Hearthstone Build Quality?

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.
My wife didn't like the feet either and Hearthstone apparently heard her. The Mansfield lost the duck feet a last year I believe. The new legs look much better.

View attachment 102260

Looking much better. Nice to have no R requirement for the hearth too. Good moves.
 
I haven't seen the manchester in person yet.
They've got a brown one in a shop here; That is one sweet-lookin' piece. :cool:

Open the door and lift up on the bottom outside corner of the door. Feel how much slop is in the hinge.
I noticed a bit of slop in the hinges on SIL's Fireview, probably fifteen years old. Also looked like it had a hinge pin that wasn't OEM. I put a bigger pin in and that helped. I think I'll rub some pencil lead on my Woodstock hinges from time to time...
 
If my memory is correct, that last time we looked at new stoves, Hearthstone was the first one we looked at. The do have some beautiful stoves.
 
Their door handles do leave a little to be desired. They are upgrading a lot of them on the new models. . .
Yeah, it looks like they went with an industrial-strength latch for the beautiful new Manchester. Hopefully, this is a good design that will trickle into the other stoves.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/hearthstone-manchester.108690/


HS vs. WS. . .clearly I am biased, but I have a few impressions to share, FWIW. It be that there are simply more HS stoves out there, but it seems like more of the reports of cracked stones involve HS than WS, and the WS designs seem to be more fail-safe. HS uses single 1.5"-thick stones. WS uses double-wall 1.0" + 0.75" stone on the older models. The PH uses a steel firebox with stone attached inside and out, so any cracks in the stone would have no effect on function, AFAIK.

Also, it seems like a few HS owners have issues with losing heat up the flue, so they run a flue damper. . .it may just be coincidence that several HS owners have tall chimneys and need a damper, but this does seem to me to be more common with HS installs.
 
Also, it seems like a few HS owners have issues with losing heat up the flue, so they run a flue damper. . .it may just be coincidence that several HS owners have tall chimneys and need a damper, but this does seem to me to be more common with HS installs.

This is my only problem with my Mansfield running on a 15 ft chimney. But I still love her even with duck feet.
 
My heritage dumped copious amounts of heat up the flue. Air shut off cruise for overnight burn would easily be at 800 internal flue temps. Frequently ran the flue temps up past 1000. Pretty ridiculous. That said, the dang thing performed per the specs so I blame most of that flue heat on the non-cat design in general.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.