Does anyone have the Margin Flameview?

[Obadiah]

Welcome AKBear! There are not very many reviews out there on the stove. Your feedback would be nice, I am very curious to know as much as you can share. We just added the Hearthstone Deva to our cookstove line and I have a couple customers that have lots of questions I cant really answer. I cherish first had knowledge like Charley has shared, its how I learn. We look forward to updates as Fall progresses and your able to use your stove more.
Charley, thanks for sharing with Sarah about your Ironheart, you are a wealth of information!
Sarah, great chatting with you and Eric the other day, your hubby and I have a lot in common, always tinkering with something..... I am interested in hearing more about how some of his alternative energy experiments play out. He has some great ideas. I hope I answered all your questions on the Kitchen Queen. Looking forward to working with you guys! Hopefully you guys can come back and post like Charley does about your Queen. I promise we'll get the glass doors done soon so you can watch the fire and your food cooking in the oven, just a few more bugs to work out in the final finish so it will look perrty for you.

 

[akbear]

Welcome AKBear! There are not very many reviews out there on the stove. Your feedback would be nice, I am very curious to know as much as you can share. We just added the Hearthstone Deva to our cookstove line and I have a couple customers that have lots of questions I cant really answer. I cherish first had knowledge like Charley has shared, its how I learn. We look forward to updates as Fall progresses and your able to use your stove more.

Being a lurker on here for years and not finding out much information or reviews here or anywhere on the stove, as well as it being a fairly "new" import to this continent, I pretty much figured I'd be at some point taking up the task of sharing impressions and experiences with it.

Being that this thread is about the Flameview, perhaps it would be best if you could start up a new thread asking for Deva owners and those considering them to chime in, (and perhaps we can flush out a few more owners) passing along the questions you have gathered and hopefully I (and perhaps others) will be able to answer them or at least be guided to observe and pass back. Mind you, this is going to be an adventure and a learning experience for me as this is my first cookstove which obviously goes beyond woodstoves I've dealt with in the past, so there is going to be an amount of trial, error and time as well, but I'm certainly willing to share what I can.

 

[charly]

Being a lurker on here for years and not finding out much information or reviews here or anywhere on the stove, as well as it being a fairly "new" import to this continent, I pretty much figured I'd be at some point taking up the task of sharing impressions and experiences with it.

Being that this thread is about the Flameview, perhaps it would be best if you could start up a new thread asking for Deva owners and those considering them to chime in, (and perhaps we can flush out a few more owners) passing along the questions you have gathered and hopefully I (and perhaps others) will be able to answer them or at least be guided to observe and pass back. Mind you, this is going to be an adventure and a learning experience for me as this is my first cookstove which obviously goes beyond woodstoves I've dealt with in the past, so there is going to be an amount of trial, error and time as well, but I'm certainly willing to share what I can.

One positive thing I've found out about Wood cookstove cooking,, it's hard to ruin something in the oven, if anything, you'll find it could have cooked a little longer.. Better then the other way around.. I find most things come out of the oven tasting like they were cooked low and slow, moist inside and well down on the outside..Can't beat something that comes out of a wood cookstove oven.. Look forward to hearing about your cooking experiences... Well Woody, what can I say.... he's one of the nicest people I have ever dealt with.. Always has answered any questions and has always treated me like family.. Just a pleasure to do business with. He's certainly there after the sale and all about that!

 

[Obadiah]

There are some very nice cookstoves these days. I have only used one of the newer ones, the one we have, which is the Heartland [Aga] shown in the photo to the left. I have owned two others and used two more on a long-term basis in rental homes where I used to live. They were old models and a bear to use. All the cookstoves take a while to heat up, nature of the beast. Well, the ovens take a long time. The top of the stove does heat up fairly quickly, in our case a few minutes for boiling water. The benefit is that, once they reach that oven temperature, managing them is a matter of...not much effort. That is, if the firebox is large enough, as the new models mostly feature. Many of the old models have ridiculously tiny boxes and the cook must constantly monitor the fire and add wood. It can be a full-time job to manage the stove. The old ones look great, especially restored, but as useful cookers, they lack a lot.

