I've had this stove for nearly 4 year. The glass has never cracked. Burns pretty much every day between September and March, chucks out loads of heat keeps the heating off in our bungalow when
all the doors are open. Our living room is 30 feet by 12 and it gets too hot when you have the doors shut. The throat plate was useless postage stamp size, but a trip to the metal man and an hour or so of banging and welding made me one that went all the way across the wood burner stopping the heat going straight up the chimney. The air flow controls are like little buttons and are a pain to do up/undo when hot. This is about the only thing which would stop me buying another one, get one with spinners instead. Took out the grate and inserted another piece of steel on the bottom of the wood burner and burn on the ash. If there is enough ash it can still be glowing mid afternoon the next day. The feet don't quite line up and it did rock a bit so I just put some washers between the feet and burner to even it out, it might be that my hearth is not dead level. Overall with a bit of fiddling it works. The only real downside is the little air control knobs which are a pain but like I have said you get what you pay for.
Stove expert replied:
Making alterations to a stove invalidates any warranty but may also affect the way the stove operates, especially altering the throat plate as this controls the flue gases leaving the stove in a timely manner. Not recommended.
Really dissapointed. After deciding not to touch a Chinese stove with a barge pole I was drawn to the Country Kiln range as the website lead me to believe it was made in the UK. The cleverly
written homepage suggests it is high quality stove cast in the Scotland and that the reason it so cheap is that they have cut out the middle man. The reality is that this stove is of poor quality and the same as all the other cheap internet Chinese stoves. The overall finish of the casting is poor and airwash doesn't work despite burning seasoned hardwood. The worst part of this experience however was that I bought off the internet and when I tried to get it fitted all of the fitters and shops had a higher installation cost if I supplied my own stove. As it turns out if I had spent just £55.00 more overall and gone for a shop bought Parkray stove+liner+ installation from my local shop then I would had a much better result. I now know for future referance!
Stove expert replied:
it used to be the case that most if not all chinese import stoves were a load of rubbish. That is not so today - some chinese made stoves are now actually good quality but obviously be aware that some are still no good. Make sure that your supplier can arrange for installation regardless of whether you buy online or from an old fashioned bricks and mortar shop.
I brought this stove for a small single story cottage but I am very dissapointed all round. Not only is the quality build very poor (the feet screw holes did not line up and it was difficult
to fit these),in addtion the glass in the door has repeatedly cracked and I have had to purchase 3 replacements at £50.00 a piece in the space of 12 months. ( This has never happened with any other log burner I have purchased).At the time of fitting the log burner, my chimney was also lined by a HETAS professional who gave me a work guarantee but he and I were very dissapointed with the overall performance of the log burner when lit, it just does not seem to kick out a lot of heat regardless of what fuel I use. The living room it is installed in, is quite small only 12 x 12 feet, so I was thinking it was going to be very cosy and warm based upon past log burner purchases but this is not the case.Having paid more in the past for a log burner and choosen the Villager which is much more solid I would not recoomened this for even a budget conscience commercial project.