Solo StoveMesa Tabletop Fire Pit with Stand | Low Smoke Outdoor Mini Fire for Urban & Suburbs | Fueled by Pellets or Wood, Safe Burning, Stainless Steel, With Travel Bag, 17,5 x 13 cm, 635 g

The media could not be loaded. So let’s address the elephant in the room here. These genuine Solo Stoves are expensive for what is essentially a metal pot to burn stuff in.However, they are very well made, of high grade stainless steel, and shouldn’t rust to pieces if left outside or stored in damp conditions. The secondary burn system works brilliantly as long as fuel isn’t added beyond the upper vent holes and the steel ring is put in place at the top, funnelling the airflow for maximum efficiency. I’ve got a number of these in various colours, and the finish is amazing, the coloured coating hasn’t discoloured as I feared it might, and they are a cinch to keep clean. Tip it upside down and shake out any ash, any uncombusted wood or pellets that won’t come out will just get burnt next time you use it.The little stand is a nice design, as it fold up allowing storage inside the Mesa stove. The legs snap out into place with a reassuring click and the whole set up is solid once the stove is placed on the stand. This negates the worry of your tabletop being charred, although if I was using in a valuable table or a surface I wanted to protect, I’d just set the whole thing on a spare large ceramic tile, slate, or granite chopping board.One tip, before you use it for the first time, clean the upper ring with some sort of spirit alcohol such as methanol, methylated spirits etc, so remove any greasy finger marks. The first burn with turn the ring a darker colour and give it an individual patina. Any marks will be burnt onto the metal, so be warned.Now let’s be honest, these things (standard Mesa, not Mesa XL) are dinky. It’s about as wide as a large thermos flask, and half as tall. You are not going to get much wood in it, and unless you’re snapping twigs by hand to get the right length, it can take a bit of prep work to get the right length pieces.I’ve used standard kindling bought in the plastic bags at the hardware store. The pieces tend to be just too long for the stove and will poke out of the top. This breaks ‘the first rule of Solo stove club’ which is ‘you DO NOT allow your fuel to surpass the upper vent holes, repeat YOU DO NOT…’Whilst this isn’t an insurmountable problem, as the wood will eventually burn down some and drop lower, since you are constantly adding fuel, every five minutes or so at least, you will seldom if ever have the smokeless flame you wanted. If you have a table saw you could process your own half sized lengths of kindling, or try to find shorter pieces from a different shop. Ideally no more than around 3.5 inches long.Or you can do what I do and just buy a 15 litre bag of wooden cat litter, scoop a large mug of the pellets and drop them in. Place a firelighter ON TOP of the pellets and light. It’s important with pellets to burn from the top down, as these gasification stoves will suffocate themselves if you try lighting at the bottom.It can be a challenge to get the pellets to take a flame, but I cheat with bits of old candle wax (crush a finished tea light container and some flakes of wax crumble out) or the wrapper from Baby Bel cheese. A blob of barbecue lighter gel will also help. Don’t use a think spirit like methanol, petrol etc as the cat little will do what it’s designed to and soak up the liquid, swelling into a damp pulp which won’t burn too well, as you require airflow between the pellets. A fill of pellets will last between 25 and 45 minutes depending how full you load it. Some people like to have a cup of extra pellets and load small amounts using a long handled spoon, but overall it burns nicer in one go, then empty and refill. The waste for the pellets can build up and clog the airflow making it just smoulder if you keep adding them.Using wood or sticks it’s not burning downwards in the same way, so sticks can be added almost indefinitely or until the base fills with ash and needs a shake out.These stoves are designed primarily as a table decoration, to provide a centre piece and create an ambience. Don’t think you can buy one of these and toss away that propane patio heater. The larger fire pits that sit in the ground are intended more for this purpose. Don’t get me wrong, these things do kick out a fair bit of heat, but it all shoots directly upwards and very little reaches you if sat more than a foot away. To overcome this downside, Solo offer a heat deflector accessory, which is eye-wateringly expensive for what resembles a shallow colander on legs.I will probably end up buying one if a good sale comes up, but in the meantime I’ve had limited success with my home made versions (cue A-Team theme 🎵)……What didn’t work:1. Rolled stainless mesh tube (as spacer) with metal pizza cooking tray on top. Flames came straight through and no tangible difference in radial heat.2. Old rusty colander I had lying around ear the BBQ (is it just me?) which refused to stay out and released some vile smells ( probably an unlucky baby slug or some spider eggs)3. Stainless steel? (Or so I thought) drinks tray about a foot diameter, again placed on 4” mesh ‘chimney’.This was the best in terms of heat deflection, but again a weird smell and burnt patch on the tray made me cease the test, as I fear the tray may have some kind of plating? Or maybe just more slugs….Anyway, get yourself one of these and have some fun. I will mount mine on the floor and sit in front of it with a beer on cold evenings before coming in to eat. A half hour burn, listening to an Audible book and watching the hypnotic flames. Perfect!

We have a larger fire pit, but this one is ideal to set up and also take away with us. Given the ongoing uncertainty about heating supplies, it’s something that would be an excellent OUTDOOR standby. Well built and worth buying.

A great product. I’ve got a larger one but the table top version is just as good and much easier for sitting out on a warmer evening enjoying a drink or 2!

The media could not be loaded. Its a very smart well built product, it is also very easy to start burning, it does use up the wood very quickly so you need to prep lots of wood first.Just a little pricey.

Product looks great and is well made , and will certainly get well used when the weather gets better and the light nights come in , would have gone for a colour version but the difference was a bit excessive.

Great little fire to have in my living room, love it.

Brilliant fun. I have found it better to use short lengths of kindling rather than pellets but it works with both. Lovely centre piece for outdoors.

I bought two Mesa heaters with heat deflectors and a bag of wood pellets. Firstly, the units do produce smoke and soot and the stainless steel deflectors and heaters get filthy very quickly. The heat produced is negligible. They eat pellets at an alarming rate and the flames tend to die out very quickly, you have to be quick in order to load more pellets before the flames die otherwise more smoke comes out before they eventually light up again. I bought these to take the chill off when sitting around a patio table but I'm not impressed with how dirty they get or with the amount of heat they produce.....