So- here’s where it gets a little awkward- I’ve been a dealer for Clearview for 10 years- although we’ve sold less than ever because of their reticence to do anything in preparation for
eco design stoves legislation 2022
We’ve sold many Clearview’s- I’ve owned a Vision 500 a few homes ago- fantastic fire.
So having moved in to a new home- and an opening that could not be widened I opted to take a vision inset from our showroom and install it into the 5x 3.5 lounge.
Prior to this it was an open fire- so by comparison… it’s much much better. However, as a previous owner of at least 7 stoves- this is by far the worsed. Yes the flame looks great, controllability fabulous, the glass, yes, stays clean. However, it’s ability to heat the room compared to a free standing fire…. Hopeless!
Someone else has commented on the need for convection holes to be cut into the sub panel- but that’s not always possible in my case
I’ve owned inserts before- this Clearview just does not cut the mustard. Lots of flame- no real heat- maybe after a few hours- but nothing like a free standing fire.
Maybe fine in smaller rooms- but not an insert I would ever recommend.
Bought a Clearview on the advice of my chimney sweep. The salesman at was so effusive that I thought the stove would not live up to his spiel, but it did. I have had a stove before and this
one lights, and once it has burned for about 90 mins seems to use less fuel. I have a big room to heat and the radiators struggled, but the stove does not. In fact in a small house I think I would just use a Clearview stove. Since I installed it 3 weeks ago at least 4 of my friends are keen to get one, this did not happen with my last stove. Well worth the cost.
OK we have had 2 Clearview pioneer stoves in the past and loved them. We needed an inset stove to fit in our lounge so we plumped for the Vision Inset. It looks great and is built really well
. However as a heat source it is at best useless! Looking online Apparently unless you fit a convection box around the stove the inset style of stove hardly gives out and heat. Unfortunately we didn''t know this when we bought the stove and in addition the convection box would make the installation too big. The only way we can get any heat into the room is to open the door and use it as an open fire. All in all very disappointed in the product and the lack in information in the Clearview catalogue and the shop we bought it from to say without a convection box this stove is useless!!! Now having to look at paying to have it removed and scrapping it after only 3 months and then having to pay again to have an open fire put back. Total waste of money and time, not to mention the amount of wood we have had to burn to get it even warm! We have used over £150 pounds worth of kiln dried wood in about 6 weeks! PLEASE NOTE DO NOT BUY THIS STOVE WITHOUT A CONVECTION BOX.......
We renovated an old rectory with 8 fireplaces and fitted 8 Clearview stoves in, I feel we meet the criteria for leaving a review on the stoves we chose for our home.The Clearview inset is installed
in our dining room and one in the office. This is hopefully an opportunity to explain to potential clients what makes the Clearview inset a worthwhile contender to free standing stoves. Firstly the ease of fitting when compared to what might be involved if construction has to be carried out to create an alcove for a free standing stove to be fitted. It is not to be entered into lightly that there is some disruption if you are in a finished home.During the construction of the stove, it is effectively housed in a chamber of sorts that draws air from the coolest part of your home, the floor, and heats it around the firebox before presenting the air back to the room through the vents above the door as a warm convection current. It is all too often the case that people feel a free standing stove can radiate a lot more heat than that of a cassette style stove, but if you ensure you buy a stove with the convection system built in, then the Vision inset stove in the Clearview range can produce the same heat levels as it''s freestanding counterpart....the Pioneer 400. The stoves are able to burn different types of fuel, although they have only been tested with wood. We tend to use Ash and Beech which has been processed and dried in potato boxes in our poly tunnel for about a year, which is a brilliant way to ensure your fuel is ready to burn. As long as the wood is seasoned and the core moisture level, the sap in wood, is less than 20% moisture you should be ready for trouble free use.The ability to slumber the stove is first class, with adjustable door handle and hinge system to ensure air tightness. This makes them one of the more controllable stoves not just when they are new, but for many years to come as the rope beds in. The double glazed window ensures the inner glass is insulated from the room temperatures which gives an unsurpassed view of the fire...hence their name. Just be sure to burn the stove hot at times to discharge combustion products up through the flue. Ideally a stove should be run between 350-500 degrees F for optimum burn.Stove gloves are provided with the stove to facilitate opening the door and fuelling the stove. Some people feel the handle getting hot to touch is a fault, but far from that, it is a design feature that makes you protect yourself before operating the stove. The gauntlets are flame retardant and heat resistant which helps you bring the burning fuel forward towards the window, and the fresh fuel can be placed across the firebox from left to right, which means that if any core moisture evaporates, it comes out of the end grain and hits the side tiles rather than presenting steam on the window.To sum up, the inset is a stove that should be considered if you want a lovely large clear window, controlled fuel consumption at all times and something that can transfer most draughty inefficient open fires with very little disruption to the home.
Stove expert replied:
Great review and good scores.
We had the Clearview Vision inset stove installed yesterday replacing a Stovax Stockton 7 inset and the difference in the amount of heat output is staggering. Its a breeze to get lit, the draw
is excellent and stayed in with only a few logs on it overnight. Some advertising bumph you read makes you wonder how accurate it is, I am pleased to say that its all worthwhile. I wish I had bought one of these instead of the Stovax years ago.
