Wood burning stove/boiler recommendations wanted

[AJH]

possible interest to declare and some bias but

[usenet]

Further to my questions about the regulations regarding installation of a stove I'd like some recommendations on what to actually get.

We already have one quite big wood burning stove in our (very large) lounge, that is a Hunter Herald 14.

We are aiming to enlarge our breakfast room and install a wood burning stove there too, this time we want it to be able to provide hot water as well and, maybe, run a few radiators. It will be installed just a few feet from the existing wall mounted gas boiler.

However, at present we're not so much worried by the technicalities of linking it to the existing hot water system as in getting a practical and easy to use stove. Having had the Hunter Herald for a few years now we have discovered what makes a stove effective and easy to use. The Hunter is not particularly good on several fronts:-

It's difficult to get the ash out and clean it generally. The ash tray is a bad fit and there's a lip at the front which makes it impossible to sweep clean easily.

The air vents are crude and rather difficult to adjust.

It's not very well sealed so damping it right down is impossible.

The supposed glass cleaning air doesn't (though I supect this is true for just about all stoves).

Thus what we're looking for is:-

A multi-fuel stove with a large boiler, I've seen some around 40000BTU boiler capacity.

Good ergonomics, easy ash cleaning (maybe from outside?), fine control of air, etc.

Something that's relatively easy to damp down and leave burning overnight if possible.

I believe the last requirement (and the fairly large water heating capacity) may move us from the 'pretty' glass fronted stove to other types, that's OK if necessary. I'm really trying to get a feel for all this and some ideas to throw into our design/ideas pot.

[puffernutter]

Well I've just installed a Hunter Herald 14.

Oh dear....

(Mind you we have a wood (only) burning version and have been told to burn the wood on a bed of ash.) So it shouldn't need that much cleaning.

Cheers

Peter

[usenet]

Those are just a bit too far in the industrial/commercial direction I'm afraid. The web site of the UK agents

almost totally broken, whether I use FireFox or IE. Even an attempted PDF download failed.

[usenet]

Don't worry, we don't really think it was a bad buy, it works well at heating the room and looks good. It's just a pity that a few details aren't better than thay are.

You'll need to clear the ash out every two or three days I think. We burn mostly wood and find that if the stove is run for a whole day or for a couple of evenings you really need to clear the ash out when you relight it.