Hampton HI400 Installed!!!!

msjones2452 · Mar 24, 2015

Whew, finally got it put in !!!

Ran into a few problems and worked late into the night Saturday but she's finally there. I think it looks pretty good and the wife loves it. Sorry for some of the blurred pictures, someone hasn't figured out the whole flash thing yet!

fire245 · Mar 24, 2015

msjones2452 said:
Whew, finally got it put in Ran into a few problems and worked late into the night Saturday but she's finally there. I think it looks pretty good and the wife loves it. Sorry for some of the blurred pictures, someone hasn't figured out the whole flash thing yet!

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Nice unit, a little tip, if your burn time are less than impressive there is a air restrictor for that unit and make sure the knock outs are removed in the shell.

Woody Stover · Mar 24, 2015

Nice-lookin' stove! :cool:

Firin' it tonight? How tall is your stack?

msjones2452 said:
Ran into a few problems

So we heard.

Hogwildz · Mar 24, 2015

Make sure the wife cleans all those fingerprints off that nice new enamel...

jophysx · Mar 24, 2015

Can't wait to hear what kind of burn times you get out of that unit.

msjones2452 · Mar 25, 2015

Well, I fired her up for a little while last night. All I can say is......Holly Giant Bird Droppings Batman !!!

That thing put out some serious heat! I'm not at all used to these as I've only used open hearth fireplaces before. It's kinda nice not heating the outside of my house for once. As far as burn times and performance, well I don't know yet. So far it seems relatively promising. I'm just getting the break in fires out of the way so I'm not really pushing anything....OR at least not trying to. I got her a little hotter than I planned because my digital catalytic temp. probe didn't work to well. I kept waiting for the temp to get up to 500 ::F

and it never really did. Even though I eventually just closed the bypass and the cat seemed to be firing just fine. The probe never displayed above 500 and just kept flashing between COOL/350/400/450 ::F

with brief periodic flashes at 500 ::F

. It never settled in on a temp.

I burned through about 6 small splits of pine mostly because I was running it wide open waiting for the temp. probe to register. After I finally just closed the bypass and shut down the air a little, I loaded one sm/med split and one med/lg split (pine still) and let her go. That was around 10pm. When I went to bed the first floor was around 75 ::F

and the upstairs was just a few degrees cooler. This morning at 6am the blower was off, the stove was warm, there was a great coal bed and the first floor was 69 ::F

. I have no idea how long the blower ran or cat fired but considering when I normally get up the house is around 64 ::F

, I couldn't really complain. I don't think that's too bad for two splits of pine. Grant it, the outside temps didn't get anywhere near as cold as expected (around mid+ 40's).

I can say that it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of control of the primary air. Even with it shut down completely, there was still quite a bit of open flame. It doesn't look like mine has the restrictor plate already installed, so I'll have to contact my dealer about that. My liner is just under 15' or just over 14' depending on whether or not your a half empty or half full kinda guy. So far, it seems to draft really well. Start up was a little sluggish but it didn't take long to get things rollin'. Now, about those fingerprints! I really need to have a talk with the installer - you'd think he would've cleaned up after himself! ;lol

mellow · Mar 26, 2015

Is the thermocouple installed 2 inches behind the cat? Just an FYI, I have found it will not read correct temps from the front of the cat.

Feel free to checkout my thread on trying to read cat temps from the front: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/digital-cat-probe.105221/

I ended up just going back to using my Condar Catalytic Probe to read my cat temps, it was much more accurate from the front.

I put the thermocouple on my exhaust and use that now to see temps from across the room.

msjones2452 · Mar 26, 2015

mellow said:
Is the thermocouple installed 2 inches behind the cat? Just an FYI, I have found it will not read correct temps from the front of the cat.

Feel free to checkout my thread on trying to read cat temps from the front: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/digital-cat-probe.105221/

I ended up just going back to using my Condar Catalytic Probe to read my cat temps, it was much more accurate from the front.

I put the thermocouple on my exhaust and use that now to see temps from across the room.

