Review of The Salisbury
Great Stove
I nearly didn't purchase this stove purely down to the reviews on here but thankfully I made the right purchase and I'm very happy with the Salisbury 5kw and feel the need to defend it. I have used mixed seasoned hard and soft wood (30% moisture) and also kiln dried oak (under 20%) and the glass stays clear for a good few hours but does eventually look a little dirty at the end of the night. As to be expected, I find the oak gives out more heat and burns a bit longer but obviously costs more to buy. I live in a 1960's 3 bedroom semi detached house which has a suspended downstairs floor, as you can imagine this type of house lets in plenty of air which must be contributing to how well this stove is performing. I had the stove installed by a local company (HEATAS certified), we had a chimney liner and new cowling fitted which is creating a very good draw. I find the single push/pull rod smooth in operation and I've always had full control over the air entering the firebox. As with any stove they all seem to differ when lighting and have their own quirky personalities :) I find this stove lights best when I use kindling split from the kiln dried oak. I use 8 pieces of kindling and build a small Jenga tower placing a single firelighter at the bottom and a smallish split log (quarter) on top of the tower. The firelighters I use are wax coated wood shavings but I suppose any will do the job. Once the firefighter has been lit, I leave the door slightly open for only 3-5 minutes and find closing it fully sooner rather than later works much better but this may be down to the decent draw I have from the chimney. This gets the temperature up to 200C very quickly and this is when I add a slightly larger log and then its ready to go for the evening. I find the cheap soft wood kindling from petrol stations doesn't work for me, its burns way too quickly and doesn't give the small log time to catch fire. As expected the firebox isn't that big but to be honest I wouldn't want to add anymore than two large split logs at a time as 250C - 350C is more than enough for our smallish living room. To be honest we have to leave the doors open and find the hallway and dinning room do eventually benefit from the heat spreading through. I don't find this stove makes that much mess, Chesney's must have changed the design since one of the previous reviews. As others have mentioned the door handle gets very hot but isn't this the case with most stoves? One thing that annoyed me initially was the ongoing smell when curing the paint, Chesney's say this goes away after the first few burns but it doesn't. The only way to stop this stove from giving off this unpleasant smell is to give it a very hot burn, I took the stove to 600C + for a couple of hours and the smell was no more. Please don't leave your stove unattended when operating at this heat, it is quite concerning at first but just make sure parts of the stove don't start glowing (over firing) but I can safely say this stove didn't over fire at 600C. All in all this is a very well made stove that looks great in our living room and I'd certainly recommend it, but like any stove your chimney set up, room ventilation and quality of fuel can drastically affect its performance.
Stove expert replied: Do take note that operating a stove at this temperature is not recommended, short periods of fast burn (20 mins max) is recommended as prolonged periods of high temperatures (that exceed normal usage) will expose internal components to higher temperatures than normal and can lead to distortion or a shortening of their life. The curing of the paint should not require the high temperature burn as stated in this review.
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