WhatStove?

How to write a stove review on whatstove

Use the manufacturer drop down menu to select the make of your stove, then you can find your model on the page which comes up next. Click on the picture or the name of that model to get to the next page. On that page just click 'Add your review of this stove'. Simple. If your stove is not on the site then simply contact us and we'll add it for you.

Please write only about your stove, not about the supplier, delivery company, or manufacturer in general.

Please write level-headed considered reviews, remember that people wanting to know which stove to buy will be reading your review. Please let them know about the experience of using your particular stove. Do you have any tips or tricks you have learnt over the winter months? Other people would definitely like to know. Some of the things you by now think are totally obvious will not be so apparent to someone who has never lived with a stove.

For people who have had a problem with a stove:

Please do not write a review while you are angry.

  • Please remember to only write about your stove. For example if your local stove shop staff were not as helpful or knowledgeable as you might have expected then this is not really to do with the stove.
  • Please do not write derogatory comments about any particular stove supplier/retailer.
  • To keep WhatStove stove reviews impartial we will simply not publish any suspect reviews - either overly positive or overly negative.

Common causes of a few problems:

By far the most common causes of a problem with a stove will either be down to a badly functioning chimney or poor fuel.

If the chimney is not drawing well then you might think "my stove is smoking", however this will be the 'fault' of the chimney, not the stove. Some chimneys improve once they are warm and so you may find that the stove is hard to light but that once it gets going it is better. Again not the fault of the stove.
Conversely if your chimney is drawing too strongly then you may find that your stove gives out little heat and is hard to control. Often a strongly drawing chimney will result in a distinct sucking noise through the air vents on the stove.

If your wood is too wet then the stove will be hard to light, give out little heat, and the window will tar up. Again this is not the 'fault' of the stove. An easy way to work out if your wood is badly seasoned is to use a moisture meter. Well seasoned wood will tend to have cracks in the end grain and wet wood has a characteristic smell to it which you can learn to recognise.

Burning overnight

Please remember that modern cleanburning stoves are unlikely to be good at burning overnight. This is because most have permanently open air supplies. So you can rate them as 'hard to burn overnight' but this would not be a reason to be unhappy with the stove as it has not designed to burn overnight. Burning overnight will also tend to blacken the glass of a stove.

Airwash

Airwash is the system that stoves use to keep the window clean and see through. Stoves that don't have an airwash system will tend to deposit tar on the window as the fuel burns which will quickly result in the window becoming dirty. Problems with airwash are often caused by not burning fast enough or burning wet wood. Try burning faster with good visible flames in the firebox to see if this helps. Please remember to put your views into perspective. For example, if you bought a cheap stove on ebay and found that the airwash did not work quite as well as a stove three times the price then this would be grounds to rate the airwash a little lower, but in terms of your overall expectations of the stove there are some things like this that you should really have been expecting, and so you should not necessarily be rating your overall satisfaction any differently because the airwash isn't perfect.

For those with a vested interest:

Please only review a stove if you have it in your house and have used it for a significant time. We want quality stove reviews on Whatstove. We will be able to spot over enthusiastic reviews and will not publish them.
If you disagree with another reviewer that is fine, but please do not be derogatory about other reviewers. We will not publish stove reviews that insult other reviewers, not only does it show a lack or respect but it also brings into question the quality of the review itself.

Can't find the stove you want to review?

Just contact us and we will add the stove to the website.