Have to buy new OWB. Hawken in bankruptcy

[zeek]

I have a an old Hardy H4...it is has cracks, a leak and I am not sure how well the repair will hold up. SO, I have to buy a new OWB, I do not want a gassification unit, I like the Hawken with the "After Burner" but they filed for bankruptcy in August, so can't go with them.

I see Central Boiler has something similar to the "After Burner" does anyone here have experience with CB or recommend a particular boiler.
Thanks
Zeek

 

[husqvarna257]

I am

I have a an old Hardy H4...it is has cracks, a leak and I am not sure how well the repair will hold up. SO, I have to buy a new OWB, I do not want a gassification unit, I like the Hawken with the "After Burner" but they filed for bankruptcy in August, so can't go with them.

I see Central Boiler has something similar to the "After Burner" does anyone here have experience with CB or recommend a particular boiler.
Thanks
Zeek

All that they can sell now are the gasification units brand new, you might luck out looking around for a used OWB but I would be afraid I was buying someone's problems. If you are referring to the Central boilers Edge unit it is getting great reviews. I have the Central Boiler 1450 and like you I didn't want a gasification but had no choice. I love it now, it burns so clean and is no problem to run. Once the fire temp in the reaction chamber hits 550* the second stage air comes in and it goes from smoke to little or no smoke. The reaction chamber often can get over 1000* with good wood. They claim you burn 50% less wood and I could believe that.

 

[benp]

Apologies of the bat. I'm doing this from my phone in the airport.

We got a central boiler edge classic 750 the end of October.

Here is my initial post about it.

Nope. Same spot. Kinda.

A couple weeks ago old stove and house out.



A little site prep for additional pad.



4ft sand in.



We put an additional foot in the pad "area". So 5' sand under the stove.

The fire box. Side draft air on the sides and heated air through the stainless down through reaction chamber.



Reaction chamber.



A really cool feature I wasn't aware of....the smoke bypass. Toggle it open, wait a bit, then open the door. No huge clouds of smoke to the face.




Upper center of firebox bypass closed.



Bypass open.



Fired up at 0930. At 1030 the reaction chamber kicked on for the first time.



Temps then. 103 degrees water temp, 1224 degrees for the reaction chamber.



No smoke.



As of 330pm the stove was at 175. That's with the house and shop full tilt turned on.

Shops at 60 degrees and house is 75.

Hell yeah.

This thing is awesome.

It heats 10000+ square feet. Very happy with it so far.

It is meant to be operated on 12hr intervals.

So you load it accordingly for the day based on temp.

You want to be reloading it with maybe a piece or 2 left and a good coal bed. That way you can root around in the coal bed with the poker to get the ash worked down into the reaction
Chamber. Also this helps to keep the coal bed in check.

We haven't gone through
Much wood since initial fire up. Granted it's been "warm" but before the first fire up and getting the buildings to temp ate a lot of wood.

It has the wifi upgrade which is awesome. Once your connected to the network. You just log in on device or computer.

I'll just say this now. These gasification boilers are not for everyone in my opinion. These are not a fire and forget stove. It does take effort to understand and learn it on the end users part.

And as @husqvarna257 said, good seasoned wood is key.

But so far, it's been very worth
It and I believe in the reduction in wood use claim.

 

[jrider]

I would give Portage and Main a look. I have a gasification unit from them and it has been awesome. Going on year 6 with it.

 

[barton174]

I'll just say this now. These gasification boilers are not for everyone in my opinion. These are not a fire and forget stove. It does take effort to understand and learn it on the end users part.

And as @husqvarna257 said, good seasoned wood is key.

But so far, it's been very worth
It and I believe in the reduction in wood use claim.

Yeah, I've got a Wood Boiler LLC gasification boiler, and it's not a "throw full round / wet logs in and forget it" affair, either, but man it makes good use of the wood you feed it! The wood needs to basically be like what you'd cut for an inside wood stove. Though it can be 2ft long or a little better, it needs to be "fire wood" diameter and seasoned. You do have to maintain the coal bed and such, as well, and fill it 2x/day if it's at all cold out. I'm burning maybe 1.5x the wood I was burning inside, in my EPA wood stove, but I'm also pre-heating my hot water, the electric heat isn't running at 3-5am any more, there's no temp swings in the house, no mess in the house, and no kids getting burnt by the wood stove (or melting/burning toys on the wood stove).