In the newer cookstoves, with their larger fireboxes and, in some cases, airtight operation, once they are up to temp., there is very little labor or monitoring involved. If baking or cooking on the top, it is no more trouble than using a gas or electric range. The only difference is that it is difficult, very, to rapidly increase or decrease the oven temp's, which some techniques and recipes call for. To cool the oven a bit, one can crack open the (oven) door, but it is a matter of experience and experimentation to do so successfully.

For heating living area, these cookstoves are great if one wants heat for an extended time. We can let our fire in the Aga burn out after supper and the next morning, the stove will still be warm. Not hot, but at least warm. Nothing like a mass of cast iron to put out heat for hours.

I do all our baking in the Heartland, and we don't buy any baked goods, or only rarely. In the hottest part of summer, I bake in our Weber gas grill, outdoors, but 8 months of the year, it is the cookstove. We do have a propane-fired countertop stove, too [four burners], we use for stove-top cooking when the cookstove is not going.

As for the original question by the OP, our stove will heat our entire home, 1100 sq. ft. It will not knock off the chill very quickly from a cold start, as the stove takes a long time to heat up the internals and begin to radiate enough heat for heating more than the closest couple of rooms. The kitchen warms quickly, however, from the heat coming from the top of the cookstove. In our case, we have a regular, heating wood stove in another part of the house and use the two stoves together if it's that cold outdoors.

Steve, It's ashamed that the AGA Wood Cookstove is no longer available through Heartland, it is an excellent cookstove. I believe the AGA is only available in gas or electric now. The Artisan is available as a wood cooker. I mean you no disrespect but I was under the impression it was not a very good heater as the stove is insulated to keep the kitchen from overheating when in use. I am curious about how that works at heating 1100 sq ft. ? I understand that opening the Hob Lids will let some of the heat out, but its radiant and pretty much localized to the area the stoves in, unless it is connected to a central heating system with a boiler in the firebox pulling the heat out and moving it elsewhere, but I did not know that the Heartland AGA was offered that way. I don't know that I would want to try to heat with an AGA anywhere it gets very cold, I understand that you have a second stove for when it gets cold but saying "As for the original question by the OP, our stove will heat our entire home, 1100 sq. ft" would lead most folks to believe that the AGA could be used as a heating stove. As I have shown in the pictures below these wood cookstoves can be installed like any gas or electric kitchen range next to combustible cabinetry specifically because they are so well insulated against transferring heat.
We are now offering the ESSE 990 which is comparable to the AGA in many ways, so those looking for an excellent wood cooking stove that wont drive them out of the kitchen will have another choice. (broken link removed to http://www.discountstoves.net/Esse-990-Series-p/990.htm) The 990 has finally come through testing and will be ready for shipment this winter and we will have them available for our customers. Best of all the ESSE 990 can provide heat and plenty of it through the ESSE Central Heating System that converts the 990 into a central heating system by piping hot water to other areas of the house and dissipating it through radiators.

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This You Tube shows how that's done.

 

[Obadiah]

Being a lurker on here for years and not finding out much information or reviews here or anywhere on the stove, as well as it being a fairly "new" import to this continent, I pretty much figured I'd be at some point taking up the task of sharing impressions and experiences with it.

Being that this thread is about the Flameview, perhaps it would be best if you could start up a new thread asking for Deva owners and those considering them to chime in, (and perhaps we can flush out a few more owners) passing along the questions you have gathered and hopefully I (and perhaps others) will be able to answer them or at least be guided to observe and pass back. Mind you, this is going to be an adventure and a learning experience for me as this is my first cookstove which obviously goes beyond woodstoves I've dealt with in the past, so there is going to be an amount of trial, error and time as well, but I'm certainly willing to share what I can.