Thanks for the info. I haven't had a chance to really go through your thread but I did glance at it earlier. I'm using the supplied hole on top of the insert. It's behind the Cat, the tip is only about 1/2" away though. According to the instructions that's where it's supposed to be. I contacted Condar and they think it's a bad circuit board. They're sending me a new unit, should be here early next week. Can't beat that for customer service!

Wolves1 · Apr 3, 2015

Still in England will be back tues missing the last of the burning season I think. I'll have to enjoy through you guys so please let me know how it's going. Remember that every few weeks the gasket breaks in and you need to take washers off, also take a paint brush and brush the gasket, helps to fluff it up.

msjones2452 · Apr 3, 2015

Well, as has been so elegantly put before: "It's gettin' hot in here, so take off all your clothes".

Got a little cool around here so I fired her up around 2:30pm yesterday, started a top down fire then put about 1/2 load in around 4pm. The idea was to get me to around 10pm, that was no problem. I packed the firebox as full as I could at 10:30pm w/odd pieces I had - not even sure what kinda wood. Lit off almost instantly as the coal bed was ridiculously hot !!!

!! From 2:30 to 10:30 the house went to 70 ::F

with outside temps dropping from low 40's to mid 30's. From 10:30 to midnight the inside temps went to 75 ::F

with outside temps dropping into low 30's. This morning I got up for work and there was easily enough wood/coals to last another hour+, so she cruised into 7 hours no problem. I loaded up the firebox again w/mixed odds and two splits of pine. Not as packed as last night but with the amount of coals in there, I couldn't get much more in. Last I talked to the wife, around 2:30 this afternoon, the CAT temp had just dropped to 400 ::F

w/the blower still pushin' a lot of heat and the stove radiating just as much. The house was still at 70 ::F

with outside temps in low 40's. That's NINE solid hours of heat and she was still cruisin'. Won't talk to the wife again until late tonight so I'll have to wait to see how long it went. Overall, the house was VERY comfortable in shorts/t-shirts all evening and sounds like it's still comfortable today!

Now for the issues. There's only two complaints I have with the insert. Even on a decent burn, the glass gets black around the lower corners covering all but the center and top. With everything shut down, it really gets dark and it's pretty tough to get clean. The other is the size of the firebox. Actually not so much size but configuration. With the angled sides it's kind of tough to get a good uniform load. I'm sure as I play with it and start getting better wood I'll figure out the best way to load it but for now I can't really get a good/uniform load. I think my burn/heating times would be even higher if I could get a good load.

Lastly is the Condar digital temp. probe. The first one I had didn't really work at all. They sent me a new one thinking it had a bad control board. That was nice but I have to pay the shipping back of the old one. I only used it twice and it didn't work from the beginning! The new one was acting a little weird at first too. I had it powered by their AC adaptor and it kept flashing different temps. It just wouldn't hold anywhere. I ended up using a 9V battery and now it seems to work o.k. I still don't completely trust it though. Last night and this morning my CAT was glowing super bright red and the flame shield was even starting to glow. The temp. never showed over 1050 ::F

. It even started glowing last night before I closed the bypass and the reading was only 400 ::F

I have some good pic's from last night/this morn. but for some reason my phone isn't downloading them onto the computer. It also won't let me post them on here straight from the phone. Damn smart phones :mad:

msjones2452 · Apr 4, 2015

Just talked to the wife for the night. She said the blower didn't shut down until around 5:30pm - that's 12 hours!! She said that even then it was still blowing nice warm air and the house was at 70 ::F

. At 10:30pm the stove and glass were still pretty warm to the touch and the house still "felt" warm. She didn't even kick the furnace back on until 8:30. I am very pleased right now! :cool:

Grant it, the day time temps got into the mid 40's today but I was only expecting 6-8 hours.

Wolves1 · Apr 4, 2015

msjones2452 said:
Well, as has been so elegantly put before: "It's gettin' hot in here, so take off all your clothes".

