Barbas woodburner

[Andrew Reed]

Just had a new one of these fitted, Unilux 7Kw. Replaced my 5Kw Brompi Oxford burner. Also had a liner fitted in the chimney. Compared with the Brompi the Brabus is quite different in how it burns and a lot prettier. I realize now I was grossly over stoking the Brompi to at least 7Kw, so no wonder it looked over heated and acquired a tiny crack near the door hinge. The Unilux seems to need less wood in it for the same heat from the Brompi. It needs also needs a lot less fiddling with the air to keep it going steady. The Unilux is much quieter(you would not think that a woodburner would be noisy) and seems to be a much calmer burn. The Unilux has an interesting useful widget that opens the throat plate when the front door is opened, and a leaver that can keep this throat flap open with the door shut for use when lighting the fire. It works well. The downside is the modern method for opening the door is rather fiddly and risks damaging the glass, and most frustrating is it often lets a little ash drift out into the room when load up a few logs.The Brompi never had this ash floating about problem. The firebox liners in the Barbus are a hard material compared to the Brompi which had a fibre board kinda stuff. One odd thing about the Unilux model is the depth of the firebox is quite shallow so the logs ought to be only 150mm long which means more cuts with my chainsaw. But thefirebox is wide so you canput inlogs acrossways. Conclusion so far is Barbus is a better built, prettier possbly more efficient.The Barbus (with a flue liner) is certainly easier to use. But note there is a big price difference between them. The Brompi was good for the much lower price,and am very pleased with the Barbus as well.

[difflock]

Buy once, buy right, buy Morso.

Or indeed Clearview, or other correctly engineered and constructed brand.

[Stubby]

Buy once, buy right, buy Morso.

Or indeed Clearview, or other correctly engineered and constructed brand.

 

2nd that but would add Burley

[treequip]

3rd that but would add Dunsley

[SamTheOldGoat]

4th that to include British built Charnwood.

[Andrew Reed]

Buy once, buy right, buy Morso.

Or indeed Clearview, or other correctly engineered and constructed brand.

 

Certainly the Brompi Oxford was an inexpensive burner, and at the time I could not afford a Morso one (which I did look at). The Barbus is nicely done and operates very well, up there with the quality builds. But unfortunately the rather too handle close to the glass is because I choose a very modern ("contemporary") looking option on the design with virtually no metal surround to the door. Morso do a similar design but does not quite look the way I wanted.

 

I would agree that you need to look very carefully at the construction of wood burners, or ask someone who has had a good one for years. Reason being they take a hell of bashing with 5-10 cubic metres of timber going through them every year.

[Brian S]

4th that to include British built Charnwood.

 

 

:thumbup1:

[wrekin woodsman]

stovax with back boiler all the way quality and been doin the job a long lon time

[wrsni]

Hands still tingling after a day spent yesterday with a kango removing a back boiler and widening the fire breast to accommodate a nice new Burley Brampton.

 

Hope to have the flames swirling in a week or so, can't wait!