Well, just to set the scene!!! I live in a 2 bed, stone walled bungalow in the west of Ireland built in 1939. As you walk Into the house you come into the main living room. Off this room you
have 4 doors, two bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom so the house is fairly compact. For the last few years I have been relying on the open fire to supply the bulk of the heat to the house, also used an electric blow heater as well just to give a quick boost of heat in the room. It became very apparent this winter that I needed a better way of heating this old girl up but keeping cost in mind too. I mean, with the open fire on a bad day I would burn nearly one 20kg bag of coal as well as a few briquettes thrown in for good measure and have the fan heater running too so the electric meter was going crazy!!!! I searched the web high and low, I wanted a stove that would fit into the existing opening so I didn't have to do much messing about with altering the fireplace etc, I found one by Henley but it was out of my budget so the search continued......... I came across a chap selling these imported stoves in county Clare and the price was good. I rang him and asked a bit more about the stove etc and I thought for £250 delivered , sure I might as well give it a crack....... Turned up the following day, I emptied and cleaned the fireplace out, installed a flue lining kit and all associated Gubbins, then I installed the stove and left it around 12 hours before setting a small fire.........The first 2 fires, they burnt off the new @factory residue' from the stove so I kept the room well ventilated until the smells had completely gone. The next few fires after that I gradually increased the fuel load and heat. I find the top and bottom air controls do work well and work almost as soon as they are adjusted, they take a wee bit of tinkering around with until you can set them to how you want the fuel to burn, but I've found the controls very responsive, very handy when I come in after a few pints, I crank the vents open fully and in less then a minute the fire is roaring again to warms me through after walking in from the pub.... The stove is a god send to me, I now use a third of the fuel I was using to heat it, and my electric bill has greatly reduced as I have no need for any electric fans. The open fire was OK if you were close to it but once you moved 3/4 ft away you felt the chilly air in the room whereas the stove heats the room evenly and consistently and uses far less fuel so it's a win win for me. I also leave the doors open at times, especially the bedroom door and the heat just flows through to each room too which is so good, this little stove literally heats the whole house, I love it. I'm waiting on a stove fan to see what it's all about, I do hear fellas raving on about them so I've ordered one, it might just push a little more warm air around the place. All in all though, I'm extremely happy with this small stove, it works far better then I had imagined, the fella has spare glass and inner gubbins if any fail over time which is expected. For the money I paid I can't complain one bit, it's a good solid little room heating stove and suits my needs perfectly. Very happy overall and it's saved me a fortune compared with the old open fire.........
Stove expert replied:
Great feedback, a stove that has transformed this little property with great fuel savings as well, can't be bad!
This stove has been in installed for a week now and used everyday for the past 7 days. Chimney is about 5 feet of 5 inch single wall stainless flue connected to 8 inch internal dia twinwall (
insulated) flue, with a rain cowl.
I have installed and used a few woodburners, the others being well known brands. As this particular installation is only going to be temporary (until the house is finished and I install a larger stove) I did not want to fork out the better part of a £1000 on a stove that I would be replacing. I thought I would try one of the far eastern stoves, the 'HORTON' is sold under various other names.
Firstly the far eastern stoves are usually just sold as multi fuel, and akin with many multifuel stoves, burning wood on them is a bit of a compromise, but it would appear even more so with this particular stove. The air vents appear to have insufficient flow to burn wood with any degree of control. The fire was very difficult to light and had no control . Having tried all combinations of vents lighting etc I decided to make a few simple modifications to burn wood. I have removed the riddling grate (which incidentally was very difficult to riddle and get moving even with wood ash)and the plate it sat in and replaced it with 10mm thick steel plate, this plate was cut 10mm shorter in depth to allow the air to come through the btm vent up and over the wood fire bed (rather than underneath as per multifuel grate). The air holes on the door had casting flashing covering up the air holes, these were cleaned up with a dremel and grinding stones (no mean feat-cast iron can be very hard!).
Even with these improvements I feel the air flow is insufficient. You need to light the fire with the door kept ajar, as soon as you shut it the fire nearly dies. Suspecting the flue to be causing the problems when cold I have also re lit the fire when the stove and chimney are hot, same problem exists. The only way to get a good burn is to get the fire really going by leaving the door slightly ajar, add logs keep the door ajar, do the same again, then when you have got a red hot fire going shut the door, close btm vent and open top vent. If you keep the fire going pretty hot you can keep the fire going and regulate it reasonably well with the top vent. Unfortunately this method is not a very efficient way to burn wood. If the fire dies down and you don't put wood on early enough, it really struggles to light the fresh wood. So you have to go back to the door ajar method. Maybe the 8 inch dia flue is perhaps not helping the draw. But this is within the recommended guidelines of the supplied installation instructions, but I don't think the draw on the chimney is the problem as when you open the door slightly when the fire is going well you can get it to roar.
In conclusion, you can get the stove to work to a fashion, but it is not straightforward compared to the other stoves I have used. I suspect it would work better with coal. The stove looks great and is well built (over 90kgs)but performs poorly in every respect. The stated 8kw output must be with coal at full chat. Even with my well seasoned dry wood I suspect max output on wood to be about 5-6 kw, but that would be after really getting it going with a red hot ash bed, normal firing expect to get 3.5-4.5kw. If you are only going to burn coal, or only use your stove occasionally this stove may be worth a try. If you intend to burn wood only I would suggest buy a wood only stove, which will probably be a known brand. A good make will provide you with more control over your fire, controlled and efficient burning will prove to be more economical in the long run. If you are on a tight budget I would buy either buy a secondhand well known brand or perhaps look at the cheaper stoves such as villager etc (I had a medium sized villager it was superb, although my mother in law has the large villager with a boiler and it eats wood) Personally I would choose cast Iron over steel, having used both types the castiron holds the heat for longer and 'evens' out the heat output of the stove as the output from the fire varies throughout the burn. If you can avoid it do not have a wood burner with a boiler, the circulating water in the boiler keeps the firebox temperature down making for an inefficient burn. If you must have one with a boiler try not to have one with a wrap around (i.e. 3 sides of firebox) just have one with a back boiler. Or if you have the money there are more expensive stoves that get around the problem with clever stove design. There is some really good info on woodburning on a Canadian website, The Woodheat Organisation at www.woodheat.org
I run a generic Chinese product and also run a European product from Charnwood. In short, it does the job but not up to the same standard as the Charnwood product. It claims to be CE rated but
two of the CE benchmark tests, it could not achieve. It claims to bee 80% efficient which is impossible given the fact that one can not easily regulate the air flow. All in all, it is only 'ok' but then it is half the cost of the European equivalent.
