Esse Bakeheart Review - five years of use

This is a review of the Esse Bakeheart (www.esse.com/wood-fired-cook-...) after five years of use.
This is a huge cast iron cook stove that retails at about £3,500. It's not cheap. But is it worth the money?
I had to change the fire rope on the door, so I used the opportunity to reflect on what it's been like using this stove and using it as our primary source of heat for the whole house. This is my review.
Spoiler alert - I'm a big fan!
We use this stove for about six months of the year to heat our whole house and save loads of money heating with wood. We also use this wood stove for cooking. You can use the hot plate and the oven and get pretty good heat on both.

[@emmahamill1072]

Thanks so much for your review - always great to find a down to earth review from a fellow consumer not trying to sell the product. We bought our house with less procrastination than choosing a new stove! Thanks again.

[@ukselfreliance8264]

Thanks! I know what you mean - we agonised about the stove way more than the house! Still, I reckon this stove is pretty much the only thing I've bought that I genuinely think was good value for money. The heat you get from wood is just fantastic.

[@gavlersworkshop192]

Thank You, been looking for reviews on this for the past two yers

[@ukselfreliance8264]

Cheers - I hope it was useful. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know about it

[@rebekahfranks4205]

Your channel was recommended and it’s really great

[@ukselfreliance8264]

Thanks @rebekahfranks4205! I really appreciate you watching. Do come back - we've got lots more videos planned :)

[@ESSE1854]

Thank you for your product review.

[@ukselfreliance8264]

Any time! I'm a big fan

[@hippychipys]

Thanks Man! This was great! My old cheap bunnings one rusted out! After 5 years skandia heat n cook. This is def the upgrade version / going to buy an esse like your tommorow!

[@ukselfreliance8264]

Glad it helped. I hope it's burning well for you, buddy!

[@jakelesnake4927]

great review, thanks. It's not obvious how you remove the ash. Does the wood just sit in a tray that you pull out the glass door? This would explain the difficulties getting it going, in normal stoves you can let air come from directly underneath from the ash tray to really boost it to get it going. Of course with an oven underneath this is just a limitation they have to work with. I wonder if the direct air feed they offer would help in that regard.

[@ukselfreliance8264]

Thanks @jakelesnake4927 The ash just sits in the fire box and you have to shovel it out - I have a little shovel for this. It's best to have a reasonable bed of ash when burning wood so you don't have to empty it too much. I do it every couple of weeks or so, depending on the wood. The main air intake is through a baffle at the front and it can get blocked by ash, but only if it gets to be about 4 inches deep. The newer stoves have air holes in the side firebricks too, which seems like a good improvement.

[@cazzerrella]

Great review.
Check out TH-cam
Info on Esse Bakeheart. So much brilliant info. The wood is everything when having this heater/ stove/ cooktop working to its optimum.
I learnt that too much moisture( even cold air moisture on so called seasoned wood, )can cause smoke and make it harder to light the stove.
Pivot Stove and heating has heaps of info. I love my Esse. It does everything and more than a bigger hungrier more expensive unit would do. Cheers.
Ps thanks for teaching me how to change the door seal!

[@ukselfreliance8264]

Thanks @cazzerrella. Absolutely - the wood makes a big difference. I completely agree, these stoves are really efficient!

[@finlaycairns2196]

How large a space would you say this heats? Do you rely solely on wood heat? Thanks

[@aurora04444]

I'm looking for an efficient wood cookstove for just me. I'm in the US. I like Heco and Kitchen Queen 750 too, tho they are huge and US made cookstoves

[@andrewnorgrove6487]

I'd rather buy a kitchen wood fired stove / oven & stove top with pressurized able hot water like we used for 10 plus years , They are the best ever They keep the house warm and use near to nothing wood !You can also have them switched over to LPG with easy

[@ukselfreliance8264]

I completely agree, @andrewnorgrove6487. I actually really regret that I didn't get the version of this Esse Bakeheart with a back boiler. At the time I didn't think we could fit it in, but I should have just found a way!

[@roystonvehicles9129]

I've got an esse columbian, you've got a back boiler (doing rads) 2 ovens and hotplate, it's lit 24/7 atm

[@ukselfreliance8264]

It sounds awesome!

[@roystonvehicles9129]

@@ukselfreliance8264 yes bud.

[@roystonvehicles9129]

@@ukselfreliance8264 I just plumbed mine into rads with an expansion tank to take the heat rise, atm its doing the upstairs rads buy just thermosyphon, I'm going to do a pump for next year. Up stairs rads, 8 get hot. Hot water rises, cool water flows down, on 24 hours

[@jameskyle380]

Looks folded steel bodied to me. Even top looks steel as well as doors. Esse description Ironheart misleading.

[@ukselfreliance8264]

It's definitely cast iron, mate. It's in the stove technical specs on Esse's website and you can tell if you see one in person. It might look odd on mine as it's pretty filthy and gets a bit covered in ash - that's because I use it all the time and am more interested in using it than having a pretty, perfectly blacked show piece :)

[@VictorVictor-hq7ui]

Do you season the wood correctly that you scavenge as by the way your glass is so dirty you don't? It's not acceptable now to burn damp wood.