I will first review our overall experience from our initial meeting at the showroom to the installation then I will move on to the actual stove itself.It was great to see some of the stoves
actually in use when we arrived at the showroom. Enjoying a cup of tea and sitting on the sofa in front of one of the fires let you see how efficient the stoves were and helped to let you envisage it in your own living room. Even having the 2 dogs sitting at our feet gave the whole feeling a sense of homeliness. The assistant clearly knows his stuff and explained the technical side of things very clearly and helped us choose the right stove for our circumstances as we were taking out a very old open fire and replacing it with the inset stove. We were amazed that there were a lot of colours to choose from which we actually saw rather than just picking them out of a leaflet. The whole process was very smooth and on the day of the works, the two fitters that came were very courteous and certainly did not give up until the job was complete. Our lounge was left very clean considering it was a very dirty, difficult job getting our old fire and back boiler out of the fireplace without disturbing any of the brickwork.We have waited a few months before we left a review so that we could leave review of how we have got on with the stove itself. We often wonder why we left it so long before taking the plunge. This stove has been well worth the money and since the beginning of September the stove has been lit most days and has saved a fortune on our oil fired central heating. If you follow the directions you will have no problem lighting this stove and regulating the heat output. It is simply a case of some scrunched up newspaper and a few sticks of kindling to initially light the stove and then keep it stocked with good dry logs. We haven't tried keeping the fire in over night but we have closed down the fire and left it for 4-5 hours if we have had to go out and on our return you would think it was out but once you open up the valve and put more logs on the fire flares up nicely again. We would rate the stove very highly and should have done this years ago! The whole experience from start to finish has been first rate. Great assistance provided by the company we used.
Had a clear view installed in October. Overall I am pleased with the fire but on two occasions when lighting it there has been backdraft and the room has filled with smoke even smoke coming
from the underneath, around the door and through vents at top. I have asked the Engineer to come back out to check it out. Could it be the wrong cowling on my chimney?? Any one else had this problem
Stove expert replied:
Down draughts can be due to a poor draw on the flue system, not enough ventilation in the room, weather conditions etc to name but a few. Specific cowls can help to alleviate this problem but ventilation is still key to allow combustion to occur so a full investigation should take place to establish the cause. All internal parts should be checked as they may have been put in the wrong position and this will affect how the stove performs.
Have had the stove for just over 8 years and burned just hardwood and peat in it. It has performed without any hitches at all. Being an inset it does take a while for the surrounding stonework
to reach temperature so that the room benefits from the stoves full out put. Controllability is ace. Keeping it going all night is really easy especially with a couple of hefty logs or peat. Overall, very satisfied.
Just had our third fire in our Vision Inset stove and so far so good. We stay in an old cottage and had started to have damp problems coming from the chimney. The choices were take away the
chimney or reinstate as a working chimney and we opted for the second one. We had an old "Living Flame" gas fire which had become troublesome so we had stopped using it and we decided to go for the Inset as it would fit into the opening currently there. We checked out some of our local suppliers and fitters and finally purchased the stove from a local company (Ayrshire). Being an old cottage the style of the stove fits very well and looks as though it has been part of the cottage from day one. The stove has been no problem to light and all the new paint smell has now gone. It has got up to optimal temperature no problem and burns the wood well. We've tried various logs (bought-in kiln dried and briquettes) already including our own eucalyptus logs from the garden (well seasoned). The stove comes with gauntlets to protect hands when touching the hot handle when opening the door to add fuel during operation and a very informative set of instructions from the manufacturer. ENSURE YOU MAKE USE OF BOTH !! We didn't pay quite as much as some people seem to have paid on here but it was still a bit over £1K but our fitter commented we'd opted for a good stove and it took three guys to manoeuvre it into place as compared to one man for the cheaper stoves, so certainly seems to have a high build quality. It is early days but so far so good and it does remain to be seen how it performs in the long term so I will update if there's any change in status. With regard to fitting you probably could fit yourself but ours was fitted within 5 hours max and the bulk of that time was removing the old fire, blanking off the gas supply and sweeping the chimney.
Needed an inset (not "insert") stove & Clearview seemed the best/best rated.
I think if it had been a third of the price (paid c.£1.5k) I'd be rating it higher, but for the money I think
it should be better.
The handle gets hot, although after a week it's fallen off so perhaps it's meant to be removed (or the tiny allen key bolt wasn't done up properly).
I find it very hard to light, with no obvious reason why - can put a match in to some newspaper as tinder & it'll instantly die, despite the door being open.
Once going, it burns well with the wheel open, less well with it closed, until really hot (about half an hour).
The ash doesn't seem to sit as a layer on the bottom, it falls through the riddling grate.
It still smells after 5 burns, possibly a result of buying a coloured stove rather than black?
I've no doubt it's chimney-related (mine's two storeys, thermocreted) but if it's windy outside, it does seem to affect the interior of the stove.
Perhaps the worst thing about the stove is the constant "click-click-click" from the glass whenever you open the door, and close it again - presumably from the double-glazed window that isn't sealed unit so air escapes on the slightest pressure change. They claim to have the only d-g door but that's patently untrue.
So overall - it works, looks nice, the manual was fairly clear (albeit with surprising English errors for something non-Chinese!), it seems solid, and the interior of the stove is larger than I'd expected. However, for that money, I'd have expected more - my cheaper Charnwood, with its removable handle and big ash box, is nearly as good.
I purchased this clearview insert in Northern Ireland after much research and looking at many others , two family members have these fires and all are very pleased , the main thing is the heat
, is great and easily lit , and no problem keeping the fire in for about five hours .Burns logs and coal , good solid build more expensive than others but you get what you pay for .
