The Hunter Herald 5 Eco is a re-creation of a classic favourite. Hunter originally started in a small Village in my home count of Somerset. They made and imported cast iron stoves and then moved on to making steel stoves. Herald was their crowning jewel, their bread and butter and it served as that for longer than I have been alive. But as with everything it had to come to an end and the Herald range needed to be completely re-designed to meet the requirements and also stay ahead of the competition and the users expectations. The Herald Eco, is a similarly tough appliance to what we are used to, but now rather than having a wood or a multi-fuel version, they make 1 stove with a grate and an ash pan, that is focused on wood, but with the ability of burning coal. It has a simple grate that opens and closes by hand to drop the ash into the pan, and it has a single air control that brings the air into the back, mixes and pre heats it and then divides it up into primary air at the fuel base, secondary down the glass and tertiary air in the middle at the back of the stove. The Herald already had 3 air intakes but this preheating is the fundamental change, this increases cleanness and efficiency, but also makes it easier to use. They then changed the baffling systems, which to save you the boredom of what went into that, meant that the stove would push heat into the room far quicker and more intensely.
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Lighting the stove: 7/10
Lighting a Herald was always easy. Modern stoves with their high efficiencies have lengthened the process a bit, but it's no trickier to achieve in this case.
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Cleanness: 6/10
This stove is very capable of running clean on the glass, and also complies with Eco-design and DEFRA. I did find that you needed to do things correctly to keep it clean, with dry fuel. This isn't so much a bad point, but I guess it illustrates that some people will always have clean glass and others may struggle.
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Controls & Controllability: 5/10
This stove is really toughly put together and I like the single air control, it slides across with ease and is very effective. The stove also comes with gloves which you will need as the handle can be a little tight and certainly gets very hot. Hunter have tweaked the handle design slightly since the original release to include a roller catch which made it much easier to open and close, and this is a welcome change. This stoves grate and ash pan also work well, and I like that the grate can be completely closed to improve burn time. I just wish that they had retained the old Hunter tool which used to assist with removing the ash pan and opening and closing the door. I get the simplifying of the design and not needing a tool, but I think you still do. Otherwise opening and closing the door always needs a strong hand and a glove, and emptying the ashpan can only happen when the stove is cold.
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Fuel economy & Burn time: 5/10
I have obviously tested Hunter's fully focused wood burners the Allure range. And this stove isn't quite as economic to use as that stove with wood. It does have a convenient ash pan and a grate to give you flexibility on fuel, so that will certainly suit a lot of users, but it leave this stove slightly compromised from a fuel economy and burn time point of view.
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Who's it for:
A lot of this stoves appeal is to do with it's look, the double door option and the familiarity of this old favourite. So if that's why you're here then your mind is probably already made up. From a function point of view, if you're planning to use this stove for afternoons, evenings over the weekend or as a back up and focal point, then you will love it. It's also very heavy and tough which always gives confidence and given Hunters history I would be expecting this stove to out live my grand children (and they don't even exist yet).
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