Coonara Inbuilt Settler Series

Quality wood heater - inbuilt Coonara i600 – Thought it was worthwhile posting a review on the Coonara i600 inbuilt wood heater because we didn't find one on this website before buying. We have a large open plan home and have had the heater for about a week and it's performing well. We did a lot of research before buying a wood heater, spoke to lots of reps and eventually settled on the Coonara. Our research gave us some criteria we wanted to follow to get a good heater, this is what we decided on:

1. Australian made, for quality but also supports the local economy. Canadian and NZ wood heaters also seem to be good. 2. Large capacity to suit our home 3. Quality brand, Coonara has a good reputation

We also saw a lot of bad online reviews for wood heaters and I didn't really understand why. I asked the reps in a few stores why this happens and they all said it comes down to user error e.g. people not know how to properly operate a wood heater. Again we did a lot fo research and came up with a method to get the heater working well. We've never had a wood heater before and this process worked for us:

1. Get very dry kindling 2. Get well seasoned split hardwood (we got red gum) from a reputed wood supplier (not FB marketplace) - paying more for wood is good in this case 3. Look up some YouTube videos for how to light a fire properly. It's simple. Put a couple of small logs in the fire, place newspaper and a firelighter on logs, place kindling on logs, light newspaper which lights the firelighter, leave the door ajar for 20 mins approx, have the vent all the way open and do not turn on the fan. After 20 mins or when the fire has caught, close the door and let the heater heat up for 30 mins then turn the fan on low. You want to keep heat in the heater while it's getting started. From there use common sense to add more wood when the fire is hot. All of this information was also in the Coonara product manual.

I've probably gone overboard with the review but getting a quality heater was really important to us. It's below zero most nights where we live. It seems buying a heater is half the job, the other half is investing time to learn how to properly use it.

But yes the I600 is good! We got the version with the zero clearance box, built a timber frame around it (following the guidelines for clearances from combustibles), sheeted up the frame with villaboard and we're going to tile it soon. We also had a licensed plumber to the heater install and he provided us with a certificate of installation.

We bought the heater from Bendigo Woodstoves. Brad was fantastic, highly recommended. We're not associated with this store in any way.