Ampliflaire

[Jasper]

In my search for alternative energy sources, I decided to re-investigate the high efficiency solid fuel burners that were invented by Dean Warwick (see Camelot tributes).

I came across this guy by accident not long after he died in 2006. I was searching to confirm reports that railway carriages with shackles and guillotines had been spotted in North America.

Dean's website (www.ampliflaire.co.uk) was weirdly laid out, certainly not designed to sell anything. It was a jumble of information packed into pages that looked like a scrap book. Dotted around were very worrying messages, one of which mentioned said railway carriages being seen in Scotland and near a farmers land under a disused bridge in Staffordshire.

I have recently met someone who has a friend who had purchased an Ampliflair flue from Dean. He said that his friend thought the man was barking mad. James Casbolt (www.jamescasbolt.com) also counts Dean as a friend. I'm on the fence regarding James at the moment.

Anyway, back to Ampliflaire. Dean apparently appeared on the BBC program 'Tomorrows World' to demonstrate his device. I haven't yet managed to locate any more info on that (anyone know anyone who works in the BBC archives?).

The new Ampliflaire website is quite normal, but rather basic. Amongst the pages I noted that they did a CHP model. That stands for 'Combined Heat and Power'. I gleaned from a blog that this was a stove which incorporated a steam generator knocking out about 3kw, a quite useful load.

OK, lets email the company for info, this was to Dean's widow Jean, no reply.

Let's ring the company, you get a nice recorded message saying 'This phone does not accept incoming calls'.

Let's send a fax............no chance, it's an answering machine. I declined to leave a message.

As luck would have it, I'm paying a visit to Scotland in December, so a wee visit to Kelso is in order to put this Mcmystery to bed.