Got a little cool around here so I fired her up around 2:30pm yesterday, started a top down fire then put about 1/2 load in around 4pm. The idea was to get me to around 10pm, that was no problem. I packed the firebox as full as I could at 10:30pm w/odd pieces I had - not even sure what kinda wood. Lit off almost instantly as the coal bed was ridiculously hot!! From 2:30 to 10:30 the house went to 70 with outside temps dropping from low 40's to mid 30's. From 10:30 to midnight the inside temps went to 75 with outside temps dropping into low 30's. This morning I got up for work and there was easily enough wood/coals to last another hour+, so she cruised into 7 hours no problem. I loaded up the firebox again w/mixed odds and two splits of pine. Not as packed as last night but with the amount of coals in there, I couldn't get much more in. Last I talked to the wife, around 2:30 this afternoon, the CAT temp had just dropped to 400 w/the blower still pushin' a lot of heat and the stove radiating just as much. The house was still at 70 with outside temps in low 40's. That's NINE solid hours of heat and she was still cruisin'. Won't talk to the wife again until late tonight so I'll have to wait to see how long it went. Overall, the house was VERY comfortable in shorts/t-shirts all evening and sounds like it's still comfortable today!

Now for the issues. There's only two complaints I have with the insert. Even on a decent burn, the glass gets black around the lower corners covering all but the center and top. With everything shut down, it really gets dark and it's pretty tough to get clean. The other is the size of the firebox. Actually not so much size but configuration. With the angled sides it's kind of tough to get a good uniform load. I'm sure as I play with it and start getting better wood I'll figure out the best way to load it but for now I can't really get a good/uniform load. I think my burn/heating times would be even higher if I could get a good load.

Lastly is the Condar digital temp. probe. The first one I had didn't really work at all. They sent me a new one thinking it had a bad control board. That was nice but I have to pay the shipping back of the old one. I only used it twice and it didn't work from the beginning! The new one was acting a little weird at first too. I had it powered by their AC adaptor and it kept flashing different temps. It just wouldn't hold anywhere. I ended up using a 9V battery and now it seems to work o.k. I still don't completely trust it though. Last night and this morning my CAT was glowing super bright red and the flame shield was even starting to glow. The temp. never showed over 1050. It even started glowing last night before I closed the bypass and the reading was only 400

I have some good pic's from last night/this morn. but for some reason my phone isn't downloading them onto the computer. It also won't let me post them on here straight from the phone. Damn smart phones

I have the same problem with the glass in the fall and now spring, in the heart of winter when temps get really cold it is cristal clear the black just burns off on its own. This is common on cat stoves. With the wood when I fill it up I'll fill east west shorter pieces in the back all the way to one side, fill it all the way to the glass and to the top, because the wood is pushed to one side I can fit two pieces north south on the other side.

msjones2452 · Apr 20, 2015

Quick update! Well, it's been in the low 30's to low 40's since Thursday and the insert has so far exceeded our expectations!!

The house has never been warmer. I'm consistantly getting 10 - 12 hours of heat from a load and have hit the 14+ hour mark three or four times since installing :cool:

. Grant it, the CAT is NOT at temp this entire time and there is no active flame for most of it but I'm still getting good heat for that amount of time. For those that are curious, I don't consider the loading/firing or heat up time before I engage the CAT in these times. That is actual time that we get good heat w/blower on AFTER I close the bypass.

Overall, the wife and I are very pleased. So far, the only complaint I have is with the glass. It's a huge window but it's pretty black right now. I guess that's a price I'm willing to pay for those kind of times!

Not the best pics but you get the idea.

msjones2452 · Apr 20, 2015

Wolves1 said:
I have the same problem with the glass in the fall and now spring, in the heart of winter when temps get really cold it is cristal clear the black just burns off on its own. This is common on cat stoves. With the wood when I fill it up I'll fill east west shorter pieces in the back all the way to one side, fill it all the way to the glass and to the top, because the wood is pushed to one side I can fit two pieces north south on the other side.

Thanks for the info Wolves! I've tried your loading technique, sort of, and I've been able to get a little more in. Right now I'm burning odd and end pieces because it's all I have seasoned. Once I get some more consistant splits and more practice I think it'll get even better. I have learned to keep some oddball size/shaped stuff on hand to fill those nooks and crannies! ::-)

msjones2452 · May 5, 2015

Quick update, I fired her up last night. Didn't really need too, mostly just wanted too! It was cool and rainy last night, so I figured "what the hey!"

