We've had our Sommerton for a year now and are just starting another winter. Everything in the review is still valid and if anything, we're more impressed with the stove having lived with it
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Like all wood burners, our one has a particular technique for getting the fire started. We can now have ours fully alight in about five minutes!
The sweep came last month and said that the flue was as clean as a whistle, despite burning the stove daily last winter.
All in all, you won't go far wrong with the Mendip.
We were looking for a stove to supplement the underfloor heating in our new build bungalow. The open plan lounge/kitchen/diner has a vaulted ceiling so we needed something a little larger than
normal.We narrowed the choice down to the Morso S50-40 or the Mendip Sommerton 2, eventually choosing the Mendip.We bought the ‘Standard’ stove. Mendip produce three versions, Standard, Compact and Pedestal. The Standard stands just over a metre tall and has an integral log box. There seem to be a lot of woodburners around 5kw output on the market, we assume to avoid the installation of an air brick. but the Mendip is quoted at just over 7kw which was calculated to be enough to heat the whole room if the underfloor system failed for some reason.With our new build bungalow stuffed full of very expensive Cellotex insulation, one of the essential criteria was the ability to use an external air supply, and the Sommerton 2 is offered with an external air kit for around £60.Mendip sell though a dealer network, the dealer was very efficient, responding almost immediately to our order and quoting a delivery date. Subsequent e-mails kept us updated on the progress of our order and delivery was as quoted.We used our local HETAS fitters for the installation which took most of a day. When the stove was unpacked it was found to have a piece off it’s trim and the spigot for the external air kit was detached, but this didn’t hamper the fitting process.As soon as Mendip were informed that there were a couple of issues with our Sommerton, they sent an engineer from the factory to rectify the problems and we were impressed with their level of customer service.Our stove is not used every day and does therefore like a reasonably substantial kindling fire established before adding the larger logs. Once you adopt the right technique the stove’s output is quite startling. We burn well seasoned Ash and Oak at around 10%-12% moisture content. After an hour or so of burning the stove can be switched to it’s ‘secondary air’ setting and produces an impressive flame display through the glass. The heat output from the convection system is easily the claimed seven kilowatts, and with doors open throughout the bungalow, the rest of the heating system shuts down with the obvious saving in expensive heating oil.To summarise. If you want a good quality, contemporary stove with a higher than normal heat output, you won’t do better than the Sommerton.
Stove expert replied:
Great review and good customer service.
