Fisher Wood Stoves have since long disappeared from the market and are no longer available today. Furthermore, it is nearly impossible to find spares for these stoves so that there are lesser and lesser Fisher Wood Stoves still functioning out there. Today, they are considered more of a piece of collection, and those who possess one can be sure to hold a small part of history in their hands.
Fisher wood stoves were invented by Bob Fisher in the seventies. The legendary wood stove was designed in Oregon but eventually Fisher decided to permit other steel companies to manufacture it. Throughout the oil crisis, Fisher Wood Stoves became the favorite tool for heating homes. Fisher himself made the stoves until the 1980s. Afterwards, several other steel companies took up production of Fisher Wood Stoves.
Quite early in the eighties, the Fisher Stove International Organization introduced safety norms to be respected by the Fisher Wood Stoves being sold. The previous versions of the stoves did not comply with the norms and were gradually replaced by the newer models. Today, however, Fisher Wood Stoves do not comply with the air quality standards, even though most of them are very safe. Since most of these ancient models are very polluting, some states have declared them illegal.
What was special about the Fisher Wood Stoves anyway? Early on Fisher discovered that the wide fireplaces that existed in most homes were not really efficient at heating up the home. To improve on this situation, Fisher reduced the size of the fireplace and caused the iron to be welded in such a way as to allow only a tiny aperture for the chimney. This increased the efficiency considerably so that one such fireplace could heat up an entire A-frame home. The added advantage was that the fire could be controlled with ease.
By the middle of the eighties, clean burning stoves made their apparition, making the wood stove outmoded. Bob Fisher responded by designing an even cleaner burning stove. While the old wood stoves released as much as 75g of smoke per kilogram of wood, the newer version produced less than 6g of smoke per kilo of wood. Fisher’s new clean burning stoves, or EPA stoves, were a huge success as well. Nevertheless, the wood stove gradually fell became unpopular in the eyes of the public who preferred central heating as the alternative.
