We have had this wood burner since 2013
Had it installed by a very good company into our old house was given good advice on how to use it and about the wood we burn and they sweep the chimney
and check it over replacing what is needed every year
It lights well and when it gets going it heats the whole house
Would definitely buy another one!
I have owned this stove for twelve months. I have only one issue and that is parts . The steel perforated baffled warped within 6 month or less the mesh is none existent . I explained this to
Burley and was told I must have over fired the stove . I burn logs of varied kinds and pine to light it. I have burned maybe 100 times since owning it. I was told I have to buy a new part for it . Once I removed the baffle it seems very flimsy and not fit for purpose. I had an engineer look at it and he laughed at the quality of this and said a match would warp this if left on long enough .
Don''t get me wrong... once this fire is up to temperature I''m in love with it. But there are so many basic design flaws that it''s hard to rate it highly. The manufacturers advertising ramble
describes the Wakerley 9112 as the product of 1000s of hours of design & development work. It sounded impressive! That, plus the film of the swirling ''vortex'' flame had me hooked. I bought one. I also paid the extra £70 or so for the kit to isolate the fire from the room it was installed in. That btw, was money well spent... no more draughts at ankle level across the lounge and a very noticeable warming of more rooms than just the one where the fire sits. It has to make sense not to suck air that the fire has heated out of the room & up the chimney.I''ve run woodburners for more than 30 years. This one has been installed for the last 12 months, so I consider I know it well now.Lighting it from cold is a pain in the butt. Until there is heat in the flue & convection takes effect there is no ''draw'' at all unless the door is left open on the latch. Any attempt to open the door within 30 minutes of lighting results in a room full of smoke. Once the fire is finally up to temperature the door handle has to be pushed to one side during closing. This is presumably because the door is so darned wide that the frame of it expands at a different rate to the fire''s body. The fire is narrow in depth meaning that logs have to be stacked on top of each other. This invariably leads to a fall of ash & embers from the front of the fire when opened because the dog grate has not been built tall enough. Why the h*ll not... such a ridiculous design flaw!Within two weeks of use the large rear fire brick had broken in half. I looked on line to order another only to see that it now comes in two halves. I couldn''t bring myself to make the purchase. Perhaps Burley would like to gift me them as they obviously now accept that the brick size was simply too large.I see other reviewers complaining that the thin perforated top plate is flimsy & burns through in no time. Despite running the fire very hot on occasions I''m delighted to report that mine remains intact & functional.Well that''s about it from me. Would I buy another? Maybe, but I''d look long and hard at what else was out there first.Finally, a question for you ''fire expert''... If ash finds it''s way outwards through the holes that supply air to the base of the fire, how can it be removed? Presumably, your answer will be that the natural flow of air will be inwards so it shouldn''t happen? I''m not so sure & reckon that a blast of compressed air will be about the only way to shift any accumulation & potential blockage.
Stove expert replied:
The stove will have been thoroughly tested before going to market, so the holes that are referred to should not become blocked during normal usage.
Had a couple of Holywell stoves so when we moved to a house with a huge living room Burley was the obvious choice. The wakerley is great. Lights well but takes a few minutes to get hold. This
is probably as the flue is a tad short though. Overall great and chucks out loads of heat and quite efficient
We've had this stove for under a year after moving into an big old house- we replaced a Rayburn oil cooker with this. We deliberated a long time about the make & size we wanted but as we had
a smaller burley in our old house settled on what we knew.We live rurally on a hill but find the draw to be very poor on a still day and find the smoke & ash swirling into the room when we open the door a total nightmare. We find that the better the fire is going the less smoke we get - so the problem improves with time. I think the problem is that the door is very large compared to the depth of the stove - most stoves are square in shape this one is rectangular. Plus points are the physical amount of logs you can fit in but despite this we can''t get it to go all night. We wish we had bought something else
Stove expert replied:
The flue draw seems to be the problem from what you say and this is not the stoves fault! Is there an air brick in the room? Are there other flues in the property that may have a stronger draw that is affecting this one? Have you an anti-downdraught cowl fitted? Is the chimney lined? What height is the flue system? As the draw improves when the flue is warm this shows the flue is the problem.
Wood burning stoves are not recommended for use over-night, the slow burning period produces too many tar residues and can lead to chimney problems.
Do get the installation checked as the problems outlined should be able to be improved on.
I have had my Burley Wakerley since Sept 2014. Originally I wanted a Clearview 750 but the installer said that was not ideal due to the diameter of the chimney/flue so I went with his recommendation
of a Burley Wakerley. Initially it was great but as time has gone by it is evident that this Burley stove is a cheap alternative to the Clearview. It''s smokey, difficult to get and keep going due to no draw and I am forever having to clean out the bottom as there is no removable ash box and if I don''t there is no hope at all of getting the fire going. This Christmas we had to put the thing out shortly after lighting it as there was smoke coming out of every possible orrifice, back of the stove, around the door seals, between the flue joins as well as pouring out of the door once opened. Eventually we closed the vent right down and opened all the windows. There doesn''t seem to be enough draw to get it going. From a quality perspective: The wooden door handle has fallen off, the stone slab at the back of the stove has cracked in half because the metal sheet in front has bowed and no longer sits straight, more on a slant. I have never burnt anything other than kiln dried wood, as recommended. But now once I have been lucky enough to get the fire going, I almost have to be sitting on top of the stove to feel any heat at all. My sister bought a Clearview stove at the same time and has used her as much as me and the two are not comparable. Basically my Burley is rubbish whilst her Clearview is the real deal.
