WhatStove?

Review of Esse 200 stove

Esse 200

Matt Driver 14 years ago

A good hot stove excellent to look at and chucks out plenty of heat even from the smallest of logs. Once turned down you can get plenty of burn time from good size logs. \nEasy to use however the controls in my opinion are fairly poor, there's no indication marks to help with the controls and they're difficult to get in just the right spot for whatever you're burning. Simple marks showing where fully closed to fully open would be helpful. I use the end of the poker to tap them to the required position.\nThe first time I used the stove it still had glowing embers the next day. An absolute doddle to keep in overnight by banking up very lightly and turning the air down.\nI'm not sure that the roof plate in the firebox will last the test of time as it's fairly flimsy steel. Other stoves that I've used have been made of similar weight material as the stove itself.\nCleaning out. Unfortunately the stove doesn't have a riddle plate. The grate offers only small holes for ash to fall through and I found that very little ash ever falls through to the pan below without some serious pokering of the embers and ash above. Cleaning is therefore not too good and if you intend to keep the fire in for most of the winter you'll find it bit of a pain.\nWould I buy it again? Possibly not -- I love everything about the fire but other fires of similar output and size do have riddle plates.\n\nWe researched the purchase of the fire very thoroughly based on allowed size and required output.

Overall rating:

4 flames

Build Quality 4 flames (avg 4.6)
Quality of finish 4 flames (avg 4.3)
Value for money 4 flames (avg 4.7)
Ease of use 3 flames (avg 4.7)
Ease of lighting 5 flames (avg 4.7)
Firebox size 5 flames (avg 4.7)
How well does the airwash work 4 flames (avg 4.8)
Controllability 3 flames (avg 4.4)
Handle operation 4 flames (avg 4)
How likely are you to buy it again? 3 flames (avg 4.5)
What is your overall satisfaction? 4 flames (avg 4.7)