Energy King 385 E.P.A.

  • 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.

ronoz

Member
Aug 15, 2008
37
CT
Has anyone ever seen or used one of these? I just saw one today at my local stove company. This furnace looks like one heavy duty, beefy furnace. Needless to say, I was very impressed with the build quality of this furnace. Here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hmg4u142IM. I'm looking for a replacement for my Englander 28-3500 which was recently replaced with a new one due to cracking on the old one. There is a post on this issue if you want to check it out. Fortunately, England Stove Works sent me a new one which I thought was great of the company to do even though I did all the hauling and paid $98.00 for shipping.

As of right now though, I'm not sure if I want to keep this furnace or sell it and go with a different furnace. I've been checking out the new E.P.A. furnaces for quite some time and am thinking about replacing my new Englander with one of these. I like the glass viewing door on my Englander furnace therefore, I've narrowed my search down to the Energy King 385ek or the PSG Caddy/Max Caddy. The Yukon's/Kuuma's/Blaze King's look like very nice furnaces however, they don't have glass viewing doors on them as far as I know. Also, the Energy King is the only one sold here locally in CT.

I have a 2200+ sq. ft. colonial style home (2 story plus basement) recently built in 2006 in which the furnace would be located in the basement connected parallel to my current Hydro-Air heating/cooling system just as my Englander was. For what it's worth, my Englander never had any problem heating my home to temps between 70-80 degrees in the middle of winter. The only reason that I am contemplating selling the new, replacement Englander furnace is because of the cracking issues that occurred on my previous one.

Any help recommending a new furnace would be greatly appreciated. I know that you guys on this forum are very knowledgeable and helpful so I look forward to your thoughts regarding this matter. As of right now, I am leaning toward the Energy King furnace since they sell this furnace locally. Unfortunately, there are no PSG dealers near me so I can't even check one out in person. Franks, I know that you deal/sell the PSG Caddy's in NY so any help/advise from you would be great. I read these forums just about every day and am confident that you guys can help me out with this decision. Thanks!
 
As of currently I thing the only EPA rated wood furnace is the Caddy. But if the secondary combustion works well on the 385, I wouldn't hesitate to purchase one. The only thing I'm not sure about on the 385 is cleaning the tubes at the top of the furnace. If you get a caddy, they require well seasoned wood to operate properly, and the right chimney setup.
 
Thanks Laynes! On your Caddy, does smoke pass through all three of the secondary heat exchange tubes on top or just through the main one in the center. On the Energy King, only warm air passes through the heat exchange tubes so I'm not sure why they would have to be cleaned especially since I would have a filter box around the fan unit. Also, how many secondary burn tubes are located inside the Caddy and are they stainless steel? What do you mean by the right chimney set-up? I have a Class A triple insulated SS chimney which runs through the concrete foundation in my basement and up along the outside of my home which is about 40' high. The chimney is boxed in and vinyl sided. Would that work?
 
All the flue gasses go through both the left and right tubes, then into the center to extract the heat. On the 385 warm air passes through the tubes but on the outside of those tubes they get all the flue gasses. Whatever collects on them thats not removed can cause corrosion because they are in the furnace. The caddy is nice because you can open the door in the front and run the cleaning tool down the tubes while its in operation. I don't know if the baffle on the Caddy is still stainless, but my baffle is stainless with an insulation blanket and there are 4 tubes that are stainless also. Its not unusual to see them glow. You need a 6" chimney and it sounds like your good there. You will probably need a barometric damper with a chimney that high to keep the draft speeds down.
 
OK, now I understand what you meant. There is access to these secondary heat exchange tubes on the Energy King. All you have to do is remove the top fire brick to access them but once you do, you can get at them from inside the fire box to clean them. I like the design of the Caddy though since the flue gasses pass through all three tubes before exiting the furnace. I would think that this would allow the flue gasses to burn more completely before exiting the furnace.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.