AKBear, great idea! Being you already have a Deva perhaps you could do that. I have to watch my P's and Q's around here and refrain from starting threads that turn into a marketing gimmick for Obadiah's. I am granted a lot of leeway around here and I don't want to abuse it. I try to provide honest answers and info without spamming this site. I love and support Hearth.com because its the only place you can find honest answers. So far it does not look like were having much luck flushing out any Flameview owners. You made this comment, "compared to how I've seen a friend struggle with a flameview, I imagine I will be quite happy with this one." perhaps you could persuade them to fill us in on their experiences. I am trying to get my FV customers to post on here, but they tell me they are not very savvy with forums, so I'm not having much luck.
Thanks again for your post and your feedback.

 

[akbear]

AKBear, great idea! Being you already have a Deva perhaps you could do that. I have to watch my P's and Q's around here and refrain from starting threads that turn into a marketing gimmick for Obadiah's. I am granted a lot of leeway around here and I don't want to abuse it. I try to provide honest answers and info without spamming this site. I love and support Hearth.com because its the only place you can find honest answers. So far it does not look like were having much luck flushing out any Flameview owners. You made this comment, "compared to how I've seen a friend struggle with a flameview, I imagine I will be quite happy with this one." perhaps you could persuade them to fill us in on their experiences. I am trying to get my FV customers to post on here, but they tell me they are not very savvy with forums, so I'm not having much luck.
Thanks again for your post and your feedback.

In a lot of forums such would seem similar to a breach in etiquette for a short term poster to be so forward, but I can certainly understand the ceiling you bounce off being available to serve out advice and assistance without crossing the line that would be a sales pitch. Over the weekend I'll get a thread started and see what we can do about getting the questions answered.

Now about the other....thanks for opening up a can of worms there. I did ask the flameview owner to take some time and write out what she likes and doesn't about the stove, and such, but now I'm on the hook for going over there and trying to help her make sense of the automatic damper control (and mind you, she's been using the stove for over a year now). That was one of my beefs with that stove, directions are almost non-existent. Her "manual" consists of a couple of handwritten pages stapled together with hand drawn sketches of a stove. I think she may have also, later on, was able to get a dvd, but I haven't seen it and from what I understand it didn't help much either. Anyhow, I"ll have more to report back on that in a number of days.

 

[Obadiah]

One positive thing I've found out about Wood cookstove cooking,, it's hard to ruin something in the oven, if anything, you'll find it could have cooked a little longer.. Better then the other way around.. I find most things come out of the oven tasting like they were cooked low and slow, moist inside and well down on the outside..Can't beat something that comes out of a wood cookstove oven.. Look forward to hearing about your cooking experiences... Well Woody, what can I say.... he's one of the nicest people I have ever dealt with.. Always has answered any questions and has always treated me like family.. Just a pleasure to do business with. He's certainly there after the sale and all about that!

Thank's Charley, its folks like you that make this the greatest business a guy could ever be in. You have been a pleasure to deal with and even taught me a thing or two about the Ironheart, as well as life in general. Blessings my friend!

 

[Obadiah]

In a lot of forums such would seem similar to a breach in etiquette for a short term poster to be so forward, but I can certainly understand the ceiling you bounce off being available to serve out advice and assistance without crossing the line that would be a sales pitch. Over the weekend I'll get a thread started and see what we can do about getting the questions answered.

Now about the other....thanks for opening up a can of worms there. I did ask the flameview owner to take some time and write out what she likes and doesn't about the stove, and such, but now I'm on the hook for going over there and trying to help her make sense of the automatic damper control (and mind you, she's been using the stove for over a year now). That was one of my beefs with that stove, directions are almost non-existent. Her "manual" consists of a couple of handwritten pages stapled together with hand drawn sketches of a stove. I think she may have also, later on, was able to get a dvd, but I haven't seen it and from what I understand it didn't help much either. Anyhow, I"ll have more to report back on that in a number of days.

