Review of Aduro 9 stove
Aduro 9 air
I've had this stove fitted and working for about six months now and it is my first woodturner. I bought it along with the Aduro air kit.
Overall i recommend it but i have had some issues. Firstly, drilling the wall for the air supply pipe (I didn't fit the actual fire) I could tell that the 130mm dia. pipe was not going to fit using a 127mm core drill but after a few phone calls was assured the drill was the correct size- it wasn't and I had to enlarge the hole with a mini grinder inside the hole- a real PITA and messy. The next drill size up would have been too big for the inner wall plate so don't know what the answer is there. The next problem was with the Aduro-tronic lever catch on the front under the door. It just slides backwards and forwards and has a horizontal flat plate on the other end that covers the incoming air slot and when it is pulled out fully there is a spring loaded plunger that gradually pushes it back so that the incoming air is reduced. The lever on mine was so stiff that to move it required a few smacks with a rubber mallet and a spring loaded plunger didn't have a hope in hell of shifting it. I got an email back from Aduro saying that the bolts that hold the aduro-tronic plate to the underside of the body were too tight to let it move and it was an easy fix to loosen them off Well I took the bolts out and there was nothing holding it in place and it still wouldn't move. I removed the bottom drawer and took the whole mechanism out and found that the plate on the end of the lever which covers the incoming air duct was such a tight fit in the slot that it wouldn't let the lever move. I had to ram the thing in and out for half an hour until I was happy it had worn enough of the edges off to move freely enough to work. This obviously hadn't been checked at the factory before crating up/ or it was let through as it was. The only other thing I am not too happy with is the paint finish- this is no Porsche paint job that's for sure , but like I said at the start, this is my first woodburner and I have nothing to base a comparison on-but. We had a ceiling leak and a bit of water dripped onto the top plate and caused a discoloured patch on the paintwork, This was rubbed down lightly then re-sprayed- which my fitter did. He had masked the fire and flue so that he could just spray the top of the fire. The problem came when he removed the masking tape from around the top of the door and side panels as this pulled some of the original paint finish off. The fire had been used a fair bit at this point so the paint was cured and the tape he used was low tack and the same he used on every fire, and he had never had this happen before. When you pull the bottom drawer out, a lot of the inside paint on the drawer base is flaking off, and although you can't see it, it just gives the impression of a poor paint job. The positives with this fire are definitely its looks and its heat output. We have ours in the corner of a modern kitchen extension and it looks great. The room is approx 8m x 5m with a vaulted ceiling and after a couple of hours the room is bouncing. Before this we had three radiators that couldn't touch the room, even after several hours with the boiler going full chat. It has transformed the room in winter and we now stay in it much more than previously. Knowing as I do now what this woodturner has done for the feel of our kitchen/diner and how happy I am with its function, I do recommend it- with the above observations, but if I were to do it again would I spend the extra money and go with a soapstone Heta of a similar design..maybe!