The Stovax Riva Studio 500 is a new addition to the Riva Studio range. With stylish and contemporary looks the Riva offers a wide heat range and is highly efficient and DEFRA approved for smoke control areas.
This is for a Riva Studio 1 Inset (Cassette) fireplace.
For a bit of context I have had the fire for just over a year now.
The chimney is an internal chimney and has a new 6" SS liner fitted
with anti downdraft cowl on top.
It looks amazing, but the first issue, and one I have read about many a time is smoke pouring out. This only happens when I open the door to refill and stinks the whole room out! Yes I have tried all the tricks, open a window, open door slowly, open primary & secondary vents for a minute and all variations of the above, all to no avail.
I have read that to achieve their eco ratings the baffle design is restrictive so as to force re-burning of the gasses etc. while that is all well and good, the smoke can''t get out quick enough, hence pours out when the door is opened. The upper steel baffles have a tab that hangs down so the smoke has to go around this to get to the chimney, removed those tabs and problem solved. Happy days.
Second issue is the heat. The brochure would have you believe that a smooth plastered wall is possible! Not a cat in proverbials chance, the wall directly above will get extremely hot, I mean 150°c hot. We have used vitcas heat boards and skimmed with vitcas plaster, all cracked and heat damaged.
When we purchased the fire we didn''t get the fan kit, big mistake, the heat just can''t get out. As Studio 1 is end of line, you can''t get the fan kits. Unlike the newer studio air versions. So one 200mm noctua PC fan later (mounted under so won''t melt) along with pulling the whole fire out and now the hot air is pushed out into the room.
Another issue is a fundamental design flaw. The edge plate to finish the wall up to is fitted onto the outer case. The plate has a flange that extends up behind the wall boards. As that conducts heat up behind the boards, the boards have cracked because of the heat. By removing the middle section you remove anything to conduct heat up and behind the wall boards and the decorative ''edge plus'' trim that fits on to it.
I have the inset version of this stove, fitted two years ago. In common with many other Stovax reviews, smoke does billow out into the room when opening the door to reload. Understandable perhaps
at the moment of opening, but this continues even though the fire is hot. However, worse than this is the smoke when lighting. I have tried lots of kindling to get the fire hot ASAP, and very little so as to reduce the smoke - all to no avail - smoke just pours out of the air intake vents below the fire, I have had to re-paint the chimney breast two times because of this. I got the installer back. They removed and the fire and checked and found a slight mis-alignment which was corrected. It made no difference but they did suggest putting three or four candles in for ten minutes or so in order to heat up the chimney, I even used a blow lamp over the top plate inside the stove and opened a window when lighting - made no difference. I contacted Stovax, failed to respond.To anyone else who has the misfortune to have this fire, I have a solution, make a temporary hood to slot over the opening when lighting. Smoke still pours out of the inlet vents, but the hood ducts the smoke back into the fire - akin to the practice of holding a newspaper over an open coal fire in order to get it to draw.Other than that, five small logs will get the whole house (4 bed detached) hot for about three hours.
Stove expert replied:
Do make sure that you have an air brick in the room, that the flue is lined (or small enough to keep the gases warm 12" square or 9" diam max but it must be sound and in good order), the flue height should be 4.5mtrs and I would suggest an anti-downdraught cowl terminates it. If other flues in the property then you may need to lengthen this flue to try to increase the draw.
We own a Stovax studio Riva 1 and have had terrible issues with it since day one, it is hard to light and keep going. Smoke back fills into the room. The worst problem is the smoke pouring
into the room the second the door is opened. It's unsafe and pretty much unusable. we get choked out every time we use it £3000 worth of a stove that we can't use.
Stove expert replied:
This problems indicate that the installation needs to be thoroughly checked.
Is there an airbrick on the room?
Has the chimney been lined?
What height is the chimney system?
What flue draw is being recorded and does this match the requirements of the manufacturer?
The flue draw seems poor, so it may require a fan to assist the gases to be lifted away from the firebox.
These are not issues that can be blamed on the stove, in essence you have a box in which you light a fire and the gases are not getting away so the fault is likely to be with the flue system and a poor draw.
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