Central Boiler E-Classic 1400 - opinions please

[Dean186]

Dave, Our house is 4,300 sq feet with a two car heated garage.  The basement is 1,300 sq feet of that number, so there is 3,000 sq feet above ground.  Since the kids no longer live here, we have 600 sq feet of that number closed off.  I keep the garage thermostat set at 40 degrees.   The house is modern construction with 4x6 walls and only one small area of the house has a vaulted ceiling.  There are lots of windows, which is the big item for heat loss.

So, a shorter answer is:  95% of the time we will be heating 2,400 sq feet and the other 5% we will be heating 4,300 sq feet.

Dean

[jj7218]

New to forum. I would like to thank all of the users of this forum and others like it. I ordered a e classic 1400 in July and found this forum in August. I did not feel real confident in my purchase after reading many posts on the e classics. The install was not easy for me but its done. I have been problem free so far and very pleased. I have a 2600 sq ft home that up to now was costing me $4800/yr to heat with propane and we were not comfortable. Now i walk around the house in shorts and a t shirt for the price of  2 armfulls of wood a day. It has been a mild fall in central New York. I have only had one real problem if you want to call it that. My wife left the bypass open overnight when I was out of town. I tested the water and everything is fine and water level itself didnt budge. Now that the colder weather is finally here my e classic seems to run even better than before. I have been running it since the 2nd weekend in October. It was great reading all the post on the e classics prior to operating the unit. I knew what to look for before problems popped up. This whole project could have been a real disaster without the tips from all you great folks. Thanks

[dva]

Welcome JJ7218

Keep us posted on your experiences with the boiler.

Happy holidays
Dave

[TimNichols]

For what it's worth, I had my E-Classic 1400 installed just a little over a week ago.  We're still on our honeymoon but I'm in love with it at this point.  Once the coal bed is established I get very little smoke as long as I'm using well-seasoned wood.  My house is about 2,300 square feet and over 200 years old (some drafts) and I'm satisfied that it will keep us warm.  Temperatures have been in the 20s and lower lately and we've kept the temperature at about 70 most of the time.  Loading it up in the morning and evening is good enough.
I'm burning mostly oak, but I have a huge stack of black walnut from some trees I cut last winter.  I'm burning the black walnut mostly when I'm going to be around because it seems to burn up faster, but still keeps the boiler up to temperature.  I've also found that I can get away with some huge logs as long as there's a nice bed of coals and I put down a layer of smaller logs on the coals and around the big log.  I haven't put more than one big log in at a time.  Even with all smaller-diameter logs I get some bridging, but I've never let it go long enough to see if the pile will fall in.  Instead, I just knock it down (always easily done) and pile in some more wood.
Oh.  Do heed the warnings about standing back when you first open the door.  I was eager to check the coals one day so I opened the bypass, opened the door to the firebox and got a nice singe job on my face and hair.  I wasn't injured and I don't mean to suggest that this is a flaw, because the warnings are clear in the literature, but the warnings are there for a reason.  It does happen, so standing back behind the door for a second when you open is a good standard practice.
I'll check back from time to time to see what others report about their E-Classics.

[jj7218]

Tim, I have yet to have any real problem with logs hanging up. They do fall if you leave them. I have had a problem with a thick liquid creosote low in the fire box. I am also burning mostly oak and some ash. It is about a year old but I wonder if it still is holding moisture. Something else to watch is when you have the door open for long periods of time in the rain or snow. You get a rock hard ball of ash (tar like). I bent a hoe trying to get this out. After cleaning out the firebox and getting some colder weather the extreme heat made it brittle. I now use a sidewalk scraper daily before loading just to loosen everything up. The lower air holes in the firebox crust over very easy. I like to let the fire burn down every few days
so I can realy get at them. The units burns much nicer when those holes are clear (less smoke). I think most of that was the fire was idling so much in the warmer temps. Now that it is getting good and cold the units cleans itself.

[Guitarjunkie37]

Just installed a 1400 about 30 days ago and everything is working great.  They are runing a great deal on them here and I got $1000 dollar instant rebate off the stove and it qualifys for the 1500 tax rebate. After rebate and tax credit the stove cost $7200 plus the install.