This was my first burn in over a week. I got caught of gaurd by the CAT temps. Usually, the temp gauge hovers around 1050 - 1100 ::F

. Last night, it shot up to 1450 ::F

really quickly and stayed there for 2+ hours then slowely dropped to 1350 ::F

and stayed there for at least another hour (not sure how long, I finally went to bed!). I didn't do anything any different, used the same wood with roughly the same load as always. The stove temps weren't really any higher than normal either. The only real difference is that I had a little les active flame for the first 30mins or so after I got her going than usual but the secondaries kicked in and the CAT temp still stayed up there.

The good news is that the house is plenty warm today - going on TWELVE hours now :cool:

! The only real complaint I have with this thing is the glass. It really gets black, even on a "high" burn it soots up in the bottom corners pretty quickly. By the end of a burn only the top edge and upper/center is still clear. Other than that the shape of the firebox makes loading a game of Jenga ;lol

.

Wolves1 · Jun 4, 2015

msjones2452 said:
Quick update, I fired her up last night. Didn't really need too, mostly just wanted too! It was cool and rainy last night, so I figured "what the hey!"

This was my first burn in over a week. I got caught of gaurd by the CAT temps. Usually, the temp gauge hovers around 1050 - 1100. Last night, it shot up to 1450 really quickly and stayed there for 2+ hours then slowely dropped to 1350 and stayed there for at least another hour (not sure how long, I finally went to bed!). I didn't do anything any different, used the same wood with roughly the same load as always. The stove temps weren't really any higher than normal either. The only real difference is that I had a little les active flame for the first 30mins or so after I got her going than usual but the secondaries kicked in and the CAT temp still stayed up there.

The good news is that the house is plenty warm today - going on TWELVE hours now! The only real complaint I have with this thing is the glass. It really gets black, even on a "high" burn it soots up in the bottom corners pretty quickly. By the end of a burn only the top edge and upper/center is still clear. Other than that the shape of the firebox makes loading a game of Jenga.

The cat thermometer temp jumps up when the battery is low.

edge-of-the-woods · Jun 10, 2015

Hi there! Looked this up from your comment on the CI2600 thread. Two questions for you.

Is this the same mix of splits that you were burning with the CI2600, i.e. were you mixing in pine in that insert, too?

Can you load this any better than the CI2600? One of my beefs with out 2600 is that they say it can take a 22" log....well, sure, it can take ONE of those, but then it narrows into the back, so it's not like you can load it full of them.

Thanks!

msjones2452 · Jun 10, 2015

Wolves1 said:
The cat thermometer temp jumps up when the battery is low.

Yea, I figured that out after my wife gently reminded me the battery had been in there quite a while ;em

!

msjones2452 · Jun 10, 2015

edge-of-the-woods said:
Hi there! Looked this up from your comment on the CI2600 thread. Two questions for you.

Is this the same mix of splits that you were burning with the CI2600, i.e. were you mixing in pine in that insert, too?

Can you load this any better than the CI2600? One of my beefs with out 2600 is that they say it can take a 22" log....well, sure, it can take ONE of those, but then it narrows into the back, so it's not like you can load it full of them.

Thanks!

I've only had the HI400 but per an e-mail conversation with Regency, the HI400 and CI2600 are the same stove just different trim. I have heard that they have made some "improvements" to them.

I often do mix hard/soft wood, including pine, mostly because I'm completely out of wood. I was pretty much burning anything I could stick in there that had a reasonably low MC. That being said, I have access to a ton of free pine now and I have no issues what so ever with burning it. I know many refuse to burn pine because it is "pitchy" and "produces a ton of creosote" but it is kind of the predominant wood out here. In addition to that, I know/have talked with a lot of people that burn pine exclusively and none of them have had any issues. The most important thing is to make sure it is well seasoned, as per two local chimney sweeps/installers. That being said, I will continue to collect as much hardwood as possible.....and softwood, mediumwood, greenwood, brownwood, yellowwood, bigwood, littlewood, etc. as long as it's free I'll take it.