Mike

 

[panolo]

I went with a CB edge 550. Had my first fire in it last night and it took about two hours to go from 50 to 185 degree water temp. There will definitely be a learning curve as the heat load is very light with the warmer temps and the fire was close to out this AM. It's pretty crazy to watch the temp in the stove get to 1000 degrees and the combustion chamber roars. Sounds kinda like a crib dryer you hear on farms just not as loud. The stove is extremely simple and hopefully the maintenance is as light as they say. Setup and install has been easy with the caveat that the thermo pex sucks to work with. You wanna be spot on with the placement and it is a two person job to lay it out. There is absolutely zero give to it. I thought I had a loose enough bend in the tile through my slab but I had to pull the line through the tile with my skid steer. But if I can only lose 1-2 degrees on the run to the house the investment will be worth it.

 

[benp]

@panolo ,

You should be happy with it!!!!

There is a learning curve and some experimentation like with any stove. We are getting 12 hr burn times not fully loaded and I don't think the burn times will change much once colder weather and winter invades.

The hottest I've seen the reaction chamber is hi 1500's.

Did you get the wifi model?

 

[panolo]

@panolo ,

You should be happy with it!!!!

There is a learning curve and some experimentation like with any stove. We are getting 12 hr burn times not fully loaded and I don't think the burn times will change much once colder weather and winter invades.

Did you get the wifi model?

I ordered the wifi connection after the fact. Wasn't going to do it and than watched the video and decided to jump. Just got to run to my dealer and pick it up. I can see that a coal bed will be really important and hope to have decent one by this weekend when it starts to get chilly. I think a larger heat load will help with that as well with the stove cycling more frequently.

I basically burnt ends and some small stuff last night. I did not have as much dry wood as most set aside because I have been burning corn/pellets for the last number of years. Had to scrounge about 6 cords of dry stuff. Hopefully have a couple years of wood up after this winter. Besides you, I have heard that dry wood is very critical to a good burn from quite a few.

 

[benp]

I ordered the wifi connection after the fact. Wasn't going to do it and than watched the video and decided to jump. Just got to run to my dealer and pick it up. I can see that a coal bed will be really important and hope to have decent one by this weekend when it starts to get chilly. I think a larger heat load will help with that as well with the stove cycling more frequently.

I basically burnt ends and some small stuff last night. I did not have as much dry wood as most set aside because I have been burning corn/pellets for the last number of years. Had to scrounge about 6 cords of dry stuff. Hopefully have a couple years of wood up after this winter. Besides you, I have heard that dry wood is very critical to a good burn from quite a few.

Yes it is critical.

You're reaction chamber temps won't get as hot with wet wood.

You got the moisture meter that came with it right? It's a helpful tool.

Yes maintaining a good coal bed is very important. I've re read the manual a couple times and still refer back to it.

 

[barton174]

Kind of like this video I took last winter?

 

[benp]

Yep!!!!!!

 

[StihlKicking]

I have a an old Hardy H4...it is has cracks, a leak and I am not sure how well the repair will hold up. SO, I have to buy a new OWB, I do not want a gassification unit, I like the Hawken with the "After Burner" but they filed for bankruptcy in August, so can't go with them.

I see Central Boiler has something similar to the "After Burner" does anyone here have experience with CB or recommend a particular boiler.
Thanks
Zeek

If you were happy with your Hardy's performance, go to Hardy's web site and check out their LC series boilers. They are the exact same heater as the old H2/H4 units minus the coper loop for DHW. If you want to use the LC heaters to heat DHW you just have to put a water to water plate exchanged on it.

 

[absrio]

you can still buy the old fashion (non gasification) boilers. they are sold as coal burners now. what you burn inside them is your own business.