Woodford Didsbury 5 Wide

Woodford Didsbury 5 Wide

The Didsbury is the first focused woodburner made by Woodford.

It is an imported thick and tough steel body with a cast iron door, all lined with vermiculite bricks, with a steel log retainer. It sounds simple and it is, it has no grate or ashpan, it is a wood thoroughbred, focused on one job and it therefore does that job very well. It is also available with or supplied as standard with heat shields, direct air and a multi-fuel grate, but for me you're better off with one of the alternative Woodford models if you're after a multi-fuel stove.

 

 

Didsbury 5

Didsbury 5 Wide

Lighting: 5/10

 

There is nothing too tricky to worry about here. Open the door load, a couple logs in, some smaller pieces on top and then kindling on top of that. Try to get the stove fairly full up to the run of holes at the top of the back bricks in the stove. This will enable you to light the stove, close the door when it is properly lit and then keep it going for at least an hour beyond that without needing to re-load.

 

Cleanness: 7/10

The stove will run at as high as 81.5% efficiency. It's also DEFRA approved and Eco-Design. In terms of clean glass, I found it really easy to keep it clean. I didn't struggle at any point and using my Hamster technique I could get it to run over night with the glass still clean. So it worked really well.

 

Controls: 4/10

It's just as you'd expect a nice silver handle that does get hot, and 2 controls with a removable DEFRA kit. The whole lot works well, but because the controls get hot and you don't get a glove or tool to control them with it felt a little like something was missing. The controllability of the stove was fairly good and I like the easy to remove DEFRA kit, but you will need to at least try to negotiate for a free glove with your stove.

 

Fuel economy: 5/10

This stove's design focus is toward wood, which is what most of us burn so I was hoping for good things. As I've said you could (with some practice) get it to run overnight on wood, but it isn't necessarily focused on that. It's designed to run efficiently for the evenings and sometimes a bit more, and once the stove is going I found you could get good fuel economy out of it. 

 

Who's it for:

 

If you're wanting to burn wood and you like the look, price or Woodford brand then this is probably the one for you. It's not for serious use, but does the pretty and clean look really well and is easy to use. It doesn't tend to smoke out into the room, it stays nice and clean and it is a simple, reliable design. I really enjoyed having it, but I do want a glove with it 😆. Also Woodford is distributed by Flue and Ducting whom are a large flue manufacturer, so you will often find that you can get these supplied with installation kits, so it may be perfect for motivated DIYer who wants to do a self installation.

 

 

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