Infire 743

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• Excellent stove, lovely flame pictures!

  Pete Wood 14 years ago

  The B&G InFire is a steel-built cassette fire, with a pair of fans to blow air around the outside of the firebox and out into the room. The fans are automatic, turned on and off by firebox
  heat, the fan speed can be varied by a remotely mounted control. On the low setting, the fans are quiet and the fire still keeps a 600ft2 room toasty warm.Installation was a comedy verging on farce, but now it's been in for a few months and we're using it every evening, it's a lovely fire. We're burning wood, so I can't comment on its claimed multi-fuel ability, but it burns wood with lovely flame pictures and almost no ash (even weekly de-ashing feels like unnecessary labour). Installation is (or should be!) eased by the fact that it's a straightforward rectangular flat-bottomed box, and the front trim panel - the strip around the outside of the cassette - is not welded on but is an interference fit after installation - so not only it it quite wide but you have a good degree of fore/aft flexibility as well, in case your surround stands proud of the fire. This panel can therefore cover a multitude of sins, and poor fits between the stove and your chosen surround can be disguised. The fire has a thermostatic air control, so there's no fiddling with levers through the evening (I'm a former Morso owner). Just light it (a smoke-free doddle, at least with our flue) and forget it, throw on some wood and and when it looks empty. It's a very big firebox, so with a lot of wood and the fans right up (to heat a cold house) it burns a lot of fuel. Turn the fans down and feed it more gently and it seems relatively economical, though the first few split logs appear to expend all their heat in warming up the fire rather than the room. It takes about half an hour from lighting for the fans to start and the room to warm - they key is getting a good bed of hot embers right across the bottom of the fire.We don't burn it overnight, I don't think it would (on wood), so I've given it a neutral score. The airwash works fine most of the time, and keeps the glass clean. I've seen comment elsewhere on the internet that the airwash is poor, but that's not my experience. There is a slightly obscure airwash control that seems to need to be turned up to Max, that may explain the difference in reports. If you run it very gently then it smokes the glass up, but doesn't every fire? With the thermostat at 7 or 8 and the room sinking some heat (to keep the thermostat cracked open) then it's just grand. B&G supply a glass-cleaning spray that works well. The firebox can be fitted (as you install it) to feed one or two air ducts, which take some of the blown hot air and feed it elsewhere to other rooms on the floor above. This works a treat for us. The handle detaches and therefore stays cool. The seals around the door are a revelation. Being used to the usual glassfibre rope, or variations thereof, I was amazed to see stainless-steel pressure-fit gaskets around the door. Not a rope in sight. This bodes well for long-term low-maintenance use. My only technical reservation about giving it a straight 5-star rating is that it draws combustion air from the room and therefore needs airbricks or similar to feed it. Would it be so hard to provide the option of an external air supply to the airbox? In this modern energy-efficient age, we don't really need open flues. The other reservation is the price. This is a lovely, lovely stove, and an absolute joy, but so it should be for the price. Value for money, as always, depends on how you value your money.
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  Overall rating:

  4.5 flames

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