Compared: Fire Chief FC1000E vs. Drolet Heat Commander

The decision to buy a wood burning furnace is no small choice. From shipping, installation, and other logistical considerations to ensuring you can keep a steady supply of good firewood on hand, heating your home with wood takes a lot of careful planning and forethought.

One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make, though, is about the unit itself: which one should you buy?

After the EPA’s recent requirements for forced-air wood furnaces, there are only a few manufacturers left making them. At HY-C, we’re one of those manufacturers, producing EPA-approved models under our Fire Chief and Shelter brand names.

Another North American manufacturer — the Canadian-based Drolet — is still manufacturing wood furnaces, too. And in this guide, we’re going to compare our Fire Chief FC1000E model to Drolet’s current offering: the Heat Commander.

We’ll cover some important specifications each furnace has to offer, their required footprints for installation, the price of each model, and even some installation insights.

By the time you’re finished here, you’ll have a good sense as to which wood furnace is the right choice for your home.

Model comparison:

Fire Chief FC1000E vs. Drolet Heat Commander: Specifications

In terms of the measurable specifications of the FC1000E and the Heat Commander, the two units are actually pretty close to one another. The FC1000E has a slight edge over the Heat Commander in a couple of categories, while the Heat Commander ekes out the FC1000E in others.

While they can both heat homes up to 2,500 square feet, the FC1000E has the edge in terms of maximum delivered heat output. It can deliver 46,435 BTUs at its peak to the Heat Commander’s 42,234 BTUs.

Its distribution blower is a bit more powerful than the Heat Commander’s, too. While the Drolet unit’s fan circulates 1,135 cubic feet per minute (CFM), the FC1000E tops out at 1,800 CFM.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Heat commander has the upper hand in terms of efficiency (i.e., the percentage of produced heat actually delivered into the home). Its efficiency rating is 82%, while the FC1000E’s efficiency rating is 79%.

Finally, Drolet has the advantage in terms of emissions as well. Both units burn very cleanly (as their EPA-certified status indicates). But the Heat commander produces just 0.095 pounds of particulates per million BTUs (lb/mmBTU) to the Fire Chief FC1000E’s 0.14 lb/mmBTU.

In all, while there are some measurable differences in the specifications of both furnaces, they both offer very similar levels of performance in terms of heat delivered, air circulated, efficiency, and emissions produced.

Fire Chief FC1000E vs. Drolet Heat Commander: Clearances to Combustibles

When you’re buying a furnace, it’s easy to get lost in specs like “BTUs per hour” or “maximum delivered heat.” Those numbers are important, and they should, to a large extent, inform your purchasing decision.

What tends to get lost in the shuffle, though, is ensuring that you have enough space to accommodate the furnace you buy. And we don’t just mean taking the actual dimensions of the furnace into account — we’re talking about the total area required for a safe, proper installation.

Furnaces burn hot (after all, there’s literally a fire inside them). The last thing you want is for that fire to come into contact with any combustible materials like wood or drywall. The distances from which your furnace must be kept from flammable stuff has a special name: clearances to combustibles.

Manufacturers ascertain these clearance-to-combustible distances during the development of the furnace. These distances, combined with the actual dimensions of the furnace itself, determine how much total area is needed to achieve a safe, proper installation.

The FC1000E, for example, requires six inches of space on either side, twelve inches behind the unit, and forty-eight inches in the front of the unit. This results in a required installation area of around 23 square feet.

The Heat Commander, on the other hand, requires 14-¼ inches behind the unit, 11 inches on one side, 24 inches on the other side, and 48 inches in front of the unit. This results in a required installation area of about 47.5 feet.

This means the FC1000E can be installed safely in tighter spaces, while the Drolet Heat Commander requires a larger footprint for its installation.

Fire Chief FC1000E vs. Drolet Heat Commander: Installation

The process of installing a wood furnace requires quite a bit of work. Depending on your skill set, you can either complete the installation yourself, you can leave some aspects of it to professionals and do part of the work yourself, or you can hire a contractor to do the entire install.

