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YOU might need a little convincing that summer is the ideal time to address your heating issues. One trip to Ovne in West Cork could change all that, and encourage you to pull out every radiator in your home before the weather turns. In Tom Keane's shop in Leap you'll find a showroom crammed with restored European antique stoves, many of which hail from Denmark (Ovne means stove in Danish), and all of which will add something truly unusual to your interior. Tom's been importing these antique beauties for almost 10 years, and he handpicks them in Copenhagen where his brother-in-law sources and restores them.
Tom reckons cast iron and enamel stoves have such appeal here because, aside from the black kitchen range, there's not much history of stove-making in Ireland. The advantages of a stove rather than an open fire is primarily the fuel/heat efficiency, but also the ambient heat it produces and its low maintenance.
All of Ovne's stock is multi-fuel burning, as opposed to pure wood burners, so briquettes, coal, anthracite and compressed wood briquettes (Ecologs) can all be used to power them. Jeremy Irons has bought three for his Cork castle and Ovne has sold stoves to Lissadell House and Gloster House. But you don't need a castle to indulge. "Our stoves, even when not burning, make a strong aesthetic statement. Old stove doesn't equal old house . . . with the eclectic style being so in vogue we find our stoves very popular in contemporary homes too."
www. ovnestoves. com. Ovne, Millside, Gortroe, Leap, Co Cork. Phone: 028 34917
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YOU ARE HERE: 11 November 2007 / tribune.ie / 2007 / 06 / 03
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