Oh boy, DVD, I hope she did not pay $45 bucks for it. That is the DVD I was talking about from a dealer that installed his own Flameview on a wood floor without any floor protection and used 2 or 3 90s before he went into his masonry chimney. A sure fire way to burn down your house. Worse yet he sells chimney pipe and is advising folks on how to install their chimneys. Worst of all they posted it all over You Tube using my name! YouTube was not impressed with that stunt at all...... I feel bad for the lady, have her contact me, I made up a manual for the stove, I think I might be able to find. Lost a hard drive here a while back and I'm still trying to recover all my data. At any rate I made a ton of videos on the Flameview after one of this guys customers bought a stove and figured out the door was on the wrong side. He called that dealer 3 times sent multiple e-mails and could never get a reply. Called me up very disappointed, I took his Flameview back in trade for a Kitchen Queen, then proceeded to take the stove apart to figure out why I had so many unhappy FV customers. Learned allot, then I posted it all on You Tube.

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The other dealer was not happy at all, had Margin send me a fax telling me to remove the videos or loose my dealership. The videos are still up and I lost the dealership, YIPPI KIA!! The world should know what they are buying before they buy it. I guess that's my job as a firefighter and a firelighter! Thanks again AKBEAR!

 

[charly]

Oh boy, DVD, I hope she did not pay $45 bucks for it. That is the DVD I was talking about from a dealer that installed his own Flameview on a wood floor without any floor protection and used 2 or 3 90s before he went into his masonry chimney. A sure fire way to burn down your house. Worse yet he sells chimney pipe and is advising folks on how to install their chimneys. Worst of all they posted it all over You Tube using my name! YouTube was not impressed with that stunt at all...... I feel bad for the lady, have her contact me, I made up a manual for the stove, I think I might be able to find. Lost a hard drive here a while back and I'm still trying to recover all my data. At any rate I made a ton of videos on the Flameview after one of this guys customers bought a stove and figured out the door was on the wrong side. He called that dealer 3 times sent multiple e-mails and could never get a reply. Called me up very disappointed, I took his Flameview back in trade for a Kitchen Queen, then proceeded to take the stove apart to figure out why I had so many unhappy FV customers. Learned allot, then I posted it all on You Tube.

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The other dealer was not happy at all, had Margin send me a fax telling me to remove the videos or loose my dealership. The videos are still up and I lost the dealership, YIPPI KIA!! The world should know what they are buying before they buy it. I guess that's my job as a firefighter and a firelighter! Thanks again AKBEAR!

Good for you Woody! Doesn't surprise me a bit that you did what was right ! Just creating more happy customers, going above and beyond! That's seems to be a rare thing these days! Glad you posted and let everyone know! I like it!

 

[akbear]

Ok, today my neighbour went out to clean the chimney on the flameview, so I went along, so even though I don't yet have the report back from the owner, I have some observations to share. Mind you, I may have looked at something a bit more closely when I saw something obvious, I did not go to any length to scrutinise it and inspect it as the stove was still rather warm (top was anywhere from 110 to 230+ depending on location) and the oven was reading around 210-220.

Which brings up the one nice thing I noticed. The thermometer on the oven door was reading the same temp as I got with an IR scan of the interior and the centre of a pan that was on the oven shelf. That actually surprised me.

But, woody was sure right about the oven hinge. It was coated in both ash and tar. There is some dripping down the sides of the oven drawer beneath, and some ash accumulation in the drawer and in the things kept in there. But that leads us to (sounds of dinosaurs caught in the la brea tar pits in the background...) the pool of creosote on the floor...

You know, it's actually a good thing if those louvered vents on the side and front don't do anything to circulate heat, because if they did, the side of the stove would be cooler yet and even more creosote would condense on the interior walls. In fact that might be better (at least the far end) if it was instead a plain solid piece with some mineral wool insulation to keep that flueway around the stove warmer.

So, here are some pictures of what I just talked about, I'll save the cleanout pictures for another post (and I suppose too I should mention, she has the right hand option and a water coil)

 

[begreen]

That would make me nervous. I burned all sorts of scrounge wood in my old '20s cook stove and it never dripped 'sote. Did they say how long they had been burning since last cleanout? Was the wood poorly seasoned?

