Burley Hollywell

A happy customer has had a Burley Holywell installed in the living room of their 3 bedroom 1960's chalet-style house last September, along with a flue liner. It replaced an old open fireplace. The below report gives nothing but praise for the highly efficient stove from Burley.

We chose the Holywell because it was engineered specifically for burning wood and we live in the middle of an estate forest so that is all we would be burning. We were also attracted to the simple lines of the thing which are very stylish, the very large viewing window, and the published efficiency ratings. The fact that it is designed and manufactured in the UK was also a plus point - I called Burley with come questions when we were having the stove installed, spoke to a very helpful lady who was able to answer some of our questions and ended up speaking to the chap who designed it who was incredibly helpful - excellent service.

Now that we have gone through one winter using it almost every day, we couldn't be happier with our choice. The stove is very easy to light and gets up to running temperature quickly. The single air control is very responsive and it is simple to adjust the heat output / burn rate as desired. The airwash works very well and after a whole day and evening of burning the glass only has a thin layer of white ash on it, which is easily removed with some damp kitchen roll.

The heat output has exceeded our expectations - it heats our 6.5m x 4.3m living room easily and we found that we were leaving the downstairs doors open to allow the heat to drift around the rest of the house - it has certainly cut our oil consumption dramatically. Compared to our old open fire, we found that we were using much less wood to produce much more heat - a 1kg log lasts about 45 mins on our preferred setting, and once the stove was up and running we did not need the central heating on at all.

We love looking at the amazing flame patterns created by the air-introduction system. Rather than having vents directly open to the air, the controller regulates an opening at the back of the stove through which the air is drawn before being injected into the firebox through a series of small holes all around the interior of the stove. These holes are positioned in such a way as to create a vortex which, when there is sufficient fuel in the box, creates what I can only describe as a "flame whirlwind" when the controller is fully open. It's certainly a talking point whenever visitors come around.

Finally, the wooden handles are an excellent idea as they remain cool to the touch no matter how long the fire has been burning. The door handle does become loose after a while but this is easily tightened up with an allen key. We've never tried to keep the stove in overnight, so I have rated this as 3.

We did a lot of research before choosing a stove and found the reviews on this website very helpful, so hopefully this review will help others with their decisions. We would happily recommend this stove to anyone.