Review of Harmony 23
Okay with coal, pants with wood, rubbish manual.
We inherited our H23 with the house when we moved in last year. After using this stove for several months I cannot recommend it.
Looks wise we find it not great looking; not ugly rather just very dull but this is subjective. The glass size is good and unobstrusive giving a potentially good view of any flames. The firebox is odd in its design in that it does not have a lot of depth and coupled with the fact that the width narrows towards the rear means that you can only use short small diameter logs. When we moved in the stove was under two years old but the window was completely blackened. This, we thought, was a result of the previous owners not using it properly with dodgy fuel. It turns out that the double glazed seal was broken letting in smoke between the two panes. With the seal replaced and both panes of glass cleaned we lit our first wood fire. Quite frankly it would have been easier pushing jelly up a staircase than get a fire going in this thing. Although the chimney draw was good and we used decent logs it would take about an hour using bellows to get a decent flame even with the air intake set to maximum. Refuelling proved to be a black art in that a log would need to be precisely placed so as not to put out any flame. Too near to the rear, front or sides the flame simply went out. Usually we found that we had to use the burner in "initial lighting" mode to get a decent continued flamed. This, we realised, was the problem the previous owners had hence the blackened glass. It was as if the stove was simply not getting enough air intake. I read the manual and contacted Euroheat to see if there are any accessible ducts that could be blocked but was told that this was not possible. The stove has two main controls at the front but after a desperate search I found a third hidden control knob under the stove which adjusts the main intake baffle. With this set to maximum hey presto I got a half decent flame! This third control knob is not in the manual! To be fair this knob could have been mucked about by the previous owners but I suspect it was a factory setting. Being a multifuel stove we decided to burn some coal and got a reasonable roaring fire! To me this showed that the fluechimney was fine. The airwash is not particuarly good as we still get deposits on the glass. We have another stove, a Woodwarm 6KW Fireview, and using the same fuel we have no problems. In essence this stove is a reasonable coal burner but is not up to the job as a wood burner. I was shocked to find how expensive the H23 is compared to other stoves at half the price and far superior performance. When we have enough money we shall replace the H23.