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[ouch]

I bought my first Hawken energy furnace back in 2006. this original unit was built by Global Hydrnics, and marketed by hawken. it consisted of a 409 stainless fire box, and a mild steel exterior. The stove appeared to be well built, and he fit and finish was excellent. However last september I poured a new slab for the stove to sit on, and when I refilled the furnace I noticed a bubble in the paint on the back of the funrnace that was leaking water. this one bubble turned into 3 and I had to add water to it every three days.

After nearly 3 months of constant pushing, Hawken replaced my furnace with a HE1100. The differences, and short falls were aparent instantly. Hawken now uses a shop called "custom welding" to build the boiler section, and hawken finishes them, poorly. my stove started leaking a black liquid out the right lower corner of the door from day one. I was informed by Dave Sanderson at Hawken that this was normal, and it would go away after a couple days. It has been more than 2 months and it is still leaking, creating a slick under the door that builds up about 3 inches thick in a week or so.

I thought it was strange that the stove took a long time to come up to temperature, it took 7 hours when I first fired it, and then it would usually run wide open for at least an hour to maintain the temperature. I am burning dry, dead oak, cherry and hickory ( dead enough the bark has fallen off most of it) I couldn't go more than 8 hours before the fire was out and here was nothing more than cold ash in the bottom, or the furnace would blow out the flame and it would be cold with charred wood in the firebox. either way I was coming home to a cold house.

I found that the draft blower was blowing too much air into the firebox, effectively blowing all the heat right out the stack. I have spoken to two other owners that have the exact conditions. I restricted the hole in the blower box to throttle back the air. this made a huge improvement in burn time, and efficiency.

I also noticed that the seal tight that runs from the tin cabinet to the blower on the door broke, this seems to be normal with the two other owners I spoke with. Also there is a severe lack of insulation around the burn pot, in the front door (causing condensation) and in the back of the stove. the roof of the furnace gets quite hot in the back, and rarely allows snow to build on it anywhere.

the response from Hawken has been dismal, several times I have been told "I don't know", and most recently I was told that it is my fault the stove burns so much wood, leaks black stuff, looses heat, and the seal tight broke because I didn;t buy my heat exchanger and filter directly through Hawken... even though I have an AIC LB31-70x heat exchanger (same brand and series they sell on ebay) and a Rusco spindown filter/ strainer (same as Hawken sells on ebay).
I pointed this out to Dave, and i still haven't received a response.

I am thoroughly disgusted with the lack of service and attempt to blame poor workmanship, and cheap materials on not purchasing parts through hawken. Dave sanderson paid attention in his marketing classes, and will feed you a line of B.S. a mile long. Don't buy a word of it. Most of what he says are half truths and Lies.

If you own a HE1100 and you don't have problems with wood consumption, let me know. I am interested in some measurements. 

have a good one,

Ouch

[Tiny Tim]

Ouch,

Wow that is quite a story, I am  basically in the same situation I had a Global Hydronics He- 1000 In my previous house I was tempted to take it to our new house but the wife talked me out of it, So I contacted hawken and they gave me the number to a dealer in my area who was very knowledgeable and I had the he-1100 Installed in the new house. After about two weeks I went out to fill it up and heard a noise comeing from the blower motor ,It only lasted a few minutes but i was concerened so I called up the dealer i bought it from and told him about the noise. He told me that he would be by in the evening to check it out, When he came by the motor was not makeing the noise and was acting like it should be. I thought he was going to tell me to just keep an eye on it but the next thing i knew he was removeing the motor and replaceing it. I said dont you even want to hear the noise before you do that and he said that he called hawken and they told him to replace it no questions asked, and the best part was ther was no out of pocket expense for me. So as far as the warrenty hawken really pulled thru for me,I know that hawken are makeing their own furnaces now and are not buying from global anymore, And to hear that hawken is still keeping up with globals warrenty and replaceing it with their own says alot about the company, They could have said to contact global up there in canada and talk to them. I know of a guy that had to ship his furnace to canada and pay 1600.00 for shipping to have a leak fixed on a global furnace.  My question to you is if your old one was leaking and you did not like the 3 month time frame that it took hawken to replace it why did you accept anouther one and did not go with anouther brand. I ordered my furnace last year and it took 4 1/2 monthes to come in due to the high demand for outdoor furnaces last year with fuel prices, If you ask anyone who ordered a furnace last year they will tell you about the wait. So 3 months for a replacement sounds like they took care of you.I have 6 neighbors around my area that I know of that have the he1100 and 1 that has the he-2100 and they are nothing short of happy with the performance of the Hawken brand. The only complaint that I have is once the pumps are in the back of the furnace the insulation is hard to fit around the pumps, All i did to fix that was goto the hardware store and put anouther batt of insulation in there. as far as the snow melting off my roof it does around the chimney pipe going up but the rest of the roof will hold snow until the sun beats down on it. And  the black stuff comeing out of the corner of the door anyone that has ever used an outdoor furnace can tell you that it is caused by high moisture in the wood  my old global 1000 did it when i burned that kind of wood, and the time it took your furnace to get up to temp sounds like you are burning wood with a high moisture content, Me and the neighbors that i have talked to get on the average a 12 to 13 hour burn time on seasoned oak, I would highly recommend hawken to anyone who wants a good quality furnance, I have a very hard time beleiving this story about hawken based on my experiances and my neighbors We have nothing but good things to say about hawken. By the way my 1100 burns just as much as my 1000 did. 


