Absolutely atrocious for after sales. Purchased late 2022, installed mid 2023. Make up lies and blame the house itself. Which was 1-2 months old at time of fire install. The installers and sales ppl were aggressive and nasty when I tried to highlight the issues or seek help which we had to do almost straight after install. We have hardly used the… Read more
fire for the 3 years since it has been installed as it is a safety issue and has filled the house with smoke because at times it comes out the vent at the top. It is difficult to light, doesn’t draw properly and after sales is a complete waste of time. They blame the weather conditions and lack of air flow in home, but even with window open as per there instructions, it doesn’t draw properly or consistently.
Poor service. Poor heating and leaves ash everywhere. Would never deal with them again. Firebox burns out quickly regardless of constant maintenance and they will not honour warranty. Go elsewhere. Show details
I think we installed our Radiant Cottage model in 2008. I estimate we have lit it at least 120 fires a year for 17 years. Have always burned hardwood (our own gumtrees) and the only work needed was a new top plate after more than 10 years and a new… Read more
door seal a bit before that. I also bought their expensive good paint and touched up the outside. I now need another door seal and a replacement retaining frame for the glass. The firebox, firebricks, glass and the rest are all still good. They still sell the same model and spare parts! This heater has given us a lot of pleasure. Don't understand all the negative reviews.
Follow-up · I was asked for photo (attached). You can see it is not new! Re maintenance. I did buy a can of their expensive hitemp paint about ten years ago because we had spilled food from cooking on the top. I do clean the flue at least every couple of years from the roof with an ebay set of rods and brush and a cordless drill (you need to remove the cowl… Read more
Reviews with attachments
Elite 29 woodheater inb-Marcasite – Working fantastically especially when I followed instructions for use. We love it! Show details
Ultimate Elite 20 very poor performing wood heater – An identical review has been made for the Ultimate Elite 30 in an earlier review. Likewise, we are extremely disappointed with the Ultimate Elite 20 wood heater. We have had wood heaters our entire lives 15+ yrs so are not inexperienced on their operation. This is a new install and to AS requirements. The installer even stated that owners pull… Read more
them back out after a very short time, complaining they are smokey because of their design. Fire does not ignite easily in this fireplace. Manual instructions say fireplace door needs to be left ajar in order to get the fire going. This is dangerous as ignition takes a long time and is very touch and go. Getting the fire to burn well takes lot of time and patience. The design is extremely poor and lacks the ability for the fireplace to draw effectively. It takes an extremely long time to warm up the space and definitely does not warm the advertised space. It goes out easily and loves to smoke and smoulder rather than burn.
Here I am one month later, and the wood heater installer suggested that the flue may need one more length. So, I took the cowl off and temporarily added a one-metre length of flue and re lit the fire which appeared to burn stronger and with none to little smoke exiting while the door was wide open. I then removed the temporary flue and replaced the cowl. This is a triple flue and on a fairly steep roof with a 40-degree angle, making it difficult to stand up. I was able to reach the cowl but adding one length with the cowl on top would become unreachable. The solution was an outer flue section with a cowl at both the bottom and adding an optional top cowl. The cowl at the bottom would affix to the existing outer flue and the cowl at the top riveted to prevent rain entering. This meant I can lift that extended flue section off at the bottom cowl for maintenance. The wood heater works much better and as one would expect it to. This extra flue section cost $185 and as I live in a high rainfall area, I opted to rivet the top cowl on using the original cowl and with some modification.
Well, here I am a further year down the track to update the performance of this wood heater with the extended flue. I can repeat what another user has said. Which is, that it cannot burn hard timber and needs to be split smaller and to continue adding kindling, otherwise larger pieces smother the coals, almost putting them to death. It is very unlikely I will keep this wood heater before or after the baffle plate needs replacing. The baffle plate, from comments I have read, is either difficult to remove and replace or cannot be with cutting it in two pieces. This doesn't solve the problem of fitting a new one. The comments go on to say that the staff at Ultimate heaters are unhelpful and rude. By the way, the baffle plate was $200 pre-Covid, plus postage. There are better wood heaters out there for a similar price, if not slightly dearer, that can outperform this brand.
Large Firebox, great heater – If you’re reading negative posts about fires not starting or no heat being produced, I can assure that these are people who either don’t know how to light a fire, or they’re competitive reviews. Just installed the Ultimate 25 and started a fire to ensure the flue is good (yes it is). Puts out super heat from a partial fire thanks to the fan and shrouding around the box. I’m very pleased with the Ultimate 25.
