Jon fitted this little stove into my motorhome two winters ago and I have been thrilled with it. I mostly use old pallets so it heats up quickly for cooking and once dinner is cooked, laundry
boiled and washing up water heated, I'll throw in a log or two to keep it going and dry the laundry.I haven't managed to keep it going all night, but it never takes long to get going and warm the place up in the mornings.
I bought this little stove for an 'eco' caravan I was building. The caravan was for long term use so I needed something that I could cook on, space heat and heat water.
This little stove was
ideal. Only 18 inches or so long it doesn't take up much room and kicks out plenty of heat to make caravan living much more comfortable. My stove has a little backboiler on it and provides enough hot water for washing and a shower.
The handles do get quite hot when you have a long burn on but the twisty air control is easy to use. The oven is small but works surprisingly well. It does take about 30 mins from cold to get it warm enough to cook in though. You can also fit about 3 pans on the surface and I've had no problem boiling water, cooking etc.
The construction is of steel and the finish is fairly basic. The whole stove design is simple and functional.
Overall it is ideal for it's purpose and really is like a miniature rayburn range cooker. I'd recommend it for caravan, houseboat, yurt dwellers everywhere.
I have been using this stove in my 16' Yurt Workshop yurt for two years.It has kept me warm through some very cold winter weather in Normandy, it's easy to use and nice to look at.If you use
dry oak, for example, chopped fine, then the hotplate/cookbox heats up well. Keeping it going overnight is a bit of an art, you need to reload maybe a couple of times at least, but then it is a small stove with a small firebox: anything bigger would be OTT for my yurt which is well insulated.The droplatch handle is sometimes a bit hard to disengage. The air-adjustment handle gets hot, but that's to be expected.All in all we love the little stove and I am considering buying another one from the range of stoves by Windysmithy for my boat, maybe with a backboiler this time.
I bought this stove for a yurt I was living in with the hope of doing a lot of cooking on it. For the price it's good but for cooking it didn't really meet my needs I could never get the oven
hot enough. I have heard rumours of people that have no problem with getting the oven hot so don't take my word for it. Also i found it quite hard to light and to keep lit, the way I coped with it was by chopping all my would down to kindling size. couldn't cope with that for very long so sold it. on the positive side I could use the oven to dry kindling wood which could then keep the stove going. and the hotplate works a treat. If had to do it again I would buy the same model without the oven to save quite a bit of money.
Stove expert replied:
sounds like wet wood was being used if kindling had to be oven dried. When issues with stoves arise then it is always a good to contact your supplier to try to work the problem through. Windy Smithy owner Jon Snow contacted us to say that if any of their customers experience anything similar that he would be pleased to work through any problems with them. Good customer support from this supplier.