 

[akbear]

I can't tell you much about the condition of the wood, but she says she burns through 10-11 cords and about a ton of coal per year. Her place is only 24x24 and she usually keeps the bedroom closed unless she's in it so as not to waste heat, and all cooking is done on it as well. (no other heat source). According to what she said, this was a month's build-up, so that's the point we dropped from the 70-90 degree band down to the 50-70 degree band for daytime temps (nighttime about a third above 40, a third above freezing and a third just below freezing). My neighbour brushes out the chimney about once a month (though this brought up a point I observed today, in order to get a brush down into the oval section of the pipe, one would have to get a pellet stove brush additionally and not just use the round brush from the roof)

Anyhow, here we go with scary icky pickies...

that's the cleanout on the far side (where the flueway goes down to go under the oven). Now if the bottom side of the cleanout plate looks like that, I can only imagine what the bottom side of the rest of the top looks like...

quite a bit of fly ash can be seen sitting on top of the oven (under the top), and she can not manage to get the scraper all the way over to the firebox (and the smoke curtain prevents it from going in from the firebox) so we are going to have to get her something more flexible to reach all the way across, if nothing else a dryer vent "bottle type" brush, but that still leaves the problem of not having a decent way to scrape the bottom of the cooktop (perhaps it would have been better if another access door would have been put into the side)

quite a bit of fur (in fact almost a forest) of ash going down the side of the oven. As I said, if those pretend vents on the side do anything, they're making more of a problem by cooling it down more (and too, this is the side facing the exterior door of the place, so that too could add to it)
One last, and here I have no clue what is up, is she burning much too low during too warm of weather, is she really not operating the controls right, or is she not using the top air intake (wash) and instead only using the ash door intake (perhaps even supplemented by that automatic damper widget on the back). Whatever it is, we have to address this, and sorry that the picture is shaken (but not stirred), but glass isn't supposed to be furry.

She's been burning wood for ages, she's had this stove in use for more than a year, so I really think that at least part of the problem has to be with the stove itself or else she would have been burnt to a crisp 20 years ago, as this is what you'd expect out of someone that's never used a stove before or neglects any sort of "housekeeping" (by the way, after the chimney was swept and she raked out what she could, it amounted to about half or more of a milking pail)

 

[begreen]

 

[akbear]

Oh boy, DVD, I hope she did not pay $45 bucks for it. That is the DVD I was talking about from a dealer that installed his own Flameview on a wood floor without any floor protection and used 2 or 3 90s before he went into his masonry chimney.

yep, this is the dvd she got (getting started with wood cookstoves). I had it brought over and watched it just now, although she claims they didn't charge her for it, but if it is $45, I'd say skip it.

Personally I could have done without all the proselytising on the front and back ends of the video. I was wanting to find out how to run that stove, not sit through two sermons, but even the meat of the video left me disappointed as it seemed more like evangelising the wonders of a woodstove more than it was telling how to operate it, and little to none on the actual specifics of running a flameview that wasn't general to most stoves. They didn't even so much as explain the correct position for the bypass lever, absolutely nothing about the automatic damper widget, not a word on how to keep the glass clear or how to clean it, and surprisingly not a word at all said about chimney cleaning. I also found it interesting that the stove looked practically brand new and what little they did show of cleaning the flueways, I got the impression that there might not be a speck of ash or flake of creosote to be found in it if he had actually removed the lower access flap and stuck the scraper into there.

All in all, I didn't learn one thing about the workings of that stove that I didn't already know just seeing it a couple of times when I've been over to her house to chat for a few minutes when my neighbour had to go over there for some reason or another. But on the plus side, I must say on the video she had absolutely beautiful picture perfect loaves of bread that she stuck in and pulled out of the oven.

