Thread: usstove hotblast furnace

does anyone have one, how long have you used it? etc

I have a Clayton hotblast made by US Stove Co. I probably wont be of much help to you though,I bought it in the spring when there was an end of season sale and I just put it in this fall. I have used it only a couple of times. I am using it as a stand alone furnace in my cellar, I have a toyostove monitor upstairs we use when the wood heat is too much. Like I said I cant tell you much about it as far as burn times, wood use etc. I would be glad to help you where I can.

I have one model 1557M. Is this the one you'd like to know about? It says hotblast on the door, so i assume it's the same one. I've only used mine for 3 seasons, but has been trouble free. We have a 1500 sq ft house and it's more than enough to heat our house. In fact it's too big for our house. It will cook us right out of here unless the temps fall below 20 F*. Overall im happy with the unit. If there's anything else you'd like to know just ask i'll be happy to tell you what I know.

I've been using a Hot Blast Model 1400 going on 3 years now. I heat a 2 1/2 story, 2700 sq ft, 107 year old Victorian house. The house has 10ft ceilings and over 45 windows in it that are original. This house is cold with out wood heat. I lined the old brick chimney with a stainless steel liner and connected the stove to my existing duct work in the basement. The stove was about $1000 at Orscheln's. I would say the stove works good for a $1000 stove. It does use alot of wood as expected. To keep the house good and warm November through February I could burn 10 cord / 20 rik. I really need a little bigger stove for this house. When it gets below 15 degrees and if there is any wind than its hard for the stove to keep up. Last winter when the temperature got down to Zero my wood furnace was running with Osage Orange in it and both the upstairs gas furnace and downstairs gas furnace was running at the same time.

Bottom line is we went from keeping the thermostat at 60 degrees and freezing with a $450 gas bill to keeping the house at 75 degrees with a $80 gas bill. That's with a gas dryer and two gas water heaters.

I hope this was helpful.

Steve, my stove also uses alot of wood. I easily went thru 10 cords last year as well. Seems like a lot, but given what the stove does I guess it could be worse. I don't complain too much because of the gas savings. sounds like your stove gets quite a workout trying to heat that old house of yours. Does your stove burn coal too? The 1557 says it can take 80 lb of coal or some such ammount. I've considered mixing a lump of coal or two when the temps fall real low.

Originally Posted by YCSTEVE

I've been using a Hot Blast Model 1400 going on 3 years now. I heat a 2 1/2 story, 2700 sq ft, 107 year old Victorian house. The house has 10ft ceilings and over 45 windows in it that are original. This house is cold with out wood heat. I lined the old brick chimney with a stainless steel liner and connected the stove to my existing duct work in the basement. The stove was about $1000 at Orscheln's. I would say the stove works good for a $1000 stove. It does use alot of wood as expected. To keep the house good and warm November through February I could burn 10 cord / 20 rik. I really need a little bigger stove for this house. When it gets below 15 degrees and if there is any wind than its hard for the stove to keep up. Last winter when the temperature got down to Zero my wood furnace was running with Osage Orange in it and both the upstairs gas furnace and downstairs gas furnace was running at the same time.

Bottom line is we went from keeping the thermostat at 60 degrees and freezing with a $450 gas bill to keeping the house at 75 degrees with a $80 gas bill. That's with a gas dryer and two gas water heaters.

I hope this was helpful.

bbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ... you guys certainly get cold over there Quite a different world that I'm pretty ignorant too. 10 cords in 3 months ... now thats stacking - stoking fun

The Hot Blast 1400 that I have is a wood only stove. I think the 1500 models have the shaker grate in the bottom that makes it easier to burn coal. I've read other threads on ArboristSite about burning coal and they say it will spoil you. I guess it burns hot and for a long time.

The Hot Blast 1400 is rated at 114,000 btu. One day I may put my model 1400 in my shop and replace the house furnace with something closer to 150,000btu. Hot Blast has a model 1950 EPA which is rated at 140,000 btu and is supposed to burn 40% less wood. From what I've read a stove with a secondary burn chamber is worth the money.

My total cost of lining my chimney and purchasing the furnace and having it professionally installed (for insurance reasons) came to $3600. This is my 3rd year burning this stove. It should pay for its self and then some this year.

I'm fortunate because I live in a rural area and have all the wood I can cut. My inlaws have 80 acres 8 miles from my house where I have my wood lot. I cut wood there and on the a joining 160 acres. The lady that owns the 160 acres of timber was having to buy firewood from a local guy paying $50 a rik. She said I could cut all the firewood wood I wanted if I brought her in some. She now has all the firewood she can burn delivered to he front door, split and stacked by me.

Today my father-in-law is cleaning out an old hog shed that has a cement floor so I don't have to use old tarps and plastic sheeting to keep the wood dry. It would be tough to keep up with this stove without a good source of wood.

EastwoodGang4, Do you have a place to buy coal? I don't know how expensive the stuff is in comparison to natural gas, fuel oil or purchased firewood. Last year I started burning my stove early in the year. I ran out of seasoned firewood in late February. It would be nice to have the ability to switch to a cheap fuel if it was available.

