The Charnwood Aire range is at the top of the product ranges by Charnwood. They make a 3, 5 and 7 and all of them are designed and built on the Isle of White. They are focused on burning wood and come with stay cool handles and a neat ash pan, that is part of the base of the stove making removal of the ash very quick and easy. They are made from steel with cast iron doors, and have a big plain glass, they also have a single air control that pulls in and out to open and close the air, though this does look a little clumsy when pulled out, this generally only happens when you're lighting the stove. Oh and they come with loads of options like:
The toasting fork
Â
Flue boiler
8 colours
Â
Log stores
Â
Pod etcÂ
Â
Â
Â
Lighting the stove: 5/10
It was up to temperature in 15-20 minutes generally. There isn't a lot of space in the 3kw version which can make staking fuel up for lighting a little tricky, but generally it's a fairly standard stove from a lighting point of view.
Â
Cleanness: 5/10
These stoves are all DEFRA approved and EcoDesign, so they're all clean, and the little one I used can get as high as 86% efficiency, which is very high.Â
Â
Controls & Controllability: 6/10
The main handle is "stay cool", but it's not super cool. It's made of a hard wearing plastic, which looks really smart, but does still get fairly hot. The controllability is also not superb, but the 5 and 7 allow you to remove the DEFRA kit, which does significantly improve things. Having said that I did still manage to run it overnight, but when I told Charnwood this they were really surprised as it was not what they expected.Â
Â
Fuel economy & Burn time: 6/10
The stove has good fuel economy, but it will primarily suit evening and weekend use, but could be more serious if required.Â
Â
What I thought:
This stove is definitely flawed, expensive and in someways "average" in its performance. But a lot of what Charnwood are selling is the name, exclusivity, genuine British design and innovation, rather than copies or parts bin re-creations. Â I enjoy their stove mostly because of who Charnwood are, what it allows you to be part of, the exclusivity and uniqueness of their designs. If you can get past the price and aren't wanting something to use all day and night, then buy one!
Â