Defending the "Mighty" Hotblast thread

[johnnylabguy]

It's cheap.
It eats wood.
It's inefficient.
It makes some creosote.
Its design is dated.
There are better indoor wood furnaces out there.

And these are all things I've complained about myself about US Stoves Hotblast model I own, a 1557m version.
And those statements are all true. But I'm going to give the old girl her due in this thread! I'm on my seventh year with it now so I think I know it pretty well. Keeping in mind its Cons I've listed above I'm going to list the Pros now:

-Low startup cost to test the waters for the reluctant wife(bought it for $800 end of season clearance).
-Paid for itself in less than 3 months with liner cost included
-Heating basement additional 1000 sq ft to 70+ degrees. Warm floors are nice.
-Although inefficient, the big firebox allows four 22+" long BIG ash splits to give a nice 6-8 hr burn. That's alot less cutting and splitting(which turns out to be efficient for your time! DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THIS PART. If you have wood like I do with the EAB right now, you can rip through the processing fast with big OWB size chunks.
-It does go thru wood like an outdoor boiler somewhat and doesn't heat as evenly or your water either. BUT can you feed your feed your OWB in a 75 degree room while drinking a beer in your shorts like I am?
-Mess stays in the basement so your wife is happy. And if she isn't then you probably need to go down and "check on the fire". Priceless.
-Gets you off the grid for minimal startup cost.

I will leave out that you get to buy a bunch of chainsaws, a good workout, a 4x4 truck and a woodlot like I did because you can do that with any woodburner, but it got me back in the woods which I love. I feel like its almost like owning horses. Its a lot of work but its a way of life. And I love it!

I hope to move to either an OWB or more efficient indoor burner, but in the meantime the old HotBlast will "gitter done". Feel free to share your thoughts; Pro or Con.

 

[blades]

I fully understand & did same as you, paid for itself one seaso0n, but for me having to carry everything down the stairs- just wasn't going to make it long term. Also the nagging thoughts about the automatic overfire function of the unit while I was away were to unsettling. I still have it, not been fired in 4 years now should sell it or find some other use for it.

 

[laynes69]

I'll agree 100% with what your saying. Dad paid 700 or so for the one that was here, it heated around 25 years. It saved thousands on LP. It went thru 4 or 5 sets of shaker grates, numerous firebrick and was rebuilt once. There were 2 chimney fires with it, and it burned well over 200 cords of wood in its life. Chimney sweeps were done every other month, sometimes once a month. After every season, I was lucky if I had any wood left over.

We've since done things to tighten up the home, and now burn a fraction of wood with the new furnace. But the old furnace kept us warm.

 

[johnnylabguy]

Agree with you're replies as well gentlemen! My lower level basement garage makes a basement furnace work well for me. I load up a gator load of wood once a week and if the snow or mud is too bad I use my bilco backup storage stash.
Today it finally broke above the single digits so I had fun bringing two truckloads of EAB ash home. No matter what I'd burn wood in this is what I love about burning wood. Where else would u rather b on a sunny January afternoon than here:

That's my buddy rubbing it in to his brother in Oregon that our buckeyes beat his home state team a few days ago after we cut four truckloads of EAB ash. BTW his brother was cutting wood 2000 miles away in his little slice of heaven at that moment too. Good stuff. Or you could just pay a gas bill and watch TV. No thanks

 

[treebilly]

I have an energy king which is basically the same thing and have been using it as my primary heat for almost 15 years. Keeps my little house and attached garage plenty warm. Hungry monster that needs to be maintained on a regular basis but does it's job. Going to replace it when I do my addition. Debating between just getting a newer more efficient indoor or getting an OWB as I want to heat my shop also once it gets built

 

[Jules083]

I have an energy king which is basically the same thing and have been using it as my primary heat for almost 15 years. Keeps my little house and attached garage plenty warm. Hungry monster that needs to be maintained on a regular basis but does it's job. Going to replace it when I do my addition. Debating between just getting a newer more efficient indoor or getting an OWB as I want to heat my shop also once it gets built

I also have an energy king. If I thought there was another unit that was good enough to warrant replacement I probably would go for it, but as of yet I haven't seen anything that really fits the bill.