Whatever the case, the process typically consists of four steps:

1. Getting the furnace to the install location
2. Building a chimney for the furnace
3. Installing the furnace’s electrical components
4. Connecting the furnace to ductwork

Let’s take a look at how this process compares for each of our two furnaces.

Getting the Furnace to the Install Location

The Drolet Heat Commander is a great, well-made furnace. But there’s no getting around the fact that it’s a very large unit. It measures 27-¾” x 51-½” x 63-½” (though you can remove the top plenum to reduce the height from 63-½” to 41-⅛”). It also weighs over 750 pounds.

The Fire Chief FC1000E, on the other hand, clocks in at 26” x 45-½” x 42”. It also weighs 435 pounds — over 300 pounds less than the beefy Heat Commander.

The FC1000E’s smaller frame and lighter weight make it easier to move through doors, downstairs, and into the proper position for its installation.

Granted, this is likely something you’ll only need to worry about once. But if you’re doing a self-install, these specs can make all the difference.

Building a Chimney for the Furnace

The FC1000E and the Heat Commander both have a six-inch port on the back to attach an applicable chimney pipe. This connection point is at a near-identical height for each furnace, meaning the chimney installation process will be about the same for each unit.

Just be sure to use proper chimney pipe (i.e., a masonry flue with a six-inch stainless steel liner or Class A HT2100 chimney pipe) to ensure the chimney draws smoke from the furnace correctly.

Installing the Furnace’s Electrical Components

One of the best features of the FC1000E is its pre-wired electrical components. There’s no wiring involved, and you won’t need to hire an electrician. You simply attach the components to the furnace and plug them into each other.

With their Heat Commander, Drolet takes this ease of installation a step further: not only are the electrical components pre-wired, but they also come pre-installed. This means you won’t even need to attach them to the unit. All of that work has already been done for you.

Both furnaces offer a very easy solution to what can be one of the most technical (and frustrating) aspects of a wood furnace installation. And while the FC1000E does it well, the Heat Commander has perfected it.

Connecting the Furnace to Ductwork

The FC1000E and the Heat Commander both separate themselves from other furnaces on the market by including a built-in plenum to connect the furnace to your HVAC system. And while the FC1000E’s plenum is not removable, the Heat Commander’s is.

The stock plenum that comes with the Heat Commander is big. It provides several versatile installation options with its 10 connection points. It may be too big for some spaces, though. In these cases, you’ll have to remove the prefabricated plenum and have one made specifically for your system.

Both furnaces attempt to sidestep the need to hire a sheet metal fabricator and an HVAC contractor. They’re designed to make a self-install as simple as possible — but they do it in different ways.

Determining which one will work best in your home depends on how your HVAC ducts were installed. Some situations may lend themselves better to an FC1000E while others may work better with a Heat Commander.

Fire Chief FC1000E vs. Drolet Heat Commander: Which Furnace Should You Get?

This has been a close look at the Fire Chief FC1000E and the Drolet Heat Commander, two popular wood furnaces built to meet the EPA’s strict standards. Both furnaces have plenty going for them. But which one should you get?

Answering this question depends on several factors, most of which concern the design and layout of your home. Both furnaces are North American made (the FC1000E in the USA and the Heat Commander in Canada) and offer very similar performance specifications. Where they differ, though, is how they’re installed.

To maintain safe clearances to combustibles, the FC1000E requires less of a footprint than the Heat Commander. It’s also a fair bit smaller and lighter. There’s a price difference, too: the FC1000E has an MSRP of $3,372.99 to the Heat Commander’s $4,199.

At the end of the day, the best thing to do is choose the furnace that meets both the layout of your home and the size of your budget.

And if you’re still having trouble deciding, be sure to take a look at our in-depth review of the Fire Chief FC1000E. It has even more in-depth information to help make your decision as easy and stress-free as possible.