Review of Stovax Riva Studio 500 Stove
Generally Ok, but smoke unacceptable
I have the inset version of this stove, fitted two years ago. In common with many other Stovax reviews, smoke does billow out into the room when opening the door to reload. Understandable perhaps at the moment of opening, but this continues even though the fire is hot. However, worse than this is the smoke when lighting. I have tried lots of kindling to get the fire hot ASAP, and very little so as to reduce the smoke - all to no avail - smoke just pours out of the air intake vents below the fire, I have had to re-paint the chimney breast two times because of this. I got the installer back. They removed and the fire and checked and found a slight mis-alignment which was corrected. It made no difference but they did suggest putting three or four candles in for ten minutes or so in order to heat up the chimney, I even used a blow lamp over the top plate inside the stove and opened a window when lighting - made no difference. I contacted Stovax, failed to respond.
To anyone else who has the misfortune to have this fire, I have a solution, make a temporary hood to slot over the opening when lighting. Smoke still pours out of the inlet vents, but the hood ducts the smoke back into the fire - akin to the practice of holding a newspaper over an open coal fire in order to get it to draw. Other than that, five small logs will get the whole house (4 bed detached) hot for about three hours.Stove expert replied: Do make sure that you have an air brick in the room, that the flue is lined (or small enough to keep the gases warm 12" square or 9" diam max but it must be sound and in good order), the flue height should be 4.5mtrs and I would suggest an anti-downdraught cowl terminates it. If other flues in the property then you may need to lengthen this flue to try to increase the draw.