Monday, February 13, 2017

Hot Ash Wood Stove - Review



Today Luke is reviewing the Hot Ash Wood Stove.
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Link Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/Hot-Ash-Burning-Stainless-Stove/dp/B01DQX6452

Link hot Ash : https://hotashstove.com/products/stove

Price : $140 retail; $120 on Amazon currently

Weight : 3 lbs

Stainless steel stove :

Collapsed Dimensions: 3" W x 3.25" D x 8.9" H

Assembled (not including feet) Dimensions: 3" W x 7.25" D x 8.9" H



Review :

Construction : Excellent!  Very well made, feels very good.  This is due to the extreme weight.

Weight : Unbelievably heavy.  So heavy that I can’t recommend it for many outdoor situations.  Car camping sure, backpacking and even bushcraft, no.   Maybe a day hike if you aren’t carrying much else.

Complicated : It doesn’t take an engineer to put this stove together but I believe that it’s simply too complicated.  To many pieces; require wing nuts which you could possible lose.

Price : The price is way to high in my opinion for this stove. If it was made from Titanium I could understand the $140 price tag but with this stove being made from steel, I simply can’t imagine paying more than $60 for it.

Unsatisfying : I love wood stoves but the design to this one isn’t my favorite namely because it is unsatisfying to feed.  I have talked about wood stoves like this in the past and how much fun it is to ‘feed the beast.’ This stove isn’t satisfying to use and in my opinion isn’t of the best design.

Starting : Compared to other stoves, this one isn’t the easiest to get burning.  It’s awkward.

Efficient : When this stove gets going, it is very efficient.  When it’s burning can see how the heat from the fire is funneled and released out of the top.  It burns hot and quickly you can be cooking/boiling.

How does it compare to a gas stove; time wise they aren’t comparable. I mention this because I have seen a review on amazon which stated that they can boil water 3 minutes faster with this stove than a gas stove and that’s not accurate at all.  Maybe they have a very inefficient stove but to get this going and water to boil, it will take some time.

Speaking of reviews, some, if not more of the reviews on Amazon are fake..  I went through some of these reviews and for example, the one talking about boiling water 3 minutes faster with the ash stove than a gas stove, posted a ton of 5 star reviews all on the same day for everything from batteries to shoes.  Most of the other reviews have only posted positive reviews for the ash stove.


4 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I see the potential in the stove, but you're quite right, it's too complex, too overly engineered, and waaay too heavy. From what I can tell from the video, I've gotten IMMENSELY better burns from hobo stoves I made from coffee cans, my dremel, or even a pocket knife. Hot Ash Stoves has indeed jumped the shark with this design, and it would take a complete gutting to make it work, but it's still possible.

    Start with titanium, eliminate the butterfly bolts, cut 2/3rds of the loading stack off(leaving that stupid loading ramp in the trash), and rivet the legs on so they swivel, one on either side of the hole in the front, and one on the very back coming down from the chimney. The chimney could be designed to simply clip into the heavily shortened feeding tube. Assembly time would be cut down to mere seconds, and startup time(with judicious use of a reasonably dry female pine cone and an old receipt) could be dropped down to mere minutes.

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  3. Hey Luke, it just hit me that with all these stove options, newbies will likely feel a lot of pressure to avoid something as simple as a hobo stove like the plague and plop down an insane amount of money on some new fangled titanium jobs when they're better off getting either hammock gear or ground dwelling shelter options and a decent pack. Since your word carries so much weight in the gear reviewing and backpacking community, what do you think about doing a video about the construction and benefits of hobo stoves for beginners?

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