Tim

[Stihl man]

Good post tim I agree. If it is so dry that the bark fell off It sounds that the hardwood was turning soft and took on some moisture espically if it took 7 hours to get to temp? Black stuff comeing out of the door? all signs of moisture in the wood.The Heat going out the chimney? The moisture is starving your Btu's .Maybe I should have pushed my dealer for 3 months  to get me my furnace faster I Could have been useing it 2 months sooner. One of the things that i like about hawken is they want you to use certian parts so your boiler can be all it can be. They dont want you to buy a hummer and use Kia Parts on it. I done some searches trying to find a better deal on the same parts on ebay and a few outher sites and nobody can touch their prices except on the water to air exchangers.(I called my dealer for priceing and he got  them cheaper than hawkens store on ebay).And the comment about Dave, He is very smart when it comes to these furnaces he knows them inside and out, I have spent many hours on the phone with him going over my questions and thru my install and purchase. I get a 12 hr Burn time With my 1100. Ouch try to get some PROPERLY seasoned wood and let me know if it make a difference I think we will hear a different story. I would like to see a post on how outher companys handle their warranty issues so we can compare who stands behind what. It sounds like hawken stood behind their product very well to me. I like my hawken furnace and the support of the hawken team.

[ouch]

Tinytim, sthilman,

Nice try. You both reek of corporate affiliation.

it seems almost to easy for the two of you to tell me what is wrong with this stove.
how the door leak is due to my wood? that the consumption is due to my wood?
that my parts are incorrect?

good luck.

oh, you wanted to know why I didn't go with another brand, I wasn't given a choice.

Everyone, take notice that tinytim and sthilman are nothing more than employees of hawken energy, if not Dave and Warren themselves.

I never saw any leakage from the GH furnace. and I burned some really green wood in it.
it seems to me that you both are trying to salvage what's left of a reputation built on someone elses hard work.
Hawken sold Global Hydronics furnaces for years. Customers bought the furnaces under the auspice that Hawken manufactured them.
I was never given any reason to believe otherwise. Now because of some stinkeye hissy fit between Hawken and Global, Hawken decided to try to make their own.
these HE1100 furnaces are little more than a burn barrel surrounded by water. To say that I am impatient is an insult. I paid good money for the original furnace.
I paid the extra cash for stainless, and something that at least looked good. These new furnaces look like some soft headed mouth breather had one too manu hands in the
design work.  Tiny tim, and Sthilman, You both need to realize that posts are much easier to read when the spelling is correct, and there is some form of punctuation.

I have been burning wood for a very long time. I have yet to see moisture in wood cause excessive heat loss through a chimeny.
I have seen excessive CFM's from a draft blower cause ash to blow out of the chimeny of a pathetic excuse of a furnace.. model number HE1100

I beleive it is time to have tha administrator step in and remove your posts. They have been placed in a matter of 3 days, and only in regards to negative comments about hawken furnaces.
this makes your motive all too aparent.

