Looking for a 5kw stove.

There seems to be a wide spread of prices, from £200 – £1500.

Is there anything decent for about £300 – £400? Or should I bite the bullet and pay £600 ish?

£300 will be crap. £600 probably ‘alright’. Personally I’ve got two from the £1300 [new] price bracket.
Morso squirrel is the right size and gets good reviews. I have two Clearview stoves bought off eBay – they’re expensive but work brilliantly and hold their value like you wouldn’t believe. But used and do up yourself. Very easy and will save you a load of money.

Morso Squirrel (I picked mine up 2nd hand 3 years old for £350)..
Great quality little stove

Morso ?4 if you want something a little more modern looking than a squirrel

DSCN1611 by Matthewjb, on Flickr

Mine was about £850 brand new

Got a Stovax Stockton 5. Very happy with it. Well worth the money I’d say.

Not a 5kw, but we got a Charnwood 4kw just over 2 years ago and it has been brilliant. It was recomended by various suppliers and fitters as a good compromise of size/price/ output and has the benefit of a large viewing window for its size (compared to a lot of others). Came in around 500 quid with a few extras thrown in too.

Got an AGA Little Wenlock in a sale for £500 ish and its excellent.

4.7KW so you dont have to put vents in your room!

Have also got a Stovax 5 (multifuel). Been fine, although I find it’s easier to manage the fire on a bigger stove.

£300 will be crap. £600 probably ‘alright’.

Are you talking from experience or out of your arse because you spent so much on yours and now feel the need to justify it?

We bought a Stove from Saxon nr Chirk in North Wales three years ago, their own brand.

Only £395 and it’s been fantastic, so glad I didn’t spend twice that on a Morso or Aga.

http://www.saxonhomecare.co.uk/woodburning-and-multi-fuel-stoves/flame-stoves/

Very traditional looking. Only issue is that the tool for opening the door when hot has chipped some of the paint off the handle.

Firefox 5. We’ve just got the 8 and its great!

I’ve got a Morso Owl which I can recommend, although i’ve only ever used one other stove.

It’s quite pricey though, will come in at the upper end of your budget.

Any views on a Aarrow Acorn. Having an installation quote for one this week.

Got an AGA Little Wenlock in a sale for £500 ish and its excellent.

4.7KW so you dont have to put vents in your room!

+1, although i wish mine only cost £500!

avoid the cheap chinese crap, a relative bought one for £250 and two years later has ended up replacing it – you generally get what you pay for

Would loved to have had a Morso, but our funds could not cover one.

We ended up with a Fireline FX 5 which is multifuel DEFRA approaved

http://www.fireline.co.uk/news/2012/09/new-5kw-freestanding-stove-models-from-fireline/

The stove cost us £450 and I have been very pleased with it, its easy to clean and heats our room just right.

[/url] Fireline FX5 by scotiedog, on Flickr[/img]

Morso, Badger I think (could be wrong). I think it’s about that rating. Goes like a train from the off – really good stove. Good controls. Fiddly rake do-dah though.

Nick – no justification necessary as I actually spent £500 on one stove and £700 on the other. Speak to a number of independent fitters and you see that Clearview are very well respected and still work better than many stoves even though their ‘technology’ has been copied by other companies.
One fitter I spoke to will now only fit them as he’s fed up with disgruntled customers.
No way would I pay more than I have done though!

And its not just the purchase price, you’ve installation (and any building work – such as 5kw and over needs an additional air vent), etc.

We’ve gone for one of these, as its a big, big room and I also don’t want to have to be chopping logs down to 6″.

http://www.stovax.com/stoves/contemporarystoves/contemporary_wood__multi_fuel/riva_stoves/riva_f66_freestanding_stove.aspx

Be about £5-6k once all the work is completed (bare room with no existing flue/chimney).

Another Morso user here. Lovely looking and great performing stove.

Was hoping to use it for the first time this year last night but it was just to bloody warm outside!

Dunsley Highlander 5 here – big enough without being too big for the room and the house. Someone elsewhere made the point that if you have a really big one you could be running it at a low and inefficient setting much of the time.

Thanks for all the advice.

I quite like the look of the little Aga’s. Although I do not have the casting vote!

We have a Charnwood also, you can have them in different colours (we went for almond). Been mega happy with it.

