Matthew’s invention to light up stove industry

A Warwick businessman is set to reignite his company after inventing a new fire-lighting system that could revolutionise the wood-burning stove industry.
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Matthew Statham, who runs ChinaTech Sourcing Ltd, at the Wharf Centre in Warwick, has developed a new combustion unit that ignites a fire inside a wood-burning stove with the flick of a switch or remote control.

And with support from the new Coventry and Warwickshire Clearing House, he’s on the road to turning the prototype into a fully fledged product that he wants to assemble in Warwickshire.

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The Clearing House is a new ‘one-stop-shop’ for support and advice for advanced manufacturers, which was formed by the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership as part of its City Deal bid to Government.

A production prototype and patent for the product have been secured and Matthew believes the first stoves with his Autoblaze product inside could hit the market in the next nine to 12 months.

He said: “I came up with the idea when I was thinking of having a wood-burning stove myself.

“I just didn’t like the thought of the lighting process and I remembered a hand held lighting ‘gun’ my parents had for open fires.

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“It wasn’t quite right for a wood-burning stove so I took the basic principle of using hot air on fuel to start a fire, but integrated the system into the stove.

“I developed the Autoblaze unit, which basically places an element that can be heated to 500 plus degrees Celsius, inside the wood-burner and, at the flick of a switch, blows hot air onto the wood to the point of combustion.”