I bought Solo Stove’s (rather expensive) “Bonfire” version a few years back and have found – for me – it’s kinda the goldilocks size. Their smaller one (“Ranger”) won’t fit store-bought firewood without cutting it down and the larger one (“Yukon”) requires a lot of firewood to get things going to the secondary-combustion point. Looks like the Bonfire is 19.5" diameter and this one is 17", so it will probably accommodate just a little less firewood at a time, which could be a plus if you’re just wanting to have a (slightly smaller) fire for a couple hours (and to not have to cut down store-bought firewood to fit). All of which is to say that I don’t know how this one will stand up to use/time (we cover our Solo Stove when not in use and I imagine it could outlive me), but if I had to do it again, I’d probably shop around for something in the same size, but from a company that sells their model for less.
This one says it radiates heat all around and not just the top. Can you comment on that? Do you have one of those tops that distributes the heat down and out?
I own 2 different models by Solo Stove but not the specific one on sale today. How all of these self-contained fire pits work is all very similar to one another. Since they all have double walls and an air gap between them where outside air is drawn up to feed the “secondary burn”, all of them will radiate more heat out the top than out from the sides. This is just basic engineering and thermodynamic principles so there is nothing unusual going on here.
While today’s model MAY radiate a bit more heat from the sides due to the inward slope, I don’t think it would be enough to be noticeable to the average person sitting the same distance away from either one.
Fire