The Westfire Series One stove is a traditional minimal style stove with the added advantage of a cleanburn firebox making this a highly fuel efficient stove. It is fitted with a cast iron ridding grate and there is the option of a closed combustion wall kit allowing the stove to be installed into an air tight room - the stove taking air from outside through an air duct.
This is a really good wood burner. However, I feel it needs careful attention to detail when installing. That is to say the correct flue diameter and length, and, although seemingly not a requirement
on stoves of less than 5Kw, a through the wall air intake. Provision for such is provided at the back of the unit, I say use it if to can. The stove was fitted by a Hetas engineer, but I cut my own vent holes using a diamond core drill (make sure you get it exactly the right height to feed the air intake pipe though). My only gripe is the lack of shorter legs, something I needed to fit the stove into the existing fireplace. To get round the problem (and following checking with Westfire in Denmark) I cut down the legs. I cut them in half, tack welded the two sections, one inside the other, so as to retain the foot and top bolt-on flange. Now the stove sits a couple of centimetres off the hearth with no problems. If you are going to do the same, don't take my advice directly, but check with Westfire.In operation, with the air flow from outside (it has an external rail cowl/mesh grill on the intake), the control is perfect. From full blaze to gentle tick - over. I find you can adjust air flow and to flue damper for various wood types. It keeps our large living room very warm.Recommended.
After weeks of research decided for the Westfire One. I was at first shocked by the diminutive size of the fire box but soon realised this was not a problem. The stove is plugged into an existing
open fire place which is served by a 12" square ceramic liner. I bricked up the opening and placed the horizontal flue pipe so that it terminates 6" inside the old fire place. No chimney liner. Provided we keep stuffing it with wood the heat percolates throughout our 16m long house and the other day of 0 degrees C we did not need the central heating. Stuffed with fuel before bedtime, in the morning the embers are still glowing. So this little stove works better than I imagined it would and we love its' sleek contemporary lines. Provided we can get the wood, this I think will reduce our lpg central heating bills by loads.
Stove expert replied:
expect a lot of tar deposits in this un-insulated chimney with a very efficient stove connected to it. If it is not lined and insulated then make sure it is swept very regularly. That horizontal run does not meet regs in England, and although this is often allowed on the continent, one should bear in mind the worst case scenario: what would an insurance company think of it if you were trying to make a claim - would it let them wiggle out of it?
After many months of deliberation picking a stove, we finally plumped for the Westfire One (DEFRA version). Our house is a 3 bed detached, built around 1990, the lounge is approx 14ft by 10ft
. The existing chimney was used with a stainless liner and vermiculite. The stove fits in the opening rather than free-standing in the room.Starting is very easy, we just build a little wigwam of paper and kindling and it lights straight away, chuck a log on after a few minutes and away you go. Heat builds up very quickly and we have found that we have to keep the doors open or we just bake in the lounge.The firebox is a good size although most logs do tend to burn quite quickly. The adjustments do make a difference to the burning rate but not huge, generally we leave everything open to get it started and leave them open as this keeps the glass cleaner.It also has the riddling grate which is very handy, sometimes you just need to give this a few pulls and the embers start up again. The flames produced are very nice, build quality very good, very nice finish.Overall I can't really fault it and would highly recommend to anyone.
We use this for subsidiary heating which means that we burn one to two logs at a time at most. where this works well is that it retains heat and even when the fire is out it is generating heat
into the room. using the stove in this way the temperature of the top plate does not exceed 90 degrees measured with a thermal imaging camera which means that the the finish in the fire place does not get damaged. As a test we let the fire go out at 10 pm and at 9 am the following day the stove was still at 24 degrees.
We like this stove
Stove expert replied:
Great review of this stove and its heat output, happy customer.