Oh, and one thing I think maybe ought to be mentioned, the margin stoves it seems like most people suggest or claim that they are Amish made, and that's rather deceptive. Noah Gingrich is old order Mennonite, and the best information I could find, that particular congregation is rather progressive. There are no Amish communities around Drayton. Even looking at google streetview, there are power and phone lines going to that property as well as a white van parked up against the house (most old order that do embrace some technology (and mind you, what that means is essentially in a progressive congregation, technology can be used to the extent that it does not interfere or detract from befitting life) are very specific when it comes to something like vehicles, black is the norm and maybe you'll find some that relax that to brown like those around Orfordville, Wisc). While that's not here nor there, that stove is not Amish (and for my friend, that was one of hooks that got her to buy one as she had this idea that Amish made meant quality and unimpeccable knowhow).

Anyhow, more to come when I hear back from her and apparently she has another friend with one that other than not using the oven drawer for all the stuff that falls into it, likes it very well, so I should have some positive things to report later on.

 

[akbear]

Just a note to say I haven't forgotten about this thread, it's just that we're still in the process of trying to make heads or tails out of some things on this particular flameview stove and perhaps making some headway towards taming it a bit. Being that this stove essentially has four different damper controls, it's been a matter of pinning down the right combination to get some control and adjustment to the fire as certain things seem to override others (a step in the right direction, though not ideal, is that she figured out turning the automatic damper control completely to the cold limit that she's getting a bit more responsive fire (as she told me, yet I'll have to see it for myself as this seems as though it would be counter productive to how the ADC should work unless there is, for all practical purposes, an "off" setting that disables it even if it's not marked as such))

But the main issue may still be there, and that's the mysterious self opening bypass damper, which all this time she has been trying to tell me is hooked up to the ADC (which I don't see how there could possibly be a connection between the two) Apparently what is happening is that when the stove heats up to a certain point, the bypass damper is opening by itself, and can not be closed, which in turn is causing the stove to burn the wood yet hotter and faster. What I have found out so far, and I need to spend some time to confirm all this, is that while this particular stove has the firebox on the right hand side, apparently a reverse water coil was not manufactured for it, and if this is the case, then I'm speculating that due to the reversed twist of the double loop of the coil, that it is setting on top of the bypass control rod, and likely the long attachment nut at that position (instead of clearing it where the coil would otherwise have an upward bend) to the effect that as the water coil heats up and expands, it's then pushing the bypass damper rod forward and twisting the bypass door open. If I'm incorrect on this scenario, then my next thought would be that the bypass rod itself is expanding and deforming in such a way to do this, and if so then the issue wouldn't be limited to a right-hand firebox with a water coil. Either way, it's something that has to be addressed as soon as possible since having that damper open when the stove is running hot is just asking for a runaway fire, or worse yet starting all the accumulation in the chimney to erupt into an inferno (and in her situation, being that it's the only source of heat and hot water, means the stove is only allowed to coast down to warm for cleaning the chimney from above, and since that eliminates the possibility of removing the chimney to clean out the oval portion of the stovepipe and the otherwise inaccessible chamber below it where all the chimney sweepings accumulate other than what falls out a cut-out at the front that is also inaccessible from below, it's just a meltdown waiting to happen). And yes, I just found out today that her stove has gone into runaway mode on at least one occasion where the temperature dial on the oven has gone into the danger zone and the stovepipe has gone bright orange but fortunately she was able to get it back under control closing down every damper on it (which by the stove's construction seems to have been an amazing stroke of luck and perhaps all the creosote buildup in the oven itself saved her by not yet igniting and therefore still in place to plug up all the gaps)

It may not seem like it, but I'm really trying to be fair with my evaluation of this stove, and that's why I'm giving it extra time to see if we can get it to a point where she can run it with more control and efficiency. The one good statement she had made about the stove that I did have to report, our conversation today revealed that only applies sometimes and that she came up with a solution to it (I can't even bring myself to describing it since her solution is so very ill-advised, but it is very likely related to some of the very same problems that we have to immediately address so hopefully I don't have to box her ears for thinking of it) but I have to admit, the more I see and learn about this stoves' construction and quirks, the more it scares me. Even her friend, whom she says loves hers, I find out in addition to not using the pan drawer because of all the ash and such that accumulates in it, does not bake in her oven. To me this seems as though it could be an indication that she too is having some control issues that's keeping her from baking in it. So we'll see where all this goes and I'm still hoping I'll have to positive things to report back in time as we iron out some of the most vital kinks.