How much have you guys been paying to have the chimney lined?

I’ve just had a budgetary quote of 900+vat

We got a variety of quotes for lining the chimney, mainly because some installers insist on scaffolding or a cherry picker and partly because some of them were taking the p. I think installing the stove, supplying and fitting register plate, flue liner, chimney pot swap etc and supply fit a hearth came in at about 1400 quid, and the stove was just over 500. We had quotes of 3400 +.
If anyone in GUildford area needs a fitter, the guy we used was very good, helpful, and a source of no pressure advice.

We already have a suitable hearth etc… and wont need additional ventilation, so it’s just a liner we’ll need I believe.

Interesting, I’m a bit more motivated to get some quotes now – might not be as expensive as I thought it might be…

I’ve just had a budgetary quote of 900+vat

thats for a 1885 Bedford Cottage with existing chimney + hearth in good condition.

Two things I’d check out on a 5kw stove are the internal dimensions and the size of the door. We’ve got a Franco-Belge Belfort, which is a cracking little stove but can be a right pain getting logs through the door opening. It’s also harder to heap up the fire for a long, slow burn. We end up with a pile of logs at the end of the season which need reducing in size if they’re ever going to get used.

As above, that’s the only reason we didn’t get the lovely Franco belge. The Charnwood had biggest capability (I think 13″ log) and window for the size of unit.

and wont need additional ventilation,

Are you positive, as we thought that too but Regs require an additional vent (and this was in a 2-storey room with many doors/windows etc) once above 5kw.

I’m looking at <5kw

The chap I buy wood from is set up to provide logs of a specified length, that’s something he asks when you phone him. I guess it’s done by machine. So I get firewood that’s ten inches or shorter. The rest that I sort myself, I cut to the same length.

I had the high-grade liner and vermiculite filling around it. It seemed worth doing.

Maybe it’s changed since, but ISTR a 6kW min for ventilation. We had one anyway.

We’ve got a firefox 5 – I think it was about £300, maybe £350. Excellent for the money. I’ve got a mate who has one of these and also a more expensive Stovax – he reckons the Stovax is probably a better stove(better control I think), but has no issues with the Firefox at all and is very happy with it. I’d certainly buy another – no need to spend a huge amount of money if you are on a tighter budget.

I’ve got the little Aga stove in my house and I’m very happy with it. Having said that – I’d probably be equally happy with whatever I’d picked. My advice would be to go for whatever suits your budget and you like the look of.

The only bad thing I can say about the Aga stove is that the firebox is a little on the skimpy side, so longer logs need to be chopped in half.

Got an aarrow ecoburn in my office, 5kw. Only burn wood but its a multi. Excellent little stove.

Change of topic slightly,

Does anyone have any experience of putting a stove into a class 1 chimney of a newish house?

My place is about 12 years old, proper external “traditional” class 1 chimney but with the architypal gas “real flame” fire with a timber mantle and granite inset, you all know what I’m talking about, looks very dated now.

Anyway, looking to rip it out and replace it with something more interesting, neighbours have all gone for inset gas fires, but I was after something a little more interesting.

So what is the process? don’t want to rip it out to see whats behind it, but need to find out so we can make a decision.

Anyone got any suggestions as to what might be there and whether it would be as straight forward as I would hope to fit a stove.

Not exactly the same but we’re fitting an inset (multifu) stove into an existing open fireplace with clay lined flue. There is a stone fire surround that is staying.
Apparantly behind the fireback will be rubble that gets removed so the inset has some space around it. Clay liner will need a flexible liner as its too wide.

Harry Too

Before you do anything get someone who’s certified in and let them tell you what you can do – it may/will cost, but at least you’ll find out.

In our last (new, and about 15 yrs old now) house we thought that since we’d a chimney, pot on roof and hearth/surround etc we could just put a stove in – oh no, something to do with the flue wasn’t ‘capable’.

Charnwood 4 – lovely little stove up to 5kw. Couldn’t recommend it enough and in your price range for sure. Morso stoves are excellent too.

Sorry – can’t really help with the class 1 chimney question! 🙂

Out of curiosity – what is actually wrong with the cheaper stoves you see in places like Machinemart?

you can poke your finger through the gaps around the plates/door openings. Not good not being able to control airflow properly. Also not very substantial thermal mass either.