Review of Firefox 5 stove
GREAT LITTLE STOVE!!! :)
Have had this stove fitted a month now, We are so happy with it! We have a cold 1930's semi, which, I have to say I had fell out of love with as it always feels cold, I was dreading another winter, our inefficient living-flame gas fire 'packed up', and so after loads of research took the decision to have a stove fitted! The best decision we have ever made! I am now 'in love' with my house again! :) I had my local chimney sweep come in and do a smoke-hold test & sweep prior to having my chimney breast opened up wider. I was very concerned about having my chimney lined & again spent months researching it all online, there are five other properties down my road all with stoves fitted & none of them lined, my chimney sweep assured me my chimney was ok as it was. I could have fitted this stove myself but for piece of mind I paid my chimney sweep to fit it for me as he is registered to fit them. The firefox is fitted in my 16x14foot lounge and heats it perfectly, I also have a 24x14foot extended back lounge that this room opens up into, which was ALWAYS very very cold, it has a gas fire fitted in that room & during the winter months I have to put it on to warm it up but it is not brilliant. Now I have the stove fitted I can leave the adjoining door open & this stove heats it through beautifully! It's amazing! Since having this stove fitted we haven't had to put the heating on, I don't know how it will fare if we go through a really cold snap but it's freezing temperatures at the moment & it's brilliantly warm! We are burning mostly wood on it & we have dried hardwood & I am lucky enough to have a reasonable supply of free softwood too. We put wildfire on it overnight & it keeps it at an ambient temperature with glowing embers in the morning. The glass does blacken but that isn't a problem, a bit of wet newspaper dipped into the ash wipes it off in a jiffy! I love the controllability of it too, so easy to operate & if it does get too hot, just open the doors! Overall a brilliant little stove, thank goodness for this website, it has been so valuable to me in helping me make my decision. I can't comment on whether or not to go for a more expensive stove as this is the first one I have ever had, but I am very very very happy with the firefox 5, very reasonably priced & I also had free stove pipe with mine so it made it an absolute bargain! If you are thinking about buying one then don't hesitate, it performs well & the build seems to be very good.
Be warned though that the first few 'small' fires that you start off with to 'cure' it in do whiff!!!! Quite strongly, an alarming 'fishy' odour, so you may need to pop a window or two open! It does need breaking in gently though so don't overfire it!!!!! Even now we don't overfill it. Hope this review helps you as much as all the other reviews helped me! :)Stove expert replied: Although this model is at the lower end of price it is doing everything that is ecpected of it. All stoves will smell when new as the paint needs time to cure, good ventilation for a few operations usually are good enough to overcome this.