If anyone reads this and has thought about purchasing a Hawken furnace, take note!
their "no questions asked" warranty is a sham. their serviceman left Monday afternoon the 2nd, and that evening the door was leaking at full tilt.
wet wood or not, I was told that it shouldn't leak at all. They are supposed to be AIR TIGHT! I have heard nothing but excuses since then.
Prompt service, not hardly. If you received prompt courteous service, I am happy for you. However this is not the case for everyone. I have received some of the most insulting, and incoherent emails
from the owner, and his P.R. man.
So before you decide to make me look bad on a forum, you had better realize that I am telling the truth, and I will not hesitate to post the emails, photos and video footage.

to everyone else, I apologize for bringing this into the forum.

sincerely.

Ouch.


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[willieG]

ouch i am sorry you have had a bad experience with your stove..however i would like to make apoint about ash and btu going out the chimney of these stoves (not just your model)  have you ever stopped to think that if you filled a fireplace as full of wood as it would take and then shortened the chimney to 3 feet you might get the same results? as for the blower causing this..i will agree that it does push some btu out the chimney..but this same blower feeds the fire much needed oxygen to aid in combustion...the natural draft stove does not promote as much burning so you are still losing (perhaps more) btus out the chimney..only in smoke (unburnt btu's) so ..maybe the forced air fire is losing about the same amount of btu's but in cleaner exaust instead of much more polluting smokey exaust

most of the older stoves on the market (the ones without the new EPA stickers all burn about the same 50 to 65 % efficient reguardless of forced or natural draft


just my thoughts

and pardon my spelling if it is not so good

[Tiny Tim]

First of all I have nothing to do with the corporate end of hawken i am just a satisfied customer who beleives hawken makes the best outdoor furnace out there. I am sorry that you had a bad experiance with hawken and it sounds like you cannot beleive that someone might of had a good one. I was refering to the black stuff comeing out of your door when i said it was caused by the moisture in your wood I know I have had the same thing happen, look in some of the outher posts and you will see it is not only hawken furnaces that do this, It is a common thing among all brands. There is no dought that you paid good money for your furnace, we all did and we all want to feel like we got the best deal out there, what I am trying to say is to calm down and look at the facts. I beleive that they lived up to their end of the warranty, I do have a question did it cost you anything to have the furnaces switched out, I am just curious.When you talk about excessive heat loss, what i was reffering to is when you burn wood with a high moisture content the btu's are not there, therefore it takes the wood longer to heat up the water not to mention burn more wood. Did you ever think that the heat was not going out your chimney but you were suffering from a lack of btu's.  I am sorry that you feel that way about my posts but I have experianced this first hand. Just trying to pass some info on to you and give you an outside look.


tim

[ouch]

tim,

    do you understand what "AIR TIGHT" means? air tight means that the door is sealed tight enough that air cannot leak past it. here is the problem with your thoughts. If the door is sealed as it should be (air tight) water, which is larger than air on a mollecular lever, whould not be able to pass through the seal. however, water, soot, creosote, etc. is! this can only mean one thing, the door seal is not air tight, and is allowing air into the furnace when it shouldn't.

    How can you sit there and say that they lived up to their end of the warranty? Were you at my place when I had to beg them to fix their furnace? were you here when I had to work on this POS so I didn't have to load it 3 times a day, only to wake up to a cold house? You have no ground to stand on. You seem to think that since your dealer came out, replaced your blower because the solenoid in the door was buzzing, that you received excellent service?

    I had some good feelings about Hawken prior to dealing with them over a warranty issue. I was very happy with my GH1000, however after being lied to, Insulted, fed countless lines of B.S. I have decided to not support Hawken energy any more. I have in fact decided to get a propane tank delivered.

so, tim if you can get your head around this idea, and put yourself in my position, if you received inept service, been lied to by a salesman that is more concerned about the number of times he referrs to the efficiency of hawken energy furnaces, while in a conversation about a hawken energy furnace consuming wood at an absurd rate, if you could possibly stand to use spell check, a period, a comma, or any other form of punctuation, if you can do this maybe just maybe then you can coment negetively toward my decision to post about my experience with a company full of intellectually corrupt dullards.

oh, yes it did cost me to switch the furnaces out.

