If it's located on and outer wall, get a room sealed one. Draws combustion air directly into the stove from outside so increasing ove rall efficiency. (No cold air drawn into room.)
Are you purchasing as a main source of heat or as a fashion item that looks nice? I installed one of these
formatting link
and am quite pleased with it. smaller than many would consider but I wanted minimal disruption to the existing fire place. It was also the smallest I could find that still had a back boiler option which the previous open fire had,something I was loathe to lose in a rural location with overhead lines which sometimes get damaged. We now retain the abilty to heat some hot water and cook can on top of it if the electric goes off. in fact in winter we do a lot of casseroles and stews on it anyway. Keeps the room it is in really warm with the door into the hall left open but this is a small bungalow, might struggle in a bigger place.
Cast Iron is more expensive than steel but won't burn/corrode away as gradually happens with steel. Some steel stoves have vitreous enamel to try to prevent this. Steel is more prone to distortion if it should overheat.
We have used Stovax Stockton stoves for our last two.
They are steel, and seem to work well.
Morso were a good brand for cast iron, but I understand that cast iron is more fragile than steel if mistreated, and steel stoves are also cheaper to produce these days so there seem to be more of those especially at the budget end of the market.
We did want a particular Esse stove (as seen on River Cottage) which included an oven but we found (by talking to retailers) that there were design problems.
We use our stove for fun - that is we have full central heating but we also like a wood fire and often run it in Autumn/Spring while the CH is still resting.
One small point - you usually have a choice of top or rear connection for the flue. A rear connection pushes the stove into the room a bit more but it does give you the entire stove top for cooking should you be so inclined. With a 5kW stove you may find that there isn't enough room around the flue if it is top connected.
The chimney will be more expensive than the stove, selkirk 6" is about £100 a meter (a bit cheaper one ebay but i accidentally bought 5" flue) (but better than burning your house down)
A glass front so you can see the flames.
A separate air intake will mean much less draughts.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.