made-to-measure vermiculite boards and replacement components.

• Products we believe in

  From products developed to our requirements to materials sourced from specialist manufacturers.

• Trusted beyond the home

  Our products have even found their way onto major film and television productions.