Saxon Walnut SXWN07K

Biggest hunk of junk – Saxon wood heater is the biggest hunk of junk I have ever bought fill it up with wood glows bright orange, open door you get smoke coming out and filling the room and ashes fall out everytime you open the door. Complaint made to Kalaire referred to Barbeque Galore they are all as useless as a Saxon wood heater. Stay clear... Show details

Product heating description inaccurate – Heats only a small area of room and not as described in brochure. Very disappointed with performance. Fan noisy and doesn’t make much difference to room temperature when switched on. Show details

great modern heater – This is our 4th wood heater. 2 in our last property and this is a replacement here. Perfect size for 200 sq mtr. Great draw of air through the firebox, lights so easily. No firebricks! Hooray. Only need the fan on the coldest of nights. Glad we purchased. Show details

Too hot too hot handle – This is our 2nd Saxon Walnut cause the first one was great.This one has a metal handle not timber, which gets extremely hot, go figure. the rope in the door keeps falling out.Turned fan on for the first time tonight and there's a blue light that flashes and won't turn off Show details

Can’t wait to replace it – Very disappointed fan did not work from day dot can’t get technician told to have a go myself at fixing it. Does not heat 30 square metres with the best 8 yr cured iron bark wood still freezing. $20 heater at k Mart would be better. PS handle is hot but I’m -( cold Show details

Very satisfactory heater – We have had one of these for about five years now, and very happy with its performance. It heats our upstairs main rooms well, about 150m2, through burning a couple of pieces at a time on medium heat once it gets established. We’d only need to fill it up more to quickly heat a cold house. We live in inland SE Qld, so it doesn’t get heavy use… Read more

except the 3 months of winter, when the nights get cold, and only run it all day maybe 10 days a year.

Heats quickly and burns the wood evenly, with good wood it puts out good heat. All our wood comes off our property, mostly blackbutt or rose gum, and has been seasoned between one and several years. Turning it down low for an overnight fire we’ve had mixed results, depending on the timber. A largish piece of blackbutt will burn all night on low heat, leaving clean ash, no worries. However a similar piece of red rose gum needs more heat, so burns out much faster, and leaves cold charcoal next morning.

Only downside for us is the fan, which is of limited value on low, and pretty noisy on medium or high. So we don’t use the fan much.

Wish I had never heard of Saxon – This heater has been a pain in the neck since we have had it. We have used good dry hardwood, which has also been tried in a friends heater with no problem. This heater is unpredictable, one moment it burns well and soon after it will die down for no apparent reason. We are forever having to poke at it to keep it burning. Wood usage is quite… Read more

high. The flu is cleaned regularly and it extends well above the peak of the roof.

I certainly can not recommend one of these heaters.

Shocking - Don’t buy them – We purchased our Saxon Wood Heater. In April this year. Unfortunately we have regretted our decision ever since. It is impossible to let the fire burn overnight as it just burns down due to the airflow. The Fan turns off when turning the fire down or opening the door to reload. If you want the fan on you have to allow more airflow thus burning… Read more

more wood.

I also believe the way Saxon achieve their emission rating is to allow more airflow and therefore burning wood faster. Also it is the loudest fan we have ever had in a wood heater, the TV has to be turned up to be heard over it.

Never again will we ever buy a Saxon product.

Saxon walnut rubbish heater – We purchased a Saxon Walnut fireplace and were so disappointed we demanded our money back. We were told by the Saxon agent that it would burn over night Upon filling the wood box with dry hardwood timber at 9 pm we found we could not get it to last through the night and found it cold in the morning at 6 am. The agent went on to try to explain… Read more

we didn't fill it with the right wood and blamed us for the outcome. We have lived in Kingaroy and Canberra with wood fires and know how to operate them and how they perform.

We were refunded our money and would not recommend this fire place to anyone.

We purchased a Pacific Energy fireplace which burns for 12 hours on 3 pieces of timber without a problem.

I have to stress, DO NOT buy a Saxon fireplace, total waste of money!!!!

Beautiful heater that’s great for small spaces – This would have to be one of the best looking small heaters going round. It complements my 6m x 4m lounge room beautifully. It lights very easily and has been forgiving on the mixed loads of timber I have been putting through it (mostly stringybark). The tight install tolerances will make this a good choice for smaller rooms. The main drawbacks… Read more

are that it emits a puff of smoke when you open the door, and the fan is quite noisy (although it’s manual so doesn’t turn on and off like mentioned in other reviews). All in all it heats about half of my 18 square house very well, and I suspect it will heat the rest too with a heat transfer kit. I reccomend it highly as a supplementary heater, or for small places. However for overnight burning or sole heating you’d be better served with a bigger unit.

