WhatStove?

Review of Dunsley Highlander 5 stove

Dunsley Highlander 5

Brian Lucas 8 years ago

We bought and fitted the Highlander 5 stove in spring 2013, spent the usual (long) time looking online and at local stove shops and ended up selecting the Dunsley Highlander 5.

The stove hasn't skipped a beat since install and we have it fitted into our large lounge measuring 18' X 16' X 11' high and it does a great job, it doesn't heat our hall or upstairs with the lounge door open as soom people might think. We live in an old 1902 semi-detached house with no cavity wall insulation etc...

The Highlander 5 lights easy and gets up to temp within around 30 minutes or so, I source/supply/chop/cut/dry all my own wood with three separate log stores in back garden, I'm very much into it.

On rare occasions we use coal which you can just about keep the fire in overnight,we would use one bag of coal per year. The Highlander 5 is very economical to run on wood in our past 2.5yrs experience, about every 90 minutes or so just add a couple of bits of dried wood and blast it for a few minutes then turn it down to tickover mode, brilliant.

I find if the glass soots up its best to clean it with a piece of newspaper and ash from the pan which does a good job of cleaning it. We run the Highlander 5 stove from around October to March without any faults, six months of it burning virtually every night from about 5pm to midnight and it's excellent, can't fault it one bit, we have a large wicker basket to store wood for the stove that sits in the hall under a table and we use properly dried wood. We bought a £50 stove fan that sits on top of the stove to help dissipate the heat around our lounge. We get our flue cleaned once per year.

We're on the verge of installing a Burley Brampton (8kw) stove into our large dining room (high ceiling) which opens up into an 'L' shape kitchen area and downstairs hall etc, so hoping the heat from the (well respected) Burley Brampton will help heat our cold downstairs area.

Overall; the Dunsley Highlander 5 is a wonderful wood-burner and is very well made, we've had it installed 2.5yrs now and its been hassle free and does a great job of throwing out heat.

Overall rating:

4.5 flames

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