I owned a Charnwood 8 and needed more heat in the house. I chose a pair of Wakerleys for their efficiency, large glass and external air feed. On this basis they meet requirements and, as the
only heat source, have kept our house warm. However, what I did not expect was that from new, with both a new and an old flue, the products of combustion would be expelled into the room every time the door was opened for refuelling i.e. ash, dust, smoke and/or flame. I have tried everything that I can think of e.g. opening the door at different points in the combustion cycle, ensuring the 10m long flues are sealed, checking baffles in the fires and I even fitted an inline flue fan. This was all before I came to the conclusion that the design of the Wakerley is the most probable cause. The fire is shallow and tall so the fuel is close to the door opening and products of combustion have far to travel to get to the flue. Additionally the baffles create extra resistance to the products of combustion as they try to reach the flue. In addition to these factors there is a flue to fire opening ratio of 10:1 i.e. fire opening should not exceed 10 times the size (area) of the flue. However, the Wakerley exceeds this ratio by approx. 50%. So, combining all of these issues results in products of combustion taking the path of least resistance through the door opening and into the room. Burley's recommendation to only burn the "correct" fuel i.e. well dried wood merely masks the true problem. Excellent product until it needs refuelling and then it becomes a filthy, stinking nightmare.
After struggling for years with an old Charnwood stove in my wife's art studio we decide to go for this stove with the reviews on here as they were so positive. Her art studio would take at
least half the day to heat up but it would burn the wood to, you'd be feeding it 4 logs per hour at least. The Wakerley on start up , the way I start it is with plenty of paper and kindling, the stove glass after the start up has condensation but after 15 minutes its gone, once the kindling has burned right down to charcoal, I will put about another 4 to 5 logs in and that will last about 3 to 4 hours, the fire is usually going properly with in an hour and a half (at this point the damper is down to half). I can't fault this stove but its early days yet.
We recently bought this stove to heat a large cold room - 45feet by 12 by 10 high -which it does well enough. We also run a clearview pioneer, Cove 1 and a Jotul - woodburners - in other parts
of our house. So we do know woodburning well enough.It is a pity one cannot try before one buys a stove. I would not have bought the Wakerley. We find it is very smokey and smutty when one refills it. It has the outside air kit fitted and in a well sealed room the convection from the fire added to the geometry of the very wide shallow but relatively tall firebox ensures that lots of smoke and smuts come into the room and not up the flue when the door is opened -no matter how careful one is. I imagine it needs a fair amount of air from the room to keep the smoke within the stove. We don't have that and the 80mm pipe from outside isn't sufficient to overcome the convection from the stove which forces smoke into the room. Other stoves of these dimensions have alternative, smaller, side loading doors to overcome this smoke-on-loading problem.The stove also suffers from gathering quite a bloom of fly ash on the windows which obscures the fire even after just a few hours. This is not smoke blackening but a fine ash frosting. Easily removed when the fire is cold but a pain if you like to watch your fire through clear glass. Our other stoves don't suffer this.The company's recommendation not use a thermometer is odd. I have always used one to ensure I don't over fire a stove. They suggest using one ensures over firing. That is not within our experience, The company wasn't very helpful in suggesting how to do this without a thermometer - their answer is to just have flames flickering but not smouldering - not quite what their advertising suggests which is a stove full of swirling flame! They suggest this might be an over fire situation. I use oak which produces little flame but they had no good answers so found them unhelpful.I do like the idea of the convection tubes and it does make for a lot of heat.The stainless steel sheet in the roof of the stove fell into the fire the second time we used it. It is a pain to get back in place and to ensure all the other firebricks get put back into place at the same time. The welds on the lower inside of the stove hold the firebricks away from the sides ensuring the lower air holes are partially blocked. Not a good design feature.The paint even when fully cured is very delicate and the supplied trivet marks it very easily.Having heard and read stories about the difficulty of starting these stoves I use the top down method with good dry kindling and have no problems at all - it heats up faster than the manual suggests it might.
I bought this stove 8 months ago, supplied with an outside air supply. Having lived in houses with various stoves including a Clearview this stove is in a different league. It has now stayed
in for four months with only the slightest attempts to put a log on at night, often not looked at until four the next day. chucks out huge amounts of heat only a problem if you fall asleep with the stove open. I have installed a log boiler and under floor heating which has not tripped into action for five months.
Stove expert replied:
Please make sure that monthly the stove is let out and thoroughly cleaned insuring that the flue is clear, slumbering the stove leads to more debris being produced and leaving so long without checking is not good practise.