My Saxon Walnut review - updated July 2018 – Part One Let’s start of by just saying that there is no doubting the superior quality of the Saxon product over the years. The general overall build remains superior but true performance has been hampered (some would say enhanced) by the need to accommodate environmental considerations. So, things you’ll want to be made aware of. I’m going… Read more

to assume you’re a bit like me, check the dimensions and the specs and then look to see if there are any reviews. Here goes;

I bought a Saxon Walnut early in 2018 after my previous Saxon wood heater finally lost integrity. Basing my decision to purchase a new Saxon on both my previous heater and their unbeatable warranty period I looked to a new unit the closely matched the dimensions of the old one. That turned out to be the Walnut. While not a bad unit the decision to purchase it will likely be the wrong one in the long term.

1. Exterior dimension does not equate to interior wood holding capacity.

The Blackwood has larger exterior dimensions and, I suspect, a larger holding capacity as well. My previous Saxon could hold three layers of wood stacked when I turned it down for overnight burning. The Walnut “can” hold two but there are issues.

2. The 15 year warranty does NOT cover the baffle plate

The new design baffle plate is a composite design that looks and feels alarmingly like chipboard. It’s lightweight, flame resistant and scares the hell out of me because mine has already broken (warranty replacement allowed) and I’m slightly scared that its replacement will fall apart in the middle of winter when I will, like most of us here, introduce wet wood in to the fire. The warranty period for the baffle plate is 12 months meaning that the Walnut, at least, has an undisclosed additional cost depending on how the baffle plate survives wet wood burning and packing and stacking of the fire box.

3. The fire “roars” even when on low

It’s a little off putting for this boy whose previous Saxon could be turned right down overnight and brought back up the next day with no real worries. The need to accommodate environmental conditions and reduce the probability of a high emissions (visible emissions/smoky) fire means that the Walnut is an effective heater even at the lowest available setting. Modification annuls the warranty so you have been warned. But if Saxon or an environmentalist are reading this, then thank you for increasing the risk to me by accommodating my weak bladder and requiring me to place a stack of wood close to a fire in my home. It just warms the cockles of my heart.

The Walnut very effectively heats my 12 square weatherboard house in country Tasmania. The fire lasts for around four hours, not seven, when turned as low as it goes. Strangely, I'm getting the impression it's going through less wood than my old unit for all that it's going way more energetically. The "bay window" glass is attractive and, yes, reportedly more expensive to replace than a straight door.

Part two of my review, which I hope to be able to get to, will touch on how the baffle plate held out and if the fire box “matures” in any noticeable way.

Bye for now.

Part two - 17 July 2018

I have just now received the baffle plate I purchased in March. It was delivered by courier, wrapped in plastic and placed in an entirely too large cardboard box. The baffle plate appears intact so we'll see how things go in the future. It's an unfortunate fact of life that the service path to Tasmania is very often long and slow.

It needs to be said that I am quite happy with the performance of this unit thus far. I have not resorted to modification to lengthen burn time as it isn't really necessary as long as you time burns and wood size and place the wood in the box "just so". I have had good strong coals available to re-start a fire after 10 hours which is all that I could ask for. The way I do it is to wait for coals to get down to a certain level. I then place a straight round section of log at the back of the box and a larger circumference, though wet, one at the front. This almost blocks air flow and slows down burn time significantly. The morning after a sound nights sleep is made much easier if all you have to do is shove three or four dry pieces in the box for almost immediate warmth.

not as good as they use to be – Looks great in my house but door becomes stuck and hard to open when it get real hot. Had the repair guy have a look at it and was told to give the latch a beat with a hammer. I don't need the fan so im worried if it breaks down  Show details

Never buy this brand ever again – Heater fan takes 20 minutes to come in and then when you open the door you have to wait another 20 minutes for the fan to come on. Door handle is extremely hot and need to open with oven Mitt. Even with button pressed in completely wood still burns out very quickly Overall not happy at all and would never recommend to anyone.  Show details

Fan – Our fan started making a noise only a couple of weeks after installation and failed completely 3 weeks into 2nd winter. After paying a hefty price for what we thought was a good investment I cannot believe how cheap the switch and motor components are. For a fireplace that should last a long time I am not sure how they expect this cheap fan and switch to last.

Plastic fan – We've had it for 2 winters now and the first winter the switch needed to be replaced and the plastic fan melted, so by the time it was replaced winter was over. Now a couple of weeks into our second winter, the plastic fan has melted again. Why would there be plastic parts inside a wood heater? I'm expecting this to be a yearly occurrence.

Saxon Walnut Freestanding – The heater gives out very good warmth. However, at times when you open the door, smoke escapes and is not pleasant inside the house at all. A bit disappointed for this very reason. It was recommended to me by the place I bought it from. Also, if you have the heater on high and load more wood, it is extremely hot in your face. Very attractive… Read more

looking heater with bay window. The fact that at times it emits smoke when you open the door to load more wood. If you have it on high and open the door to load the wood, it is extremely hot in your face.