Review of Firefox 5 stove
Firefox 5 user experience
My Firefox 5 has proved to be good value. The design, cast quality & thickness being sufficient to give a good lifespan, spares seem to be easily available at a fair price.
My only reason for a (first time) stove purchase was to try and find affordable heat for my home that is in an exposed location, I can't afford a top of the range stove, but this stove has met all of my requirements in heating cost, performance and payback time. I am in my 70's, so for minimum refuelling, I use smokeless eggs for their long burn time and winter overnight slumber burning. I overcame the work involved with the harder to light eggs by using a gas poker fed from a 4Kg butane tank, eliminating the need for firelighters etc. Cleaning, refuelling and lighting now takes me only 5 minutes. The gas poker takes my ease of lighting score from 5 to 10 For cool or damp summer evenings, one fill is sufficient. So that it is not too hot, I lower the range of stove heat output, by fitting additional firebricks to make the firebox smaller, I shaped the bricks to fit using a hand grinder. The draw in my unlined chimney is fortunately enough for correct stove operation I lit 3 small fires from cold to season the stove and have had no problems of any kind, though it did take me a month or so to get the feel of it for peak operating performance and minimum work. I find moistened newspaper cleans the glass best.