 

[begreen]

Somethings not right. I ran my ancient cookstove through most of the winter. Baked in it whenever I had the time. Loved having that stove running.

 

[Obadiah]

It may not seem like it, but I'm really trying to be fair with my evaluation of this stove, and that's why I'm giving it extra time to see if we can get it to a point where she can run it with more control and efficiency. The one good statement she had made about the stove that I did have to report, our conversation today revealed that only applies sometimes and that she came up with a solution to it (I can't even bring myself to describing it since her solution is so very ill-advised, but it is very likely related to some of the very same problems that we have to immediately address so hopefully I don't have to box her ears for thinking of it) but I have to admit, the more I see and learn about this stoves' construction and quirks, the more it scares me. Even her friend, whom she says loves hers, I find out in addition to not using the pan drawer because of all the ash and such that accumulates in it, does not bake in her oven. To me this seems as though it could be an indication that she too is having some control issues that's keeping her from baking in it. So we'll see where all this goes and I'm still hoping I'll have to positive things to report back in time as we iron out some of the most vital kinks.

Greetings AK and Begreen, Happy Thanksgiving weekend to you all, I hope you have all had a wonderful time with your loved ones.

I apologize for being away for a while, very busy this time of year for us and we have been working long hours trying to fill stove orders and quotes, not much time for anything else. We also re-launched our http://cookstoves.net/ which is a cookstove community devoted to nothing but wood cookstoves, my passion now since moving to the Montana Mountains from Detroit almost 15 yrs. ago. That project has consumed all my extra time but were finally live with it, so I can come visit you guys again.

Thank you AK Bear for helping your neighbor. I have been watching this from the sidelines, biting my tongue, until now.

I guess the best way to address many of your questions would be the way I already have, I took this stove apart to try to figure out what in the heck was going on with it, I had many of the same questions you do. Perhaps watching the 37 videos in the You Tube Playlist I created on the Flameview by Margin Stoves will help.

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please excuse my camera skills, they are lousy. I have since hired a camera man to do these videos for me.

I would venture to say that this video will shed the most light on this situation. “#7 Flameview Dis-assembly, Construction and Design”

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. I actually take and put the light inside the stove and expose all the places that cool air can enter the stove and create a condensation issue. The main thing I would like folks to understand is the way the chimney inside the stove is constructed and the blower is constantly blowing cool air on the base of the chimney. This is the biggest source of the problem in my opinion with this stove. Worst yet, there is no way to clean it out.

Let me know what I can do to help, I’ll do what I can. Thanks again for bringing this issue forward so folks can make a judgment call before investing their hard earn cash. They should have some idea what they are dealing with. Hopefully the folk that have Flameviews can learn something about the stove here as well. Some of my customers love theirs, others, seem to have a love/hate relationship. I can’t explain it, kind of like domestic violence, it is sometimes very strange.

 

[Obadiah]

I'm sorry we have been working on making our You Tubes better for you. The lower link to the Flameview You Tube Review is broken as the video has been redone so the old one is now private. Here is the new one which is better quality.

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[begreen]

Thanks for the updated links Woody.

 

[Obadiah]

Your welcome, thanks for all you guys do, you help a lot of folks.

 

[Obadiah]

Obadiahs has stopped selling them.