[willieG]

ouch..i'm with you on "air tight" i think they use the term lightly, meaning when they say air tight they really mean...this stove when the damper (or the blower) is not in operation the stove will die down to a smolder
i personally have never seen a stove that actually had an "air tight" door
i think most stoves use either a fibre gasket or the old "rope style" refractory stuff  that will both let water by

as stated before..water coming from a stove is one of two things...a leaky stove or wet wood.  if the stove needs to be "topped up" more often than in the past, you got a leaker. if not then you have too high of a moisture content in your wood

signs of wet wood are ...more smoke out the chimney than usual,,,much longer burn times to reach high temp settings...more creosite in the stove...larger unburnt coals

if you burn wet wood (above 20% moisture) you will use up many many of your btu to drive the moisture from your wood in order to get the chemical reaction needed to burn

if your wood is say...50 % (cut for less then three months average) then you would need to use approx. 30 % of available btu more than "dry" wood
because you will need to "boil off" the water content of the wood before you will get any heat from the wood

wood does not burn...gas does..you must cause this "change" to cause fire...this takes high heat to do this and if your wood is wet it cannot be changed to the gaseous state needed to burn (well it  can be changed but much more heat is waisted drying out the wood)

and by no means am i saying you are not running your stove properly or are not having problems with your warranty because i have seen first hand from friends and family how warranties on these stoves can be. i have seen only about 5 brands in my area and only one of these stoves has gone ten years without major repairs and the warranty work i have seen has not been (to me if i was the  customer) anything near satisfactory

i am certain there must be good warranties out there but in my region i have not seen one

[ouch]

Willie,

I agree, there was a time when I thought I would save time and money by burning green slab and flitches from the local sawmill...
it burned, but it took more energy to burn the wood than it put out. but with the Gh1000 I had the door never leaked, perhaps this was the fluke, not this hawken........ either way I don't believe it should leak this bad.

the wood I was burning in the furnace while I was having the terrible consumption issues had been seasoned for 2- 3 years, and had been inside my polebarn since July of last year. 

these hawkens use fire rope, where the global furnace had fire rope, then was topped off with a silicon seal that seemed to work really well. to say that they are 100% air tight is a misnomer. if you have ever looked at the air intake, and the solenoid/ plate setup... I think there is plenty of room for improvement..

I truly believe that Hawken put the wrong blower on this furnace. without the restrictor I built, it blows too much air into the firebox.
enough that ash, and embers were coming out the stack.....

The reason I am being so vocal about this furnace is that I had another furnace to compare it to, and I was told the transition would be "seamless" which it has been far from.

I just can't get my head around how others think it is acceptable to have to suppliment the insulation, or even to work on a brand new furnace. these things cost too much to be so poorly constructed.

[MyLeakyWoodDoctor]

Hawken sold Global Hydronics furnaces for years. Customers bought the furnaces under the auspice that Hawken manufactured them.
I was never given any reason to believe otherwise. Now because of some stinkeye hissy fit between Hawken and Global, Hawken decided to try to make their own.
these HE1100 furnaces are little more than a burn barrel surrounded by water. To say that I am impatient is an insult. I paid good money for the original furnace.
I paid the extra cash for stainless, and something that at least looked good. These new furnaces look like some soft headed mouth breather had one too manu hands in the design work. 

OK . . . . Ouch! Ouch! . . . . This is where I am at too . . .  Wood Doctor seems to have walked away from any kind of client service obligations relating to their products manufactured by Global Hydronics and sold as a 100% Wood Doctor furnace!!  How was I supposed to know!  It's like, "Talk to the Hand", you know!

Here's the thing, Ouch!  When they replaced my leaking Wood Doctor they brought me another Global Hydronics which rotted through, just like the first! But it doesn't look like there going to bring another one and I wouldn't want it if they did!

I expect this spring I will have to drag the poor pathetic leaking Wood Doctor up road-side and post a very very large sign on it, "For Sale $8 500 - One Rotting Leaking Wood Furnace Sold to me by Wood Doctor!"

What is this chatter I have heard about a class action suite against Global Hydronics . . .  is there any truth to it?  There wouldn't be any class action suits against Wood Doctor in the works would there.  I would sure like to know about that, if there was!

Leaky 

PS - sorry, no time to check spelling or grammer! 

