Review of Esse 990CH stove
Not recommended
Our experience of the 990 CH range is dismal.
It has hardly ever burned hot. Esse recommend wood with a maximum moisture content of 25%; the dealer/installer recommends 15%. Our wood is drier than recommended by either and we follow their operating advice in all other respects. We recently cleaned the range in accordance with Esse's advice and after only forty hours' use (during which we did not turn the range down) there was a build-up of tar, to the extent that it flowed out of the flue damper area, then solidified on cooling. We have not been able to use the range since last week. When it is usable, we are concerned that the range is dangerous, both because of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning when smoke and fumes escape into the room and because of the risk of fire when tar which has built up bursts into flames. When the range is not blocked up with soot and tar it howls loudly when there is wind. Both ovens have rusted badly. We bought the 990 CH on the expectation that it would heat eight radiators but even when it is usable it will warm (not heat) only three. It rarely gets hot enough to be used for cooking. The dealer/installer says that our problems are due to operator error (ie are our fault), even though these problems have all occurred since they cleaned the range last summer and since we have been burning nothing but super-dry wood. We have paid a great deal of money for a product which does not perform as it should, and are more than disappointed. We are now learning that there are other people with this range who have similar problems.- Be the first to comment
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