Spectre Buck 100 – Fantastic heater. Heats my 35m2 man cave amazingly well. Lights easily, draws well and looks great and burns for hours. Can't comment on overnight burns as I don't load it up and shut it down for overnight. Fan is quiet compared to other heaters I've seen/heard. Very happy with it.
DO NOT BUY AN ULTIMATE WOOD HEATER! – I purchased an Elite 29 wood heater from Ultimate 22nd May 2020 in Epping after reading about them and preferring the lower cost, nice look and large fire box compared to other heaters on the market. Ultimate boasts Australian made from Australian steel with a triple burn system which reduces fuel (Wood) use. All sounds great but.... It uses far… Read more
more wood than other heaters on the market and leaves a lot of coal and ash in the firebox. We had an old Heat Charm, much smaller fire box but 10 meters of wood would last us from the first cold snap in April/May through to the last cold snap in September/October. With this heater we used 10 meters in 2 months!!! As I’m in north Vic I rang the Epping store to enquire about the heater and one of my questions was “is the glass self cleaning” I was asked what that meant. I explained the best I could, he said he would have to look it up. Well after 48 hours use the glass was totally black and I had to clean it. I tried everything in my kitchen including scrubbing oven cleaner with a non scratch pad but couldn’t remove the black. The only way to get it off was with a safety blade to scrape the black off! This was a daily ritual as any longer and the fire door was too black to see the fire.
The draft control is placed the wrong way with a nice looking piece of wood on it that is shaped for a finger each side to move it left or right BUT it also has to be pulled forward a little while sliding right and a smooth curved surface is next to impossible to grip. When attempting to place a finger top and bottom to move the leaver you get a burn from the screw on the bottom that holds the wood in place.
The fan control is the next issue and perhaps one of the biggest. On all the wood heaters it is positioned below the firebox with a panel between the door and the panel that houses the control. The in between panel gets hot from time to time and on the Elite 29 the control is set back under the above panel meaning you get burnt. Yes it’s impossible to avoid getting burnt as the control is difficult to hold and turn in such a low tight place! It’s not always hot but do you really want to take the chance? We stopped using it and turned the fan off by unplugging it from the wall. Better that way than risking a burn.
The Elite 19 and 29 are inbuilt models with bay windows, the ELITE 30 is a free standing also boasting a bay window. The bay windows are in 3 pieces and the joins went white on mine! Not a good design or look.
IF LIKE ME YOU OR SOMEONE ELSE IN YOUR HOME IS ASTHMATIC YOU REALLY MUST STAY AWAY FROM THIS HEATER! It took me 3 months to realise this was causing my Asthma to flare up. When the fire door is opened to put wood in SMOKE and ASH fill the room. These fine ash particles combined with the smoke were playing havoc with my Asthma. The amount of ash and the distance it traveled through the room had to be seen to be believed. Our lounge room is 7 meters by 5 meters and it traveled from one end to the other covering my coffee table that’s 6 meters from the fire in ash! It also kept setting our smoke detector off, take more than 30 seconds to put wood in and the alarm went off. We have 2 Great Danes that live in a room of our house, every time I opened the fire door one smelt the smoke and came running into the lounge panicking as he knew the alarm was about to sound. It hurts their ears!
After phone calls and Emails tried to make look like I was at fault and the heater was fine combined with informing them I would go to Vic consumer affairs if they didn’t do something failed I did contact consumer affairs who informed me of my rights and suggested I write them a letter and if that did no good put in a claim with VCAT (Victorian Consumer Affairs Tribunal). I wrote a very informative letter which I posted and also emailed. A few days later I received an Email from them without any satisfaction for me so I took the next step and applied to VCAT. I got a confirmation Email from VCAT which I emailed to ultimate stating I was serious and it is now up to them weather it continues to court or is settled beforehand. The same afternoon I received a curtesy phone call to say my email had been received and I will be contacted within the next few days. The now owner Chris who has taken over the company his father built rang me. I can not complain about Chris I found him very pleasant and easy to talk to but I too was pleasant which helped. We eventually came to an agreement where I was to return the heater for a full refund less my own costs.
This has been done and I can’t tell you how happy I no longer have that in my house! It was worth losing the cost of travel and costs of applying to VCAT just to be rid of the heater! If you can’t afford a Heat Charm or Coonara you can’t afford an Ultimate due to the running costs! ULTIMATE also trade as ILLUSION and sell GAS HEATERS. Perhaps the gas heaters are good I don’t know and as I’m on a farm I don’t have natural gas to try one!