My biggest complaints are the creosote build up and the fact that it can overheat itself fairly easily. I guess any indoor forced air unit will be like that. I don't have the thermostat hooked up, I just keep the little draft door closed and regulate it with the manual knob on the bottom.

 

[treebilly]

I tried hooking it up but messed it up some how and shorted the t- stat out. Never bothered fixing it. Got one hooked to the back up electric furnace when my first child was born just in case.

 

[aokpops]

The twin blowers I just don't like .An why they don't come with a induction blower ?

 

[laynes69]

Those forced draft blowers are junk. Everytime I used ours, I would wake to a stone cold furnace, and cold home.

 

[Tjcole50]

Hey Johnny is yours hooked up to duct work or dumping Into basement ? Didn't know since u said warm floors. I was debating just dumping on into the basement. Mess in the living room gets old at times

 

[flotek]

It can do two things that are positive

Heat your house
Low initial Cost to get started

 

[Del_]

It's interesting how so many heating appliances last for so long.

Purchase price becomes a smaller and smaller factor over time.

 

[Whitespider]

Those forced draft blowers are junk. Everytime I used ours, I would wake to a stone cold furnace, and cold home.

Well heck man, they ain't supposed to run continuous all night long... they're supposed to pick up the slack if the furnace falls a little behind. My furnace ain't a HotBlast, but still, if the forced draft blower runs a total of 45 minutes overnight I'd be surprised. Many nights it never even kicks on, the house temp doesn't even fall enough to hit the overnight set-point.
*

 

[laynes69]

It's not like any other furnace. The blower blows air over the fire, not on or below. Whenever I used ours, it cut the burn times by at least 2 hours. It was mounted on the rear of the firebox, under the baffle. They say it was meant for coal burning, but it didn't work for that. That's why I bought it. In the end, I wasted almost 200.00 on the kit.

 

[johnnylabguy]

Hey Johnny is yours hooked up to duct work or dumping Into basement ? Didn't know since u said warm floors. I was debating just dumping on into the basement. Mess in the living room gets old at times

I'm doing something different that I wouldn't advise to everyone:
I divert one 8" outlet into my furnace plenum and another through a wall opening into the other half of the basement. It works well for me until we get down to single digits and then the gas furnace has to kick on sometimes if its windy. I'm heating over 2600 sq ft though.
It is nice to keep the mess in the basement but keep in mind you'll burn more wood and will miss looking at a fire upstairs some too!

 

[johnnylabguy]

It's not like any other furnace. The blower blows air over the fire, not on or below. Whenever I used ours, it cut the burn times by at least 2 hours. It was mounted on the rear of the firebox, under the baffle. They say it was meant for coal burning, but it didn't work for that. That's why I bought it. In the end, I wasted almost 200.00 on the kit.

The two guys I know that had hotblast induction blowers disconnected them as well. One just uses his for startup. People that modified them to the ashpan door have had better luck I think.

 

[stihly dan]

I also have an energy king. If I thought there was another unit that was good enough to warrant replacement I probably would go for it, but as of yet I haven't seen anything that really fits the bill.

My biggest complaints are the creosote build up and the fact that it can overheat itself fairly easily. I guess any indoor forced air unit will be like that. I don't have the thermostat hooked up, I just keep the little draft door closed and regulate it with the manual knob on the bottom.

There are a couple.

 

[Whitespider]

It's not like any other furnace. The blower blows air over the fire, not on or below.

OH‼
Yeah, I can see how that would suck sour owl crap.
*

 

[flotek]

Just ask the wood boiler guys how great a forced fan works for efficiency . There's a reason a good modern furnace uses a natural draft principle . I've never met a person with a hotblast or the like who kept using his forced draft blower. . All complained of short burn times and discontinued use of it. .

 

[laynes69]

I forgot to add, the blower never ran until the wee hours of the morning. I would hear the rattle of the blower thru the ductwork upstairs, signaling a dead firebox. The house would climb to 80 overnight, then drop to 68 where the LP furnace was set. My wife would set the alarm clock so I could wake and feed the beast. With some airsealing, insulation and a modern furnace, life is much easier.