WhatStove?

Review of Aga Minsterley stove

2 years use and very happy

Dave Baddeley 9 years ago

We had this installed 2 years ago whilst having a heating system refurb (we keot the old Rads.). The old system was an immersion heater for hot water with a huge oil boiler in a boiler house for the Radiators and a Yeoman Devon log burner in the main sitting room.

The new system is the Minsterly connected to a heat store along with a Rayburn 680KCD. These provide heat for the hot water and around 15 large and mostly double radiators in an old large draughty cottage. The initial design was supposed to also have the old oil boiler aswell but the old boiler died and we found that the heat generated by this log burner has meant that we never needed to replace the old boiler. When running the log burner the Rayburn is seldom required and generally kicks in more often on the coldest of winter days. We mainly burn wood in the autumn and spring and during the coldest parts of winter use anthracite 24hrs a day with a few logs used for effect. Anthracite requires only to be filled twice or three time a day. Costs for this has been just under 50kg of anthracite a week for 24hr radiators and hot tap water. The logs burned have been around 10-16 shoe box sized mixed logs (birch. holly, hawthorn, oak, cedar etc) for between 12-16hrs. heat and hot water. May I add the house is an L shaped build with a 12' conservatory leading straight into the kitchen with no door. so a really difficult house to keep warm and this stove really has made a difference saving around 2000ltrs of oil a year so far and keeping things very toasty.

Overall rating:

4.5 flames

Build Quality 4 flames (avg 4.8)
Quality of finish 4 flames (avg 4.7)
Value for money 5 flames (avg 4.4)
Ease of use 4 flames (avg 4.2)
Ease of lighting 5 flames (avg 4.7)
Firebox size 4 flames (avg 4.1)
How well does the airwash work 4 flames (avg 3.9)
Controllability 4 flames (avg 4)
Handle operation 5 flames (avg 4)
How likely are you to buy it again? 5 flames (avg 4.5)
What is your overall satisfaction? 5 flames (avg 4.6)