They recommended us a JA Roby Cuisiniere. It looks like an AWESOME stove, BUT, they are brand new and have no feedback yet. http://woodstoves.net/cookstoves/cuisiniere-cookstove.htm

Update on the Cuisinier by JA Roby. We have now had them out for about a year, the feedback we received from the customers who choose to try the stoves out for us, with full disclosure that we were not sure how well they performed have been disappointing. The Cuisinier heats well and burns very clean but the smoke and heat does not circulate around the oven, which means the oven does not heat well for baking. The firebrick has to be removed from the firebox and the radiant heat passes through the wall to the oven wall and then heats the oven from one side. This is not a very good way to do this as the oven is hotter on one side than the other, so you have to set a timer and spin the food every so many minutes to keep it from overcooking on one side and being raw on the other. The space on the cooktop above the oven does not get very hot either.

The Cuisinier is basicly the Tison EPA woodstove which is installed inside a sheet metal body that looks like a cookstove. It is a nice looking cookstove, but in my opinion, if you want something functional as a cookstove, choose something else. We want happy customers far more than we want stove sales, so were disappointed in the reviews as we thought we had something that wold solve a solution for our clients that wanted a clean burning cookstove that met EPA specs, even though wood cookstoves will continue to be exempt from EPA Regulations.

We did introduce the La Nordica Cook Stove line and were collecting feedback on the Suprema, Rosa and Italy. The stoves burn clean but not clean enough to make EPA Regs and the company has not been very cooperative with our UL and ULC certification efforts so the European cookstove search continues.

Sorry, so it is back to the drawing board and we'll move forward with design and production of the Obadiah's Wood Cookstove and we're hoping to have the first batch ready for testing this fall.
We came up with glass doors for our biggest selling cookstove, the Kitchen Queen which we feel is the best cookstove on the market for the money, hands down and put our money where our mouths are with a Guarantee that it is or we'll take it back for a full refund in the first year. It took us longer than hoped to get the doors into production. I learned a lot in that process and have choosen a new company to help me design and produce the Obadiah's Yaak Cookstove.

 

[Obadiah]

I wanted to make an update on the JA Roby Cuisininer since my last post was not that favorable. JA Roby did address the issue and it has turned out that they are a great company to work with as they actually listened to my concerns and addressed them. The smoke now travels around the oven and heats it much better than it did. Although I still have been too busy to burn one and make a video, I am pleased with what our clients are reporting back to us in terms of satisfaction with their purchase.

This is what the original Cuisinier looked like, notice the smoke stack is right above the firebox, otherwise it looks the same. These stoves don't have the smoke path around part of the oven to help heat it, hence the ovens did not heat evenly. The new improved Cuisinier's don't have that issue. Also there is also a porcelain cooktop that can be added that keeps the stove looking better longer.

The new Cuisinier now comes in 3 models.

As you can see the new SE (Special Edition) is pretty attractive all dressed out in the traditional cookstove chrome, she is one of the prettiest stoves on the market.
The 2500 Cuisininer is a more compact unit without the oven. All of these stoves use the same firebox's which makes them the cleanest burning wood cookstoves that we have found thus far. At less than 2 grams they will meet the future EPA Regs coming down the pike for woodstoves. If you need a stove that will heat with wood, burns clean and meets EPA and will also cook and bake, this is your baby!

The stoves above can be viewed on our website together with the specs and prices.

Hope this helps folks understand the JA Roby Cuisinier better. If you have any questions please give us a call and we'll be happy to help.
We are having a $300 off Happy New Year sale until 2/14/2006 for those ready to move quick.

 

[Ddubb]

We have a Flameview cook stove in our home. We've been using it on and off for about a year-and-a-half until we finally moved here last year. We've had a few issues, but over all I will give it a 6 / 10 (mostly aesthetics).
Whomever you buy it from, make sure that they give you the AFTER the sale customer service that will be required for the stove. We bought ours from Stoves & More in West Virginia and they blew up our phone and email before the purchase, but after the purchase it's easier to call the CEO of Equifax to dispute a claim on your credit report!
Daniel will never answer the phone (don't even know why they list a telephone number) when they do return an email, it's a few days later. Not much help when you're in crisis mode!