I don't much care for the design of the firebox either. I think it makes loading a lot more difficult than it should be. I've kind of found that 18"-20" is a pretty good average length but I plan on keeping a mix of every size/shape/length of wood imaginable. What I've noticed is that all those odd little pieces that most would throw out or relegate to the firepit make great filler pieces. I try to stuff as much wood as physically possible into it, I'm not too picky about size/length or type of wood - at least not right now

velvetfoot · Jun 10, 2015

msjones2452 said:
I don't much care for the design of the firebox either.

Could you go into a little detail (eg, dimensions)? I like my HI300 a lot, and one of the things is that it can be loaded n/s. Just thinking maybe at some point I'll have to switch to a cat.

msjones2452 · Jun 10, 2015

velvetfoot said:
Could you go into a little detail (eg, dimensions)? I like my HI300 a lot, and one of the things is that it can be loaded n/s. Just thinking maybe at some point I'll have to switch to a cat.

First, let me say that overall I'm very happy with the HI400. Burn times and heating is right on par as advertised which actually exceeded my expectations. The only two real complaints I have is that the glass does not stay clean, even on a high burn, and the design of the firebox. The first I'm working with my dealer to solve - he thinks I may have a gasket issue or too short of a chimney. The firebox obviously can't be changed.

I very seriously considered the HI300. It made my short list but was nixed by the wife. She insisted on a flush mount: Happy wife = Happy life

so I agreed with her. If I remember correctly (we looked at A LOT of inserts) the HI300 has a square or rectangular firebox. The HI400 does not. It is wider in front and tappers to narrower in the back. There is what I think they call an "ash lip" in the front that is roughly 2"-3" higher than the floor of the firebox, 24" wide x 4.5" deep. It is basically the same size as the blower which sits directly beneath it. (I think the 300 has the same thing?)

The firebox dimensions are:
24" wide at front
19" wide at back
12" high from floor of firebox (9" from ash lip to secondary burn tube.)
12" deep (16.5" including ash lip)
Total firebox is 2.6 cu ft as per literature.

I'm still learning the best way to get a full load but have figured out that all those little odd shape/size pieces of wood that a lot of people would toss out or relegate to the fire pit make excellent hole fillers. I have discovered that the more wood I can fit and the least amount of airspace I leave the better the insert performs. If there was anything I could change, it would be the size/shape of the firebox. It would be nice if it were 3.0 cu ft (or larger

) More importantly though I wish it were square/rectangular. I think that would not only make loading quite a bit easier but also CSS my firewood!

Woody Stover · Jun 11, 2015

Well, most fireplaces are a trapezoidal shape anyway, so I guess it makes sense. The Buck is like that but I can usually find a couple chunks that are bigger at one end...

velvetfoot · Jun 11, 2015

Thanks. 12" deep wouldn't cut it for me. I've really gotten used to loading front to back.

msjones2452 · Jun 16, 2015

Woody Stover said:
Well, most fireplaces are a trapezoidal shape anyway, so I guess it makes sense. The Buck is like that but I can usually find a couple chunks that are bigger at one end...

Ahh! You are correct, the biggest differences though are that a masonry fireplace has a MUCH larger firebox than a stove/insert and "usually" one isn't trying to completely stuff them for maximum efficiency. That being said, I figure there's reason Regency designed their firebox that way. I just need to get more practice loading and a good supply of seasoned wood. I think this coming winter I'll learn a lot more about what works and what doesn't. I'm kinda preplanning now by cutting/splitting multiple different sizes/shapes for some good old fashion experimenting

!!

msjones2452 · Jun 16, 2015

velvetfoot said:
Thanks. 12" deep wouldn't cut it for me. I've really gotten used to loading front to back.

No problem. It is pretty shallow, I have loaded it a few time with the first layer running E/W then everything else N/S. That allows me to load on top of the ash lip. Still has to be a little shorter splits but it worked o.k. The shape and size of the firebox tends to lend itself more towards E/W I think. Who knows, maybe here in the near future Regency will redesign and make it a little bigger/deeper.

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