Review of Firefox 5 stove
Great Stove when fitted with a 6" liner
I'm amazed at some of the reviews. I sat for weeks reading everything I could before taking the plunge and putting a FF5CB into a 30's semi. Best decision I ever made AS LONG AS YOU CAN GET YOUR WOOD FOR FREE FOREVER!
Anyhow, ran the gauntlet over whether to line or not and how to go about it- so I contacted three local HETAS Engineers. All of them contradicted each other and in the end I climbed up and pulled in a 904/904 6" liner that cost more than the stove but has a 25 year guarantee. Forget register plates and all that, for a simple and effective install, pull the liner down, and then terminate it into the back of your stove. Brick, mortar and heat resistant plaster around your flue. It looks REALLY neat but check J regs for all the minimum distances and hearth size (which has to be deceptively large). Anyhow Building control turned up and OK'd the lot after 1 smoke test (that I had to buy) and £97 I had to cough up for them. The whole install was One Saturday, one evening and £800 for the lot (including the 8m 904 liner). The best quote I got locally for the same spec installed was £2300 -Be prepared for loads of hassle from your energy supplier when you change, especially if replacing electric heating- they simply refuse to believe you are not bypassing! My break even point was 7 months for the £800 outlay. The stove is like a blast furnace and is constantly turned off on the primary air no matter what I burn. As it is a CB I can only burn coal at night ;-) but the thing is amazing. Airwash is poor but does have some effect... overnight is impossible with so much draw (3 hours is about the longest it can survive).Stove expert replied: Is the liner attached to the stove, normally a short rigid flue is off the stove before the liner.