WhatStove?

Review of Stratford TF 50 stove

Stratford Ecoboiler

Anne McLeod 14 years ago

I live in a long thin old stone farmhouse with lots of small rooms. I had this stove installed in the summer and am now using it all day, every day, though I have not yet tried to keep it going all night - however, I suspect this would not be a problem, since with enough fuel in and the draught turned down as low as this stove allows, it should work very well. I have no other source of heat in the house and am using the stove to heat my domestic hot water and on average 7 radiators. I am very impressed with how quickly the stove puts the heat into the radiators and how controllable the draught is. I am burning hard wood blocks (9 to 12 per day) plus about half a bucket of coal a day (a mix of Polish coal and smokeless fuel) which I find useful to bring up the temperature of the fire. I light the fire with a biggish load of fuel in the morning, get the water in the system good and hot and circulating to the rads nicely and then leave the stove on very low draught through the middle of the day, with maybe one smaller top-up of fuel about lunch time. Later in the afternoon I build it up again and give a new surge to the radiators so that the house is warm for the evening. The daytime temperature here is about 4-6 C at the moment and it is very wet to boot but I feel snug in my house for the first time ever. \n\n I live in the Republic of Ireland where this stove retails for about €1695 (my local stove shop actually could not do better than a quote of €1950!). However, I contacted a stove shop in the North (Newry) and found the stove retails there for £1270- so I paid just over €1400 including delivery to the south coast here: an enormous saving for me! I am delighted with this stove and would recommend it to anyone. Two points to remember: the stove itself does not emit a great amount of heat so you need a radiator in the same room as it; for the same reason, you can't actually boil a kettle on what the parts list describes as a hotplate!

Overall rating:

4.5 flames

Build Quality 4 flames (avg 3.7)
Quality of finish 4 flames (avg 4)
Value for money 5 flames (avg 4.1)
Ease of use 5 flames (avg 3.9)
Ease of lighting 5 flames (avg 4.1)
Firebox size 4 flames (avg 3.6)
How well does the airwash work 4 flames (avg 3.5)
Controllability 5 flames (avg 4)
Handle operation 5 flames (avg 3.9)
How likely are you to buy it again? 5 flames (avg 4)
What is your overall satisfaction? 5 flames (avg 4)