Our Story

Burning Ambition

"As a kid, some of my best childhood moments were around the living room fire, and ever since I’ve had a passion for fireplaces. I worked as an engineer for fireplaces, a retailer of fireplaces, all working towards my goal of listening, learning, and one day creating my own."

Nigel Bamford, Founder

The ‘no compromise’ gas fireplace

After teaming up with Alan McGregor and Garth Milmine to start Escea, we looked at what was already in the market. Gas fireplaces would either look great, or heat your home, but nobody was doing both.  We set out to change that.

Nigel Bamford, Founder

When elements collide

"We were on a family trip to Taranaki, hiking through Egmont national park with the kids. I noticed the interesting colours of the riverbed when we were crossing a stream, and pocketed some stones. I took them back to Dunedin for sampling, and now we have our most popular coal fuelbed, NZ River Rock."

Nigel Bamford, Founder

First Danish Interns

"My internship at Escea was amazing. The four of us came from Odense university in Denmark to spend seven months working at Escea during the week, and exploring the South Island during the weekends. We totally paved the way for the next decade of Escea Danish interns!"

Michael Nygard, Danish Engineering Intern

New digs

"We were outgrowing our fireplace factory, an old car painting warehouse, and decided to make the leap into a purpose-built building five times larger. Having a blank canvas to implement our new Lean Manufacturing strategy was exciting, and has allowed for us to keep growing."

Mark Davie, Production Engineering Manager

Smart move

"As iphones and apps became bigger we realised we needed to upgrade our phone remote system. We created the Smartheat app, expecting people to use it to turn their fires on before they got home. But for those that use it the app has pretty much replaced their remote altogether."

Dave Olsen, Senior Engineer

Pushing boundaries

"We work a lot with architects, and when someone asks us for something we can’t do, Nigel doesn’t like to say no! They wanted flueing that could go up, down and sideways, so we did it - and now it’s in all of our gas fireplaces."

Alan McGregor, Production Engineer/ Founder

More flame, less frame

"The DF700 was our first project after working with Better By Design™, and we let our customer needs guide every step of the process. The result was a fire that was designed by the customer, for the customer."

Alex Hodge, Lead Designer

Grill, then chill

"We noticed more and more customers were looking for ways to expand their indoor living spaces and kitchens. So over a glass of red wine and good food, Nigel and a friend were brokering the idea of an outdoor fire experience combined with a high-quality cooking appliance – that’s exactly how the EK Series was born. "

Alex Hodge, Lead Designer

Bigger, better

"The DS Series was fast becoming our most popular fireplaces. We had just released the DS1650 which was our widest fire at the time, but we thought ‘why not go bigger?’ We’re always pushing boundaries, so a fire at nearly 2m long seemed like the natural next step for us! The DS1900 is now our biggest indoor fire and has already got us thinking ‘what’s next?’ "

Aaron Porter, Design Engineer

expand to grow

" After years of planning and talking about growth, we knew it was time to take the next step. Our expanding product range and growing team meant that we needed a larger facility and we needed it now. So, despite the challenges of a global pandemic we expanded our office and factory space by a massive 30%. With state-of-the-art equipment and more and more talented team members joining by the day. We had 125 staff and counting… "

Donna Sherrif, Chief Operating Officer

fire for life

" Fire for Life was a no-brainer for us, it very much became a core part of our quest to put a better fireplace in every home. I felt we had a responsibility to use our unique skills and experience to improve the lives of these people who only had an open fire to cook on, and so after several years of development, we finally sent the first batch of stoves to Syria in January of 2021 "

Nigel Bamford, Founder

new challenges

"We took everything we’d learned from designing high-performing gas fireplaces and poured it into creating our first Escea wood fire. Building it right here in our Dunedin facility, with the help of our first robotic welder, was a big moment for us. Wood fires bring their own set of challenges, but we weren’t willing to compromise on looks or performance—and we didn’t."

James Fisher, Chief Innovation Officer

Ripe for Innovation

"At the end of 2023, I moved from Dunedin to Seattle to lead Escea’s North American launch. What struck me right away was how little fireplace technology had changed—especially in such a massive market. Design has moved on, but the tech hasn’t. That’s where Escea comes in."

Alex Cleveland, North America Manager

Electric Atmosphere

"Our first-ever Escea Fireplace Gala was something special. After the challenges that the pandemic brought, bringing together our team, suppliers, and retailers from across Australasia felt like a real milestone. It was the first time we’d all been in one place for a long time, and hosting it at the Escea factory made it even more meaningful. Launching our first holographic electric fireplace that night was the perfect way to celebrate how far we’d come."

Nigel Bamford, Founder