Hey All!
Figured I'd report in on that new furnace from Drolet....
First, how about some background, I live in a 2200 sqft 1.5 story house, with a 1500 sqft basement (3700sqft total). The House was built in '78 and was built as efficiently as they were able at the time, 6" walls with full fiberglass, with 1" styrofoam on the outside before the siding, the basement is also fully insulated, There are a lot of windows (8 are considered "picture" windows byu the insurance comapny) however, most are newer thermopanes at least.
The house has electric baseboard for the primary heat, and the previous owner had a RiteWay 73 furnace in teh basement with one giant duct straight to the kitchen which is in the middle of the first floor. I burned with that riteway for 2 years. It heated the house... but it took a LOT of wood, with a 7.3 cubicfoot firebox, that it could burn through in 4-5 hrs... you can only imagine how old that go.
So this year I decided to upgrade, I searched around, Kuuma, PSG, Blaze King (I used to have a princess insert in my last house and was happy with it), Boiler system, The Napoleon HMF furnaces, etc. I eventually decided on the Drolet Tundra #1 because of the price (I got it for $1599 on sale last week at Family Home and Farm), and 2# because of the raving reviews of the PSG Caddy.
I am not entirely sure if the stove has the grunt to heat the whole house when it starts getting real cold... but since the price for something larger, like the Kuuma (>$4k) and the MaxCaddy (quoted by my "local" dealer at $4700), I decided to go for the MUCH cheaper tundra.
Took me all weekend, but I managed to get the old stove out, and the new stove in and hooked up, I wasn't sure if it would draft that well, (the manual says no more than 2 90° turns before the chimney and I have 2 plus another 45°. But it sure looks pretty in place.
I fired it last night just for the fun of it, I completely smoked up the house due to the curing paint, but that's expected. The stove started easily enough and teh chimney drafted just great ( even with all the bends, it's still a 30' interior chimney, so it's got some heavy pull when it's hot).
I't's going to take some getting used to, as the damper system is either fully on or fully off, I've never run a stove like that before. But once it was up to temp, I shut off the primary damper and the secondaries flared right up and the heat poured out. The other great thing is when I woke up this morninger and checked (12 hr's after startign it) there was plenty of coals to restart a new fir, no heat.. but LOTS of coals, that is something my RiteWay would never do.
So far the negatives I have found...
-I am not a big fan of the wingnuts closures for the heat exchanger and ash drawer. They look cheap and tacky and will probably be a pain to use and have a good potential for losing the wingnuts by dropping them. I understand it was a cost saving measure to get the unit to the 1599... but I'd have paid more to get nice hinged doors with over-center handle locks.
-The on/off switch for the primary air is on the back of the stove, it is very inconvenient to hit, especially when the unit is hot. I'll probably eventually remoting wire the switch to a better place.
-The blower is pretty nice and pretty quiet, but I'm not sure it'll have the grunt to push air all the way to the second floor when I get around to ducting the house (to be fair, I haven't changed the setting from the "medium-low" default setting and it could potentially push much more when switched to high, we'll see)
Anyhow, that's I got for now, I hope it works out, so far I really like it and I think it was a fantastic value at the price point. Especially if I can get the tax credit at the endo f the year.
I'll post pictures when I get a chance.
Figured I'd report in on that new furnace from Drolet....
First, how about some background, I live in a 2200 sqft 1.5 story house, with a 1500 sqft basement (3700sqft total). The House was built in '78 and was built as efficiently as they were able at the time, 6" walls with full fiberglass, with 1" styrofoam on the outside before the siding, the basement is also fully insulated, There are a lot of windows (8 are considered "picture" windows byu the insurance comapny) however, most are newer thermopanes at least.
The house has electric baseboard for the primary heat, and the previous owner had a RiteWay 73 furnace in teh basement with one giant duct straight to the kitchen which is in the middle of the first floor. I burned with that riteway for 2 years. It heated the house... but it took a LOT of wood, with a 7.3 cubicfoot firebox, that it could burn through in 4-5 hrs... you can only imagine how old that go.
So this year I decided to upgrade, I searched around, Kuuma, PSG, Blaze King (I used to have a princess insert in my last house and was happy with it), Boiler system, The Napoleon HMF furnaces, etc. I eventually decided on the Drolet Tundra #1 because of the price (I got it for $1599 on sale last week at Family Home and Farm), and 2# because of the raving reviews of the PSG Caddy.
I am not entirely sure if the stove has the grunt to heat the whole house when it starts getting real cold... but since the price for something larger, like the Kuuma (>$4k) and the MaxCaddy (quoted by my "local" dealer at $4700), I decided to go for the MUCH cheaper tundra.
Took me all weekend, but I managed to get the old stove out, and the new stove in and hooked up, I wasn't sure if it would draft that well, (the manual says no more than 2 90° turns before the chimney and I have 2 plus another 45°. But it sure looks pretty in place.
I fired it last night just for the fun of it, I completely smoked up the house due to the curing paint, but that's expected. The stove started easily enough and teh chimney drafted just great ( even with all the bends, it's still a 30' interior chimney, so it's got some heavy pull when it's hot).
I't's going to take some getting used to, as the damper system is either fully on or fully off, I've never run a stove like that before. But once it was up to temp, I shut off the primary damper and the secondaries flared right up and the heat poured out. The other great thing is when I woke up this morninger and checked (12 hr's after startign it) there was plenty of coals to restart a new fir, no heat.. but LOTS of coals, that is something my RiteWay would never do.
So far the negatives I have found...
-I am not a big fan of the wingnuts closures for the heat exchanger and ash drawer. They look cheap and tacky and will probably be a pain to use and have a good potential for losing the wingnuts by dropping them. I understand it was a cost saving measure to get the unit to the 1599... but I'd have paid more to get nice hinged doors with over-center handle locks.
-The on/off switch for the primary air is on the back of the stove, it is very inconvenient to hit, especially when the unit is hot. I'll probably eventually remoting wire the switch to a better place.
-The blower is pretty nice and pretty quiet, but I'm not sure it'll have the grunt to push air all the way to the second floor when I get around to ducting the house (to be fair, I haven't changed the setting from the "medium-low" default setting and it could potentially push much more when switched to high, we'll see)
Anyhow, that's I got for now, I hope it works out, so far I really like it and I think it was a fantastic value at the price point. Especially if I can get the tax credit at the endo f the year.
I'll post pictures when I get a chance.
![[Hearth.com] Drolet HeatMax Review/Install](/talk/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.tapatalk.com%2Fd%2F13%2F12%2F16%2Fu8ujagym.jpg&hash=2a37609b1fb8a6c7fe04619d51432024 "[Hearth.com] Drolet HeatMax Review/Install")
