carvinmark
Addicted to ArboristSite
Pardon my ignorance please, I don't understand the statement "never goes below 25%".
25% of what? Also, welcome to AS.
To Be Hawken Energy, or not to be???
- Thread starter newmanab
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Pardon my ignorance please, I don't understand the statement "never goes below 25%".
25% of what? Also, welcome to AS.
Darth Hawken
ArboristSite Lurker
I currently run the Hawken 2100 heating a 2600sq/ft. colonial. This is my first year, but I am very impressed. The dealer was extremely helpful, and the installation was done very well. I can get 24 hours from a VERY full load with the house at 70 degrees and the outside temp in the teens to20s.
I haven't had any issues to speak of, outside of very minor maintenance. This may be indicative of its simplistic design. I am very pleased with the unit and would highly suggest it, but I am not convinced that it is the best, or even that there is a best unit out there. Within a few miles of my place there are lots of different OWB's and every owner has the same thing to say. They are warm and are saving a ton of cash!
If you do go with the Hawken brand, I would suggest oversizing to the 2100. You should be able to go for two days if you stuff it full and then turn down the temp in the house.
Give me a yell if you have specific questions!
I haven't had any issues to speak of, outside of very minor maintenance. This may be indicative of its simplistic design. I am very pleased with the unit and would highly suggest it, but I am not convinced that it is the best, or even that there is a best unit out there. Within a few miles of my place there are lots of different OWB's and every owner has the same thing to say. They are warm and are saving a ton of cash!
If you do go with the Hawken brand, I would suggest oversizing to the 2100. You should be able to go for two days if you stuff it full and then turn down the temp in the house.
Give me a yell if you have specific questions!
Pro Rated
The Warrenty is prorated years 1 thru 5 100% years 6 thru 7 75% 8 thru 10 40% and 11 thru 20 at 25%, It seems all furnaces that I looked at were prorated like this , Thats why I recommend that before you buy anything ask to see a copy of the warranty, My dealer was upfront so this was no surprise to me and it was better than the outher brands i was looking into
The Warrenty is prorated years 1 thru 5 100% years 6 thru 7 75% 8 thru 10 40% and 11 thru 20 at 25%, It seems all furnaces that I looked at were prorated like this , Thats why I recommend that before you buy anything ask to see a copy of the warranty, My dealer was upfront so this was no surprise to me and it was better than the outher brands i was looking into
I had one for a couple weeks...Had it set on the pad, but never hooked it up..Let me explain...
My first question when the dealer came to give me a bid was....Is the furnace UL Listed. They assured me it was. My insurance company "State Farm" required any wood furnace I purchased to be UL Listed.
The furnace set on the pad for a couple weeks while I was waiting for the dealer to come and finish the install. One day I had the notion to go to the UL website. While surfing the site I read there should be a UL sticker on any item that is listed. I proceeded outside to locate the sticker on my furnace. After about 30 minutes of searching I started getting a bad feeling, you know the kind you get when you have spent thousands of dollars and realize you have been decieved. I spent some time pacing around the house trying to figure out how to get my money back and finally decided to give the dealer a call. Just called them up and asked one simple question....My insurance company needs some documentation showing the furnace is UL listed. You should have heard him stutter trying to talk himself out of the mess he got himself into. Mentioning the earlier models of the Hawken were UL Listed be the newer ones were not and they just got the memo on this..Needless to say they were at my home with the skidsteer and a flatbed trailer loading up the furnace that afternoon. (with a refund check)
Now a days when I drive bye and see the furnaces sitting outside the dealer I can't help but wonder if all the people that purchased one, checked with their insurance company beforehand.
I want to stress one point, by no means am I saying Hawken OWB are not a high quality furnace. I am just telling you the experince I had with the dealer that just happened to sell this brand of stove.
I ended up buying a Taylor 450. It is UL listed and the company has been around for a lot of years. Simple design with no expensive electronics to replace down the road. Very happy so far...
Good luck with whatever you decide...:greenchainsaw:
My first question when the dealer came to give me a bid was....Is the furnace UL Listed. They assured me it was. My insurance company "State Farm" required any wood furnace I purchased to be UL Listed.
The furnace set on the pad for a couple weeks while I was waiting for the dealer to come and finish the install. One day I had the notion to go to the UL website. While surfing the site I read there should be a UL sticker on any item that is listed. I proceeded outside to locate the sticker on my furnace. After about 30 minutes of searching I started getting a bad feeling, you know the kind you get when you have spent thousands of dollars and realize you have been decieved. I spent some time pacing around the house trying to figure out how to get my money back and finally decided to give the dealer a call. Just called them up and asked one simple question....My insurance company needs some documentation showing the furnace is UL listed. You should have heard him stutter trying to talk himself out of the mess he got himself into. Mentioning the earlier models of the Hawken were UL Listed be the newer ones were not and they just got the memo on this..Needless to say they were at my home with the skidsteer and a flatbed trailer loading up the furnace that afternoon. (with a refund check)
Now a days when I drive bye and see the furnaces sitting outside the dealer I can't help but wonder if all the people that purchased one, checked with their insurance company beforehand.
