Log burner brand reviews…

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Saraelli

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#290473 14-Nov-2021 10:20

My husband and I are currently building a new house in Mid Canterbury and are researching different brand log burners. It must be a clean air certified log burner that heats around 160sqm and transfers heat via convection (at least predominantly).

There doesn’t seem to be a great number of log burners that work by convection that are the appropriate size for our house. One log burner we are looking at that seems to fit most of the criteria is the Bosca Limit 380. Another plus of this fire is that it’s very efficient (although only has a 6 hour burn time).
http://www.bosca.co.nz/wood-fires/limit-380

My question is this: has anyone had much experience with this brand log burner? It does not seem to be a very widely used brand, and they don’t have a Facebook page or any other for public forum where people can place reviews on their fires. Being such a large investment, this makes me quite nervous, especially given their warranty is only five years.

Otherwise, does anyone have any other recommendations for fires that would fit the above criteria? Particularly less common brands as I have done pretty thorough research on the major brands. Preference goes to cost effectiveness, burn time, and efficiency of the fire.

Thanks in advance!

driller2000

935 posts

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#2812527 14-Nov-2021 11:03

We installed one of these in our new build in AKL 12 years ago:

https://turfrey.co.nz/shop/heating/wood-fires/masport-le4000-zero-clearance-2/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA4b2MBhD2ARIsAIrcB-QtO0IK5AiMHWLAejdbryiLS4VRUAWQXo_7GKi1oxTmriZXntgGU-8aAgUuEALw_wcB

It does a great job of heating our main living areas and nearer bedrooms via hallways etc. How well it works for you will of course depend on room size and house configuration AND insulation levels ie. potential heat loss.

It has a fan which we always use as it heats a lot faster with this on - but it can be turned off if you prefer.

Burn times will very much depend on wood used and damper setting.

Other then cleaning it - the only maintenance has been the odd chimney sweep, and we replaced the fire bricks 3 or so years ago.

Would buy again.

EDIT: Just checked the one you linked to - and it looks pretty cool and is of course different to what I touched on above. I think have used these in a couple of holiday homes and was a little underwhelmed in terms of heat generated and then how slowly it heated the space - but that could be because I am used to our fan forced model.

I also note it has been reviewed by Consumer if you had a sub - or you could buy a short term sub to get access:

https://www.consumer.org.nz/products/woodburners/bosca-limit-380?gclid=Cj0KCQiA4b2MBhD2ARIsAIrcB-SbO715_bJyRVzGapNMNJ5uXSYUEIfc_bK42q2YobZBVo2XACQ60xwaAsg8EALw_wcB

timmmay

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#2812535 14-Nov-2021 11:19

Have you considered a more modern solution like a ducted heat pump? A good quality Daikin / Mitsubishi with an Airtouch 4 unit will give you individual room temperature controls and a lot of flexibility. Only one mode can be used at a time, heating or cooling. We find this very useful, particularly in spring / Autumn when the rooms on the north side are really hot and the south side rooms are cool. In a well insulated new house you'd probably get away with 10kw or maybe one step up. 10kw with Daikin cost us about $14K recently. Of course you get air conditioning, which is increasingly useful as we're getting more heat waves. For bonus point integrate it with a ventilation system, or just have a separate ventilation system with outlets near the heat pump return vent.

If you really want a fireplace then you should probably consider a heat transfer system. Heat transfer systems won't be able to cool the house though. Fireplaces are ok rurally but they're really not good for air quality.

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2812596 14-Nov-2021 14:13

My brother installed this fire about 5 years ago. Don't think they had any problems, but they sold their house a couple of years after it was installed. It is quite a low cost fire compared to others, think they only paid about 1k, and I think you can only burn softwoods, not hardwoods like manuka. I think it is more of a radiant fire too, so not sure what you mean by convection. Bosca do some higher models too. I personally like Masport and have an Akaroa installed and it seems to perform in a similar way. It has air holes around the side, and I think most do both radiant and some convection . I think Masport has a pretty good name and they do advertise some as being convection fires.

blackjack17

1705 posts

Uber Geek

#2812598 14-Nov-2021 14:19

We had one in our last place worked very nicely no complaint. We picked it as it seemed the best bang for the buck and looked nice.

There is a chimney sweep on this forum can't remember his name. Hopefully he is still around.

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blackjack17

1705 posts

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#2812600 14-Nov-2021 14:22

How to you tag a user

@swept

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blackjack17

1705 posts

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#2812601 14-Nov-2021 14:24

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=141&topicid=205804&page_no=3

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Swept

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#2812668 14-Nov-2021 15:41

Hey there, Chimney Sweep here that services the Canterbury Region.

Off the bat, I would avoid the Bosca brand. They look cool etc, but for some reason the firebox starts to crack around the door frame at year 5-6; aka after the warranty expires. A crack in a firebox is a write-off (unless you get a welder in). Convection fires are on the way out.

Masport has the biggest range and are in my professional opinion one of the best; they're like a Toyota, simple, does the job, doesn't break down. Another very good one is Firenzo - bit more niche and more expensive, but they are the Rolls Royce of logfires.

Metro and Woodsman are okay - have built their fires with replacement spare parts in mind for which they make a pretty good killing on (we carry lots of spare Metro and Woodsman parts in our vans). Their most recent fires have been built a bit better due to all the complaints they get about bricks, airtubes, and baffles wearing out.

Yunca - built in Invercargill, built like brick toilets as they would be. Avoid the Hobson, has weird issue of cracking on the top plate.

Blazeking is a new one sold by Heat Store, more for the city, but are big and can shut down.

Avoid: Jayline, Kent (yes), Bosca, Ethos, and Pyroclassic (don't get me started). These brands are either not suited for you, or have been bought and sold and are now made in China, i.e. cheap and crap. Please trust me on this.

Also, when you are getting it installed, please ask your installer for the following things: no revolving cowl (you're in the country, you'll have birds, revolving cowls cannot be bird proofed), ask for an "Anti-Downdraught" (ADD) cowl to stop whistling and blow back from the Nor-Westers and ask for the stainless steel bird netting to be installed (look at M10 for it, about $120). When the flue is being installed, ensure that they are using maniseal/fire cement at each flue join - this is now a requirement in the building code; don't let them BS you. This seals the flue and prevents soot from leaking out.

Please speak with a qualified installer (not a builder who can install) as you DO NOT want a too big of a fire in a modern house; fires have to operate at a certain temp for them to work, too big and you'll be sweating your place out, shut it down too much, and I'll be coming in a few times a year to clean it out making $$ from ya. Get the right sized fire for your house; not the biggest. Two companies I can recommend for installing: Lifestyles and Log Burner Services. We know them both, know they do excellent work, and won't BS you.

If you have any questions, send them my way. I sweep, repair, and install new parts on fires - even remove them or change the colour if it's not your thing, but we don't install (got out of that game awhile ago, just do this full-time).

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neb

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#2812697 14-Nov-2021 17:08

Saraelli: There doesn’t seem to be a great number of log burners that work by convection that are the appropriate size for our house.

Just thinking out loud here, but why not get any old log burner and any old electric move-air-around system? That way you're not limited to a tiny number of possible burners that handle both.