Stovax Stockton 5 rear air vents.

Peaches2

Yes the original slider still works. Thank you for the suggestion what a simple workaround to a puzzling design. A week on and 2 emails later and no response from Stovax. I took the plunge and lit my fire over the weekend. It lit well but burnt the logs very fast and gave off no heat. This may be due to my lack of experience in knowing how long to burn it hot and poor quality wood. I have ordered a stove thermometer to help me with the air controls. I am trying to find a good local wood supplier, the one I was going to use was only small and has sold out completely! I am ashamed to say I brought my logs from b&q not the best I'm sure but I needed to test it and was running out of time and options. I am a complete novice on the owning and operating of a stove burner but I am travelling the learning curve very fast thanks to you and others posting on forums.

alleycat`

Peaches2 wrote: »

Yes the original slider still works. Thank you for the suggestion what a simple workaround to a puzzling design. A week on and 2 emails later and no response from Stovax. I took the plunge and lit my fire over the weekend. It lit well but burnt the logs very fast and gave off no heat. This may be due to my lack of experience in knowing how long to burn it hot and poor quality wood. I have ordered a stove thermometer to help me with the air controls. I am trying to find a good local wood supplier, the one I was going to use was only small and has sold out completely! I am ashamed to say I brought my logs from b&q not the best I'm sure but I needed to test it and was running out of time and options. I am a complete novice on the owning and operating of a stove burner but I am travelling the learning curve very fast thanks to you and others posting on forums.

Stove thermometer is a good idea.

My suggestion for this year would be to not buy wood.
Any you will be able to get hold of will either be soaking wet or incredibly expensive.

I would imagine most of the good suppliers will not have any "dry" wood left as they tend to sell out the seasoned wood earlier in the year.

You could try looking on the website "arbtalk" to see if they have any suppliers in your area listed.

My personal view, for what it's worth is that you'll probably do better, as it stands now, with smokeless fuel, especially if you are having issues with the airwash.

It's a little harder to get going but will give you less problems with "quality" and "consistency" of behaviour.

You should be able to find a "coal" merchant in or around your area that will deliver.

I'd suggest trying a few 10kg bags of various types, see which you prefer on your stove and then buy a larger load in the bigger sizes.

Sorry that Stovax have let you down with regards to the slider, it doesn't sound like it should be a huge issue for them to tell you what it should look like by example.

Peaches2

Hello alleycat
Just to update you I have fitted the theometer and found a supplier with kiln dried logs. So much better!
I have also had a response from Stovax. Basically they said that the slider is designed to reduce the travel in both directions. Reduced to the right to prevent close down and reduced to the left to prevent boost setting. This still allows the correct amount of air to generate the advertised KW output. No explanation for this reduced to the left was given. I still worry that this means it will take longer for the stove to burn to opt and risk the build up of tar and creosotes in the stove and flue not to mention dirty glass. Have pointed this out to them.