In-depth reviews
Very poor customer service – We bought a Supreme 25 recently to replace a 17 yr old Ultimate Elite that was spewing a lot of ash into our house. So far this new one seems OK. We also bought a ceramic tile hearth from them. During transit from the Ultimate showroom to our house the grout edging cracked. We think this was because the hearth was transported on edge by the… Read more
installer rather than flat. We let this go and repaired it ourselves. We needed an extension to the hearth. The lady at Ultimate ( who I believe has been there at Dandenong for many, many years) was extremely unhelpful in all our dealings specifically with her. She wouldnt tell us where the hearths were manufactured.In fact it seemed to us that she was deliberately sending us on wildgoose chases trying to find out who made the hearths. We eventually worked out who the manufacturer of the hearths are. We visited them and found them to be extremely helpful. But this woman is the face of Ultimate to its customers. And they really do need to move her on.
Awesome wood heater – We have been running a supreme 18 for seven winters now. It keeps our whole house (single storey 26sq) toasty all winter long. We run the heater 24/7 only letting the heater die down to clean the ash out every 2 weeks. We have unlimited supply of Redgum and Grey Box on our property in North Central Victoria on the Murray River. We only cut and… Read more
split the wood to appropriate size (40cm logs) and season it for 2 years before use. The unit cleans up to as new after a deep clean at the end of wood heater season. These things are well built and built to last. We can get a 9 hour overnight burn using Grey Box and shutting the heater down as far as possible. Nothing beats waking up to a 24 degree house on the coldest of winter mornings. We spend winter indoors wearing nothing more than tracksuit pants and a t-shirt.
There is a common theme here in the negative reviews. The problem exists with the human user. Clearly they have no idea how to operate a wood heater properly or are not using seasoned timber of the correct species. If you run the heater at the correct temperature the glass will not go black. Yes, keeping a wood heater running 24/7 requires effort, knowledge, communication with family members and great timber using the appropriate species depending on the situation.
Ultimate Supreme 25 - 20 yrs old still good as new – I have been reading quite a few negative reviews on the Ultimate wood heaters. Well , this is my assessment of my Supreme 25 that is now getting to being 20 yrs old and working a well as it was new. Firstly, alot of manufacturers make all sorts of claims about how many m2 in area their wood heaters will heat and they will say a large heater will… Read more
do say up to 300m2 area or up to 30 squares. Well as an engineer, I can tell you those numbers dont really mean all that much at all. Unfortunately people believe these claims because they are numbers appearing in a brochure ( yes tests are done on heaters but the test conditions bear little resemblance to the conditions inside a typical house - but in general , ok, yes the bigger the heater, the more heat output -thats pretty obvious) The heaters output depends on so many factors. A seller that claims a heater will heat 300m2 is absolute 100% crap. (only ducted heaters do that) A typical house has walls and the building itself absorbs heat. No normal wood heater will heat the entire house unless the house is small and has no interior walls ( and how do they measure "heating" an area- that could be as little as half a degree increase?). Heat wont travel thru walls. Opening doors will allow some heat to travel but not far, at best to that room depending on airflow. To heat a "30 sq house" as claimed, the heater would have to be positioned in the middle of the house with no interior walls and with super efficient insulation in ceiling and exterior walls!! With wood heaters, the rule of thumb is the bigger THE ROOM, the bigger the heater needed.( duhh !!!) My kitchen + family room is 120m2 open area, fully wall insulated, no doors, north facing, large windows that capture full sun & sub timber floor is concrete slab . The room opens to another smaller lounge of 30 m2. I have the Ultimate Supreme 25 positioned against an exterior wall so all heat is directed toward the middle. When the heater is fully stoked with burning hardwood , heat pours out at a fair rate - you can't sit in front too long or get too close. (And yes heat travels UP the flue ( for ALL HEATERS) and the hottest part of the flue is NOT be directly above the heater-) The heat ebbs and flows of course as the wood is burned, but after a couple of hrs or so, the area will get to 20-23 oC or more from a start of 15-16oC. Depending on the outside temp, it can go higher or lower. Putting a wood heater in a closed room of medium size (say 40 m2) will eventually become hot and the doors will have to be opened and the heater turned down. Most freestanding wood heaters are more or less designed the same and will do a reasonable job. If you have a large combined room area more than 120 m2, and also have large windows and cool air being pulled in thru say a passage, even the largest wood heater will struggle, but it will make the area comfortable enough. There are many factors influencing heater performance. I bought mine because I like a real fire and its a nice type of heat. I keep the heater very clean and yes wood heaters will produce very fine ash which WILL get around and you need to clean. Otherwise it will make a mess. If I want instant heat, I use the central gas heater.