[ouch]

I contacted a person that threatened a class action against Global abotu a week or so ago.
they said as soon as they mentioned class action Global gave them enough money to shut up.
it seems that global is well aware of their POS furnaces. they are a foreign company, and I am not sure just how to go after
them. I would asume they would have to come here to defend themselves along with wood dr., hawken, and the other "distributors" that bought some
flashy stickers and tried to polish a turd.
I truly believe they all should be held accountable. They are makeing unimagineable profits from you and I, yet when push comes to shove they decline to honor their own warranty's
or they find a legal loophole to fall into releiving themselves of any responsibility. well, I for one believe it's time to call BULL SH!T.
the only option I believe I have is to go to small claims court. Lawyers are not allowed so that's a bonus, however the limit is $5000
I figure it beats a sharp stick in the eye.  I feel for you, I was really furious when I found the leaks in the back of my GH1000.. the notion that after just 2 winters there were leaks.
I would bet that if someone could get the stock sheets for the materials used in construction of these furnaces, they would find that the steel / stainless was of the poorest quality,
the people welding it underskilled, and utilizing incorrect techniques. I would really like to see the inside of my old furnace where the leaks started.
It sickens me to think that these companies are tossing out claims of "best warranty in the industry" then in the same breath saying that they won't replace a furnace because of materials.
what a crock! How would one go about finding out whether or not the Dealer had any previous knowledge of these issues prior to selling the furnace to you?

the dealer I went through was told the same lies that I was.
it doesn't take long to find information online, but why would anyone really feel they needed to search the composition of a certain stainless steel, I unfortunately took a salesman at his word.

watch, the next thing you know is that I'll believe a government official... 

[603doug]

Knock on wood I have not had any problems with my wood doc converter and very happy with the performance, but that being said it is only 6 months old and if I have any issues in the next 10 YEARS I am going to be pi**ed. Wood boilers (owb or the inside ones) are one of the few things bought  spending $8500 to 12000 and once on the ground your on your own.  Reading the different posts hawkens, wood doctor are far from the only ones who customer service can suck. Thank heavens for forums like this to help educate.

[ouch]

Hawken apparently made a promise to my dealer to come out with "everything necessary to solve any problem possible"
and they never showed up. The only way I found out about this missed visit was by dropping by the dealer's shop.
when he asked if I had visitors last week, he looked perplexed when I told him that nobody had stopped by, and that nothing
had been touched on the furnace.
So now here I sit, Months into this disgrace of having a Hawken made furnace. Last Wednesday marked two times that their service failed to
make their own appointment. They have done nothing in the way of addressing the consumption issue, and the door seal STILL leaks ( nothing new there).
this certainly doesn't appear to be worth the price tag. Not even close.

Tinytim, you should feel rather important since you were able to get such good service on your hawken.
I have had several issues, reported all of them to my dealer and to Hawken, and have had one botched service call.
since the one service call, my solenoid/ blower/ entire door of stove is buzzing loud enough to wake the dead.
the door leaks, and it is still a overall eyesore.

can you divulge your secret for superior service that you brag about?

[R W Ohio]

Ouch,

Are the controls as easy to get too on the 1100 as they were on the 1000?  I couldn't see the handle for the bypass damper on the front of the 1100 in the picture,and what about the door for access to the pump,is it hinged or do you have to lift it off like on the 1000?

Ron

[ouch]

R.W.,

the controls on the 1100 are under cheap plastic "waterproof" covers on the front of the furnace. the covers can be a reap PIA to open with gloved hands, and especially
difficult when they are cold... go figure.
the aquastat is in the back of the furnace.
they decided that a nice 1 piece door for the back was too difficult to manufacture so they have corrugated tin (same as the roof and sides) with really cheap
drawer pulls for handles. you have to back off 4 knobs and then shimmy the tin out of tin slots. it's pretty cheesy.
they cheapened up the angle material that the corrugated tin screws to. it's now about 3/64" or 18 gauge tin instead of 1/8".
you definately don't want to lean on any part of the back of the furnace, it will buckle.
I was also not only supprised, but upset by the omission of the smoke bypass.. when I asked, hawken informed me that they polled half their customers
about the usefullness of the bypass... according to their "findings" most people didn't find the bypass effective, or usefull.. so they did away with it...
I find that eating smoke the entire time I load the furnace unnecessary, it also makes getting a fire started more difficult.
these furnaces aren't worth the cheap hot rolled steel they are made of. they are poorly constructed and flimsy.