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[farmking]

  Hi everyone, this is the first winter with my 200 heatmor. Great unit, it heat my 100+ year old farm house nicely. I use to have to shut half my rooms off to try and stay warm, now it's the whole house at 75 degrees! Let's here it from other heatmor owners, how do you like them?   

[davidwtrout]

Farmking,

Hi!  I just happened upon this site.  This Sounds Great!

I just had a 200 Heatmor delivered on Monday, 3/24.  Still working on the pad and final installation.  My plans are to run 4 lines: 1 in summer to pool heat exchanger (HE to be built yet), 1 to a shop in barn area, 1 to a side arm HE for domestic water then to a HE in oil hot air furnace plenum and then to a floor radiator in laundry area before heading  back to stove and the 4th line will run to an add on to the home we purchased and will run through a used Trane heat unit mounted at the ceiling and will hit two small floor radiators in bathroom and bedroom on its way back to the stove. 

I am in central PA, just south of Williamsport. Where are you located?  Does your farm house have much insulation, or is it pretty open?  Approximately how many cords of wood do you figure you have used for this winter's heat?  We have a small self contained wood stove inside that we tried to use last year, but the dirt, smoke and risk of fire has been a headache so we used primarily the oil heater this winter, much to my distaste of sending money to the oil cartels and middle eastern countries.

Have you used mainly hardwoods this heating season, or have you been able to use some soft woods or pine as well on days not calling for as much heat?

Look forward to hearing more of your set up.

davidwtrout in PA.

[Hank]

I have an OWF I have used about 23-25 loads of wood this year. Some of the wood I have been burning is pine, sycamore, oak, cherry, hickory. I use the pine and soft wood when it is a little warmer out. When it gets really cold out I use the hard woods. I bought a ton of coal, I use the coal for when it is really cold. I throw about a 5 gallon bucket of coal in.  If you go to http://outdoorwoodfurnaceinfo.com which is the main site for the forum you can see my pictures of my OWF.

[farmking]

Hi David, I'm located in central Illinois, my house is your typical two story non insulated farm house, with 2000 square feet, I also heat my hot water. I would use between 1500 to 2000 gallons of LP gas a year, at 2.00 to 2.50 a gallon I will have my furnace paid for in 2 to 3 years. Is does take a bunch of wood though, I have used about 10 cords of elm and oak so far. Since my wood is free and i have an endless supply it's no big deal to me and I can keep my house nice and warm, anyway I love cutting it and it's great exercise. Sounds like you will be using your 200 pretty hard, so get your saw sharpened and start cutting! What size of pool do you have, I have a 24 round and was thinking of heating it myself. I would like to hear more details on your heat set up for your pool.          farmking.

[Steve]

We installed our Heatmor 200 a year ago.  We'd heated with wood most of our lives but we'd used indoor stoves.  I work in emergency services and had been to many house fires and had many nightmares of something going wrong with our indoor stove.  I do like the peace of mind of still using wood without the danger of someone getting hurt or killed and loosing everything we own.

We choose Heatmor for a few reasons:  The warranty was superior, a dealer was 40 minutes away, the stainless steel design, blower hit above and below the fire, ash auger, double doors, and plenty of good references including a family member.  The dealer (Mike's Heating in Mahnomen, MN) provided me with a list of customers - unscreened - along with their phone numbers.  I actually called a ton of them and couldn't find anyone to say anything bad about the stove or customer service.  I had problems with the circulator pump twice last winter, called the salesman Tom, he gave me a new one each time.  I think the problem was air bubbles accumulating in the pump as I had it mounted in a horizontal run.  I changed it to a verticle run this summer and hopefully it will not seize up again.

The furnace goes thru a lot of wood.  Last year I think I burned 23 pickup loads (shortbox 1/2 ton).  I'd guess that would be between 10 and 12 cords.  There was a lot of junk wood in those loads, but it all burns.  I bought a flatbed trailer and put sides on it to get a bigger load home each trip this fall.  I filled the stove about every 12 hours during the cold days.  I don't think the time committment is much worse with the outdoor furnace vs. indoor stove as you cut the logs bigger, don't have to split them, don't have to load them into the house, and you only have to do ashes once every week or two.  The benefits in addition to not burning your house down are being thermostatically controlled, endless hot water, no mess inside, no handling the same piece of wood so many times.  I'm heating a 2900 square foot house and domestic hot water for a family of 5.  It was our first winter in the house so I didn't have any personal experience as to propane usage but according to the propane company I'd have spent $2500+ on LP.  Now we go thru about $400 in propane for the entire year.  I calculated my furnace would be paid for in 2 1/2 years, less if propane prices jump another 75 cents next year. 