Positive reviews
We purchased the supreme 18 and once we got it home noticed the bricks were broken inside and the base of the fireplace was all scratched. After a quick call to Ben at ultimate fireplaces, he arranged for a new one to be delivered to us and the damaged one picked up. We live over 3 hours from the Dandenong store so this was no easy feat. Ben and… Read more
the team went above and beyond for us and we couldn’t be more grateful. The lady in the office was also super helpful from start to finish and we couldn’t recommend Ultimage Fireplaces higher. Thanks again guys.
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Very happy ! – Had my wood heater installed beginning of May and could not be happier. As two of my friends had Ultimate Wood Heaters, I phoned directly spoke with Jayden L who was very helpful and made this purchase easy for me. The installers were polite, friendly and tidy.
WOODHEATER SELECTION – No over sell pitches , just good honest advice. Sales person asked all the right questions and recommended what we actually needed. No fuss, good service and great price.
Negative reviews
Crap Fans – I have had both the wood and Gas heaters and have to say the heater itself was great on both counts but there is always a but the fans are just crap they vibrate all the time. no one in the Ultimate company wants to know you when you have a fan problem and that is all the time ,I have had 2 fan burn out one with in 5 months and when replaced they… Read more
vibrate with unbearable noise all the fans are the same just fix the fans please they are an expensive heat but have crap fans
Not happy Jan – Can’t believe I wasted my money on this heater, I should not have gone with the cheap option. Have had other brands in the past and never had a problem this thing stinks the house up doesn’t draw properly. The installer they recommended damaged my roof and had to repair it. I won’t be making this mistake ever again. suppose you get what you pay for.
Very cold & unhappy – Ordered glass for fire & still have not received it after 2 weeks. Have made phone calls & sent emails & most of the staff uninterested. Would not consider another heater with them because there is no after sales service.
Recent reviews
Very Poor – Supreme 24 is total junk. After resealing the gaskets it's still terrible. Had to buy a Mitsubishi Bronte to heat the home instead. Couldn't believe when I saw they're asking $4500 now, was $2999 pre covid. Unless you split logs very small the fire literally goes out, my parents 30 year old Masport doesn't have this issue, it's hard to believe… Read more
how bad the Supreme 24 is. If you have an endless supply of mountain ash the Supreme 24 will heat the house, dense wood like redgum however smothers the coals and puts it out, unless you're throwing kindling in every 30 minutes.
Firebox isn't cast iron and has fire bricks at the bottom. Low end heater, extortionate price.
Simply a waste – Moved in and this already here, the 'altimate' piece of .... difficult to start, smokes like my old Uncle Bruce and has a very poor heat conversion. I've had wood fires for years, some great, some average but this is easily the worst.
Ultimate camp fire!!!!! – When this thing is glowing it works a treat, but other than that be careful undoing the door. Smoke does not like the flue and prefers to be watching the footy with you
Walked out of store couldn’t believe how bad service was – Stove shopping yesterday rude man was so offhanded with us spoke down to us was unable or unwilling to answer our questions then tried to pressure us with if you come back they’ll be none of these heaters left very poor experience in this store in Adelaide Show details
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Stay away from these people! Horrible customer service – Purchased a wood fire heater without reading up on these people first. I went home the night we purchased and thought I should read some reviews expecting they would be nothing but great. This was obviously not the case and after reading terrible reviews I chose to get a refund. I went to the store the next day and was open and honest as to why I… Read more
wanted a refund. The team at the front desk straight away became very defensive. ‘Ours are the best’ ‘I never go off reviews’. I straight away I knew I made the right decision as these were major red flags. They refused to give us a refund on the spot saying the front team were not certified to process refunds and the accounts lady worked from home that day. I questioned them and asked if they could call the accounts lady then and there and she said oh no sorry she is away. We were promised it would be done that day. A couple days later we had to chase up again and they finally did it over the phone onto our card. Stay away from this company it is not worth the hassle if something goes wrong.
absolute moron cost the company a 1300 dollars sale – the salesman would not sell me a fireplace because with all of the packaging around the smallest wood heater would not fit in my wagon, including a 200mm high wood Pallett, if removed it would fit easily, but he would not let me buy it and let me unwrap it. i even would have taken the cardboard and pallet away with me 1300 dollar lost sale for the company. i traveled 300 km return from Maitland sa and 3 weeks saving and planning.
