The stove looks great having a more industrial look, which fits in as it was installed in my study. My choice of stove was mainly practicality with some cosmetics consideration, plus I was steered
towards a couple of brands by a fitter I know.
Basically I wanted something that was easy to light, would keep a 4mx4m room warm, and not require too much messing around with though the day. The 1446 is achieving this pretty well, it’s pretty hard to mess up lighting it, if the doors left ajar it starts up very easily. I can get it into a state where it only needs fuel it about every 2 hr, and doesn’t cook me to have me reaching for a jumper. It will also burns coal (think it’s supposed to be the smokeless type, but we just have regular coal), but his tends to cause to much heat output of I load it up, or burns though it to fast if I only put a little on.
The stove controls are a bit of a black art, there is a primary air control (which I think brings air though the grate), and a secondary (which I think brings air in from above). The instructions are very poor regarding what to do with these so a lot of trial and error has taken place. Both controls need tweaking to get the burn rate right, and its easy to pretty much put the fire to sleep, but I think I’m getting there.
The stove will burn overnight (just), but the windows black in the morning, and the airwash will not clean that off - so manual cleaning…
The stove also causes the edge of the window to blacken up while just burning wood. This may be an issue with the wood I’m burning (it’s seasoned, but could be a bit dryer), but I suspect it’s a design issue.
Overall I’m happy with it; it does what I want, keeping me warm with minimal distractions, but if I was looking at this as a centre point for a more visible room – lounge/dinning room etc. I would probably look elsewhere.
Stove expert replied:
once a wood fire is lit shut the primary air control off and control the fire with the secondary only. If there is not enough chimney draw then you may need to leave the primary open a little.
