Review of Esse 700 stove
Esse 700
Poor design. When opening the door to add logs, the stove smokes. No matter how the door (s) are opened it smokes. A lot. The front of the firetube boiler extends almost right to the front of the stove with a very small gap. It should work well but it doesn''t.
The chimney updraught is not a problem as it has been checked at the cleaning hatch just above the stove and it is very strong and steady. If the hinge fulcrum had been extended some 1/4" (or 0.635 cm) then the doors could lift off to clean the glass. So simple but missed during design. The top of the firetube boiler is an awful design and is extremely difficult to clean. The airspace gap on top of the boiler is so shallow that any detritus whatsoever impairs the exhaust gas flow and cleaning out this space and that of the firetubes is difficult to say the least. No matter how the stove is fired, or how hard it is driven, it still requires these areas cleaning regularly. The operation of the bottom air damper does not follow normal convention vis: to operate a tap or valve, the opening direction is anti-clockwise. With the Esse 700, the direction is reversed and the numbers on the circular knob do not give a clear indication of the position of the damper. When operating this circular knob, the fingers tend to come into contact with a right-angled piece of steel which I assume is to help indicate the position of the circular damper. This piece of steel has led to many cut fingers as it still has the razor sharp stamping burrs on the cut edges. Lethal and an absolutely appalling piece of kit that should never have been fitted the way it is but should have been de-burred correctly during manufacture. We replaced a wonderful Jotul stove with this and a very retrograde step on our part it was.Stove expert replied: Esse have contacted the customer and noted the complaints which has been passed back to the management. Esse branding has a good standing in the stove industry and normally these stoves are thought highly of, so this review is disappointing. Requests for photos from the customer have not been forthcoming.
- Be the first to comment
- 120 You and 59 others