Overall, I am happy with the results so far with this auxiliary heating unit. Since it has been only installed for about a week, I can’t report on its effect on the utility bill but that wasn’t a concern with our decision to install it in the first place. What we needed was to add heat to a room that was remote from our natural gas furnace, located on the windy side of our house, and was occupied by my mother-in-law who is rapidly becoming intolerant of anything but warm conditions. We decided to go with an inline duct heater to avoid too much disturbance within the room (i.e. drywall dust, new things to keep clean) and a lack of baseboard space for baseboard electric heat. The installation took me about 4 hours including installing the circuit from the electrical panel to the unit location, installing the thermostat wiring into and the thermostat onto the bedroom wall, cutting the ductwork, installing the Hotpod unit with the Silentboot accessory and the associated wiring, sealing the ductwork, and providing proper supports for the entire assembly. So here is the bad and the good to complement the 4-star rating for this TPI 6” Hotpod model. I’ll start with the bad to get them out of the way. The list is longer than the good but I didn’t feel the items in this list held a lot of weight with the end result, so, just one star lost. 1. The directions were terrible. Most of the information you need is there, albeit out of order, poorly described and then duplicate measurements with and without the use of a SilentBoot (additional component purchase) for both this unit and the 8” duct size unit, more information on the thermostat(s) than the Hotpod itself. A few items need to be interpreted from the information and diagrams given. All this being said, I have found most direction sets I have worked with lately are matching in poor clarity of thought and order. 2. When I opened the box and pulled out the Hotpod unit, the flange on the intake side was bent. There was no damage to the packaging so I can only assume it was packaged in a damaged state. I was able to repair it within a minute or so but it was an annoyance. 3. The wiring for the included thermostat stated “min 20AWG” conductor sizing for the thermostat wire. Not sure if this was a typo or if the writer does not understand wiring sizing but 18AWG thermostat wire I used would not push into the prewired connector for the controls on the unit. I ended up removing the prewired connector and just hardwiring to the control board screw terminals. 4. A final minor gripe which I knew before I bought this unit. Best practices have all crimped pieces going in the direction of the airflow to avoid leakage points and resistance to airflow at the joints. This unit is designed to accept crimped connections on both the intake, which fits best practices, and the outflow, which means right at the added source of heat and airflow is introduced a resistance and leakage point. Maybe it has to be done this way but it seems to me that a reduced outflow flange that would seat into the 6” duct would be a better design. So now the good, 1. Other than the time it took to figure out the actual measurements I needed and the time to remove the prewired connector and make my connections to the control board in the unit, the installation and wiring of the Hotpod itself was a breeze. As noted, I did use the Silentboot component so I didn’t have to fight getting the ductwork back together around the Hotpod or use a splicing clamp/collar. I would highly recommend the Silentboot accessory(about $30 when I bought it) simply for the ease of installation point. 2. They included a simple thermostat with the unit. Sure, it isn’t a high cost item but it did save me an extra purchase/trip. 3. It is relatively quiet for how close it is to the register… about 6 feet away. The Silentboot is supposed to help with this by isolating the unit from the solid ductwork connected to the register. 4. Most importantly, it heated up the room to a good comfort level for my mother-in-law without us having to heat the rest of the house to a warmer temperature. The unit itself gets 5-stars for accomplishing exactly what TPI said it would. But the installation directions need a workover and the quality control or packaging department needs to be a little more aware to avoid sending damaged units. I’m hopeful that these two shortfalls are not indicative of the Hotpod quality.