Rubbish Don't waste your money – They should be ashamed to say this is an Australian product, i purchased the Supreme 18 and in the first week the door handle fell off, and the heat controller keeps falling off. The baffle plate burnt out and buckled so badly it has to be cut out. The top of the heater is rusting and the paint on the sides is coming off, even their bonus… Read more
fireplace set fell apart within days. Do not waste your money on this crap, And their so called customer service well they don't want to know you after the sale. The only reason i gave it one star is that it does have a great fan. Very disappointing
Extremely Unhappy – Extremely disappointed with the Ultimate Elite 30 fireplace. We have had wood heaters our entire lives 40+ yrs so are not inexperienced on their operation. Fire does not ignite easily in this fireplace. Manual instructions say fireplace door needs to be left ajar in order to get the fire going. This is dangerous as ignition takes a long time and… Read more
is very touch and go. Getting the fire to burn well takes lot of time and patience. The design is extremely poor and lacks the ability for the fireplace to draw effectively. It takes an extremely long time to warm up the space and definitely does not warm the advertised space. It goes out easily and loves to smoke and smoulder rather than burn. It is not solid construction. The glass arrived chipped and the handle cracked after the first fire. We have never used such a crappy fireplace. It was way overpriced. Service from dealership (Sydney Wood Heaters) has also been very poor and rude.
Poor quality – Those that state those who have issues with the Ultimate brand heaters have no idea themselves. We have a large inbuilt. Bought it new about 10 years ago. This will NOT burn overnight. Even with redgum, redbox, greybox or yellowbox etc. The seal has always fallen out of the door. The door hinges are weak. You try and tighten up the door latch a… Read more
little to make the door seal and the door drops. Within the first season, I had to use an angle grinder to get the baffle plate out as it warped to the point it was jammed. I modified it and havent had a problem since. Ran shut down and it smokes terribly out the door after 2/3 days. We dont burn wet wood. With that said, firewood should have a certain amount of moisture content. Yes, our flu is the recommended length and roof clearance. We can get good heat out of our heater, but its the poor quality and design I have an issue with. I will be rebuilding an older Heatcharm to replace it with.
Ultimate wood heater – I have a supreme 25 and it heats 250+ sqm I have read a few reviews and all I can say to those who bagged this product is, go and get a clue how to use a wood combustion heater before you claim a product isn't any good!!! This heater is fantastic hands down!
Ultimate - I want my money Back!! – I installed an Ultimate wood heater into my new home with the usual expectations that the fire would heat the house, how wrong I was. Now, I know how to light a fire and stack in good dry wood, It's not hard but as far as the design of the Ultimate goes they have engineered all of the heat to rise out of the flu. Simply it doesn't perform at all… Read more
and have since installed a heat pump to cover its shortfall until i can afford a proper wood heater. Soooooo disappointed we may as well put up a picture of a fire on the TV. I WANT MY MONEY BACK but i notice you have closed down here in TAS. no wonder!! ps. Ornamental Heater for SALE
Expected better – The wood heater basically lifts up a few degrees in the area but isn't the roasting effect that most people describe their fireplace. If you're directly in front of it you'll be warm but in terms of their claims of how many square metres it lights up, it's far from it. I can place my hand on the metal for about 5 seconds when it's fully lit for over an hour so that's saying something.
Poor quality – These wood heaters are of very basic design and quality and have very very poor performance. They are made from rolled mild steel, not cast iron in any parts, no fire bricks and a basic heat exchanger. Result is a lot of wood with low heat output. I have had a couple of them and replaced with other models and the difference is extraordinary. … Read more
If you get it cheap they are an option if used only for decoration but if you need it to heat your house/room, they will not do the job and you will definitely regret it. There are many much better out there. Check out reviews on brands like nectre and coonara and others to see what suits you but steer clear of these.
noisy ultimate wood heater – we bought our wood heater from geelong ultimate wood heaters. the fan is very noisy...we asked the installer to look at it again but he was of no help. we only use the heater fan at medium as too noisy. it does not radiate enough heat and does not burn overnight. we use hardwood. we would not buy this product again.
Can’t believe any negative reviews – I bought a 6 month old ultimate 20 to heat my house and wow does it heat my house the area it’s heating has bolted 14 foot ceiling and the area heats to 22 degrees throughout one side of the couch is 4 metres from it and you can’t sit there when the flue is open and if you place a log in it before bed and close the flue you can wake in the morning open the flue and start again this is my 4th winter and love it
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