I have an H4 operate it year round, I put it into service in November of 2001 and been using it ever since. In the winter of 2004-2005 I had noticed a leak form at the top of the door way arch. I called my dealer and he didnt feel it was anything major and wanted me to try some boiler seal and see if we could get by thru the firing season. By the end of Jan 05 it was steady drip to where I would have ice form on the outside of the furnace. So the dealer brought a unit to use and had my unit shipped to Mississippi. As I understand the factory cut out the doorway and welded in basically a new front end. When the dealer brought my unit back the factory wanted to charge me for shipping it to them. I talked with the dealer and I called and talked with one of the head guys at the Hardy Factory,and shared with them that I felt that was out of line since it was THEIR workmanship that caused the crack. You could follow the crack right along the weld seam. The dealer stood the shipping charge, so I was charged just a portion of the material and parts. 4 years later it starts to leak again almost the same location it did the first time. After looking into what Hardy was going to charge me based on warranty depreciation and remembering how ticked the Hardy Factory rep made me, I decided to say "nuts to Hardy" and got a friend of mine who is a certified welder to repair the leak. He has since repaired leaks on the doorframe 4 times and everytime its followed right along the weld seams on that CRAPPY stainless steel Hardy uses. I have discussed this issue with several manufacturing and weld shops in the area and they all agreed 304 Stainless is NOT a good metal product to be using in a heating and cooling situation, like in a doorframe of these units. They told me that 304 gets brittle when heated and cooled over time and will fracture especially in areas like welds where it was super heated previously. I cant believe my unit is the only unit having this issue. I did recently run across another unit that had the entire front end replaced.
As of now when the time comes that I seriously need to look into replacing this unit, I can say it will NOT be a Hardy. Reason I went with the Hardy, at the time I had budgeted a certain amount of money and the Hardy gave me all the options with it in that budgeted range. At the time all the dealers locally of other brands could hook my domestic system online too but they all used the side arm systems and that was an additional cost over and above the unit price. In regards to a Hardy "EATING" large volumes of wood, that is true and I am glad I work at a sawmill. I easily burning over 50 full size pickup truck loads of firewood a year. I hardly ever burn slabwood, I burn big chunks and chunks that have nails or other metal in it, basically prime firewood. I also learned that I get a better burn and use LESS firewood by burning green firewood. Everytime I burn dry firewood I actually burn more wood and have a harder time filling the firebox to keep a fire going thru the night ( 10 hr burn time )
I am curious has anyone or is anyone having repeated issues with their Hardy leaking ? I did see one thread where some one felt a lawsuit was in order.
Author
Topic: H4 door way constantly cracking and leaking (Read 9051 times)