I want to stress one point, by no means am I saying Hawken OWB are not a high quality furnace. I am just telling you the experince I had with the dealer that just happened to sell this brand of stove.
I ended up buying a Taylor 450. It is UL listed and the company has been around for a lot of years. Simple design with no expensive electronics to replace down the road. Very happy so far...
Good luck with whatever you decide...:greenchainsaw:
windthrown
361 Junkie
CB is and has been UL listed for many years now. UL stickers are right on the side. I have had no problems with CB as a company, their dealers or their products. Quite the contrary. I recommend them highly. Also this is from personal experience, not something I heard from a guy who knew a guy that had talked to some other guy. I designed and installed a CB 4436 unit at my ex's house, and it is still in operation. It runs pretty much flawlessly. Their factory people were courteous, informed, spoke English, knew what I was asking about when sizing flat plate Hx and retro-fitting the system into an existing solar hot water sytem and electric hydronic floor heating sytem. They were good at helping with a very unusual design, and one that still works really really well. We had a bad controller unit the first year, and they replaced it under warantee, no problem. They also gave us a free gallon of corrosion inhibitor becasue the boiler had boiled over when the controller failed. They also gave us a new damper door that had banged into a weird position for some reason that we never figured out. They did not quibble, they just replaced anything that went wrong. The unit will be paid for in displaced electric bills by about this time next year. I expect it to last for at least 25 years.
One thing to note about buying an OWB in New England, the Mid Atlantic states, Washington State, Ohio and the like is that soon they will require that you install an OWB that is EPA approved. There are not too many OWB companies out there that are EPA approved. CB has 2 units that are approved, and they are both gassifier units. They are more efficient than their older style OWBs, they burn hotter and they smoke a lot less. Not that the old ones smoke that much, but there has been a HUGE stink in the mid-Atlantic and New England states about OWBs. New York and Ohio are probably the two worst states regarding anti-OWB legislation. At any rate, it is something to consider when buying an OWB in Ohio.
Also another thing to note: it is highly unlikely that you will find a traditional OWB that has a burn time of anything over 24 hours when it gets below about 15 degrees. Many people talk about long burn times, but I have never seen anything over 24 hours myself, in many different systems that I have observed personally. Oregon is rather mild in winter, compared to the midwest and northeast. We got 24+ hour burn times only when temps were above 40 degrees. Typically we loaded the OWB twice a day, and with the least amount of wood that we could get away with becasue they are more efficient with less wood in there. If you fill them full all the time, the wood at the top of the stack starts to turn to charcoal when the damper is closed, and you loose a lot of energy potential out the stack as a reult of charcoaling the wood before it burns. It is a contradiction in a starved-air OWB system that the more wood you load in there for longer burn times, the less efficient they become, and hence they then require more wood for the same amout of heat. We bought the smallest system tht CB had at the time, and it was sized correctly for our needs. We could have paid more and bought a much larger system and gotten longer burn times. However, stuffing a large OWB full and making charcoal is not a very efficient process.
One thing to note about buying an OWB in New England, the Mid Atlantic states, Washington State, Ohio and the like is that soon they will require that you install an OWB that is EPA approved. There are not too many OWB companies out there that are EPA approved. CB has 2 units that are approved, and they are both gassifier units. They are more efficient than their older style OWBs, they burn hotter and they smoke a lot less. Not that the old ones smoke that much, but there has been a HUGE stink in the mid-Atlantic and New England states about OWBs. New York and Ohio are probably the two worst states regarding anti-OWB legislation. At any rate, it is something to consider when buying an OWB in Ohio.
Also another thing to note: it is highly unlikely that you will find a traditional OWB that has a burn time of anything over 24 hours when it gets below about 15 degrees. Many people talk about long burn times, but I have never seen anything over 24 hours myself, in many different systems that I have observed personally. Oregon is rather mild in winter, compared to the midwest and northeast. We got 24+ hour burn times only when temps were above 40 degrees. Typically we loaded the OWB twice a day, and with the least amount of wood that we could get away with becasue they are more efficient with less wood in there. If you fill them full all the time, the wood at the top of the stack starts to turn to charcoal when the damper is closed, and you loose a lot of energy potential out the stack as a reult of charcoaling the wood before it burns. It is a contradiction in a starved-air OWB system that the more wood you load in there for longer burn times, the less efficient they become, and hence they then require more wood for the same amout of heat. We bought the smallest system tht CB had at the time, and it was sized correctly for our needs. We could have paid more and bought a much larger system and gotten longer burn times. However, stuffing a large OWB full and making charcoal is not a very efficient process.
cleanburn
ArboristSite Operative
The CB Eclassic isn't UL listed.
Ul
I also have state farm, and half of my family works there so I got the same answer by all. The Ul listing only applys to indoor furnaces. Since there will be no combustion indoors they do not require any ul listing or any listing at all for an outdoor furnace. They do recommend 30 - 50 Ft. from the house.
I also have state farm, and half of my family works there so I got the same answer by all. The Ul listing only applys to indoor furnaces. Since there will be no combustion indoors they do not require any ul listing or any listing at all for an outdoor furnace. They do recommend 30 - 50 Ft. from the house.