There are several good stoves made here in MN, I think they all have their good points.  I really enjoy looking at other models and hearing/reading how folks like them.  The biggest competitors to Heatmor here are Woodmaster and Central Boiler, both are really good products and I'd probably be just as happy with either of them.

My wife has already been bugging me to light our stove and it's not even cold yet.  I have a bunch of photos from when I did my installation if anyone has questions.
 

[farmer695]

I live in Central Mass and have been operating a heatmor 200cs for two years now.....I do heat a 18x36 in ground pool with it too...., but have been disappointed with the feature......it takes a cord of wood a week to bring the pool up to 88 f  .....the heatmor rarely stops  cycling on consequentially depletes the domestic hot water to only warm water.....it is not a very good option.   

I use 7-8 cords per season to heat my home area of 2500sf, and usually need to fill the box 2-3 times a day.   It's a routine.   

[willieG]

I live in Central Mass and have been operating a heatmor 200cs for two years now.....I do heat a 18x36 in ground pool with it too...., but have been disappointed with the feature......it takes a cord of wood a week to bring the pool up to 88 f  .....the heatmor rarely stops  cycling on consequentially depletes the domestic hot water to only warm water.....it is not a very good option.   

I use 7-8 cords per season to heat my home area of 2500sf, and usually need to fill the box 2-3 times a day.   It's a routine.   

farmer..to heat your pool you are not doing too bad i think

lets look at things in general terms...it takes 1 btu to raies 1 pound of water one degree F
soi f your pool is 18 x 36 by an average 4 feeet deep that is about 30,000 gallons and just for average sake about 300,000 pounds and lets say you are heating from 58 to 88 that is 30 degrees so multiply 300,000 x 30 and you have 9 million. so you need 9 million btu to heat your pool to 88 without any heat loss occuring
now there ar around 17 to 24 million btu in a cord (4x4x8) of wood (depending on the type) and lets say for average your stove is running at 50 percent efficient to get that 9 million btu to your pool you are going to have to burn 18 million...you are doing just about normal as far as i can see

[Richard D]

We installed our Heatmor 200 a year ago.  We'd heated with wood most of our lives but we'd used indoor stoves.  I work in emergency services and had been to many house fires and had many nightmares of something going wrong with our indoor stove.  I do like the peace of mind of still using wood without the danger of someone getting hurt or killed and loosing everything we own.

We choose Heatmor for a few reasons:  The warranty was superior, a dealer was 40 minutes away, the stainless steel design, blower hit above and below the fire, ash auger, double doors, and plenty of good references including a family member.  The dealer (Mike's Heating in Mahnomen, MN) provided me with a list of customers - unscreened - along with their phone numbers.  I actually called a ton of them and couldn't find anyone to say anything bad about the stove or customer service.  I had problems with the circulator pump twice last winter, called the salesman Tom, he gave me a new one each time.  I think the problem was air bubbles accumulating in the pump as I had it mounted in a horizontal run.  I changed it to a verticle run this summer and hopefully it will not seize up again.

The furnace goes thru a lot of wood.  Last year I think I burned 23 pickup loads (shortbox 1/2 ton).  I'd guess that would be between 10 and 12 cords.  There was a lot of junk wood in those loads, but it all burns.  I bought a flatbed trailer and put sides on it to get a bigger load home each trip this fall.  I filled the stove about every 12 hours during the cold days.  I don't think the time committment is much worse with the outdoor furnace vs. indoor stove as you cut the logs bigger, don't have to split them, don't have to load them into the house, and you only have to do ashes once every week or two.  The benefits in addition to not burning your house down are being thermostatically controlled, endless hot water, no mess inside, no handling the same piece of wood so many times.  I'm heating a 2900 square foot house and domestic hot water for a family of 5.  It was our first winter in the house so I didn't have any personal experience as to propane usage but according to the propane company I'd have spent $2500+ on LP.  Now we go thru about $400 in propane for the entire year.  I calculated my furnace would be paid for in 2 1/2 years, less if propane prices jump another 75 cents next year. 

There are several good stoves made here in MN, I think they all have their good points.  I really enjoy looking at other models and hearing/reading how folks like them.  The biggest competitors to Heatmor here are Woodmaster and Central Boiler, both are really good products and I'd probably be just as happy with either of them.

My wife has already been bugging me to light our stove and it's not even cold yet.  I have a bunch of photos from when I did my installation if anyone has questions.

Yes there was many reasons to choose the Heatmor.

[hofmus]

has anyone installed and hooked up a heatmor  to system 2000? I have a 200css on the way