I have the model 1537G, I believe it is rated for 2500 sq ft. and I have about 1200. It will drive us out of here for sure if the temps arent low enough. I bought it because I got a great deal on it, and I guess I figured if I ever add on to our house like I need to it will still be plenty. I have about 20 face cord ready to be burned this winter.
Blunt- when temps stay at -10 to -20F for weeks at a time it doesnt take long to burn up a cord of wood, and all the work you put in to it is well worth it.

No I don't know where to buy coal either. Some block layers at work use it in a metal culvert pipe to heat their sand in the winter time, so I thought I'd ask them for a few lumps to try out and maybe they know where to buy and how much. also i hear you can still find it by the railroad tracks now days. The EPA stove that burns 40% less wood interets me.. do you have any more info on that one? These wood hogs are good heat, but a lot of work. ahhh who am I kidding it IS worth it.

I started burning mid september last year with my Hotblast 1500 and ended around march. I believe I burned about 5 1/2 cords of wood to heat our home. 2400 square foot victorian, 10 foot ceilings, 150 years old. The difference in ours is I ran mine in series with the propane furnace. It kept our home at 70 when it had stayed around 20 below for a few days. Ours smokes very little, but its all on how you load and how much air you put in it. We have the forced draft, but I don't use the thermostat unless its going to be extremely cold out. By having the back plug open with the forced draft fan, it allows for secondary air to enter from the back. I like to rake all my coals to the very back of the firebox, and load about 5 logs in it for the night. The coals ignite the wood in the back and it burns like a cigar. It will burn hotter than hell all night, and basically just burn up the smoke. Ours is 20 years old, and I just rebuilt the interior of it a year ago. They arent bad units, but the crapsmanship sucks on them. Few tack welds. Overall they will produce a hell of alot of heat. I average 8 to 10 hour burn times at night. Those also are clean burns, the only time I get smoke is when I reload. I burn less than a cord of wood each month, and it burns 24-7. I will also tell you they are not made to burn anthracite coal in them. Just doesn't work, they are made for soft coal, but of course it will produce some clinkers. We used to have ours installed in paraelle and it couldn't keep the house over 68 to 70. We now average 76 most of the winter.

EastwoodGang4, you can get more info on the Model 1950 at usstove.com. It's expensive but the efficiency would make up for the cost in time.

laynes69, it sounds like you have your stove figured out. I don't have the forced draft on mine. I just have the manual spin draft on the ash pan door. I don't have a damper in the flue pipe either. Once the firebox gets to a certain temperature it just kicks the fans on. I don't know that I need a thermostat for the wood furnace. My wife is cold blooded so she would have it running wide open from November thru February anyway. I don't know if mine is ran in series or parallel. I have one heat duct coming off the wood furnace into the plenum of the gas furnace and one going right into the existing duct work. The reason they both don't go into the plenum is because one of them vents right into open stair well this helps heat the up stairs.

I don't necessarily like the way this is ran but thats the way the installers did it. I would like to run both wood furnace heating ducts into the
gas furnace plenum and have the gas furnace squirrel fan kick on to help circulate. That's a project I need to get done.

Have you had your stove for 20 years? I wasn't sure how long one would last before it burned out.

Okay, I'm starting to catch up here. I just cheated and read the manual. Its amazing what you can learn if yor stop and read something

I think my furnace at this time is ran in series. It runs buy itself with no theromstats (except on firebox) and uses only the blowers on the back of the wood furnace. It also has no forced draft. Just the spin draft on the ash pan door.

According to the manual when you run it parallel your wood furnace blowers kick on and your gas furnace squirrel fan helps circulate the heat. If you have the forced draft kit this will also kick on helping you raise the temperature. This sounds like you would get a more efficient burn and the draft would shut off when it is not needed.

laynes69, did I read your post right. You get more heat with it ran in series with forced draft as opposed to parallel. If so I will leave my stove the way it is and just buy the forced draft kit and try that first.

I have 1 blower on my wood furnace and its from the main propane furnace. Your is installed in paraelle not series. When my limit control on the wood furnace hits 140 the propane blower kicks on. All of the air goes through the main furnace into the wood furnace. The thing about series is you use your cold air system, and distribute the heat through the main heat trunk. Instead of heating 60 degree air from a basement, you are heating 70 degree air from the main living space. I don't use forced draft often, only if it gets below zero out. Ours has been in operation for 21 years straight. We have burned coal and wood in it. Like I said, I had to rebuild some of it last year, but it has held up well. With the firebrick it helps keep the firebox from burning out.

Thanks for the info. My wood furnace has a return air drawing warm air from the main living area. When it leaves my Hot Blast it by passes the gas furnace and distributes heat in two places. It connects to the main trunk of the duct work and the plenum. It only uses the plenum as an entry point it gets no assistance from the main gas furnace blower. It dosen't circulate as well as I would like it to. I would like for the gas furnace blower to help circulate the air.