Review of Esse 500 stove
Could Do Better
Had this stove for about 5 years now and never been 100% happy with it.\nWe bought it as it looks simple, un-fussy and has a good size firebox for the size of stove. We went for the optional woodburning kit, which was a bit pricey for 3 small steel plates. Though they are simple to fit and easy to swap to multifuel grate if needed.\n\nLovely view of the fire though the large glass and a pleasing design to look at. One point I thought was particularly good and really swung the initial purchase, was the use of cast iron fire bricks, rather than other stoves which used soft firebricks which wear out or fall apart. These are also dead easy to remove.\n\nBurns well and gives plenty of heat, cant fault it there.\n\nNow, this may only be a fault with this stove and maybe the others are not like this. Maybe the new ones don't suffer this problem. It is almost impossible to shut it down. Close the Airwash and it makes virtually no difference. We very quickly took to shoving cardboard into the airwash vent to shut it down. And this works well, different sizes of card mean we are able to regulate it quite well now. Doing this it is just possible to get it to stay in overnight with large hardwood logs, or even better, smokeless coal. But I wouldn't say this a particularly safe way of shutting it down!!. So sadly I feel I have had to mark it down on controlability.\n\nWith the Airwash problem fixed I wouldn't have any complaints with it.\n\n\n
Stove expert replied: Have you thought of a flue damper or stabilizer which should give you more control of the stove unit?
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