Jindara Woodheating Tilga / Grange Range Questions & Answers

Hi Grant, Thank you for your enquiry. When the Grange was first released back in 2016 it was discovered that the unit was not as tolerant of certain factors (moisture content of wood, air pressure of home, bends in flue - as examples) as we would expect them to be. Subsequently we have had the firebox re-designed slightly (externally the units appearance has not changed), and had this design retested by the NATA certified lab we utilise to confirm that these changes successfully achieved better tolerance to these conditions, as would be expected from a woodheater.

The new design has been current since late 2017, however naturally we have still been working with any customers who experienced issues for some time after that to ensure that their original Grange units were updated to the current design.

If you have any further specific questions we can answer for you, you can reach us at heating@gason.com.au , or on 03 9763 2700.

Many thanks for the prompt response but regrettably the Grange won't fit my fireplace which tapers towards the back. Front dimensions were perfect so now I need to start again.

Well, I have had a Jindara Grange for 3 seasons and have reviewed it on this site. It throws out a lot of heat compared to our older series Heat Charm port philip. The fan is 3 speed and is somewhat noisy on the 2 and three, but it moves a lot of air at these settings. The auto start/stop on the fan works a treat, no more fan running in the morning (works of firebox temperature) Dual action latch is also a good idea. Smoking into the room always seems to be a problem with many wood heaters, the Jindara is a bit worse than our previous heaters. I have added an extra length of flue that has improved things a bit and added a flue director to replace the standard flue cap, This also helped. Don't forget a wood heater draws air from the room, so a source of outside air is required to replace it. Some heaters on the market draw their air from outside the building negating this problem. Heaters with smaller fireboxes and less door area tend to smoke less for the same flue diameter and height. I hope this helps you, Rob.

I absolutely love the heater our jindara grange throws out. It is our only source of heating in our place and certainly heats up the large areas of living kitchen and bedrooms. Our house still gets dusty which is such a pain but this is not only jindara brand - we have friends and family with other wood heaters which do similar. Overall I would not put in a wood heater again however we don’t have natural gas where we live so ducted heater was not an option for us which we would have liked

Ive got an older model Pilbara but it looks similar. Double skin/blower/secondary combustion. Try this: Re comments that the heater is "hard to get going". Try the Hardball technique. 1) Have a basket/wheelbarrow full of cut euro pallets as kindling. These softwood radiata pine pallets are heat treated only and free for the taking from any transport company who pay to get rid of them. Yep. Free wood. They are the staple diet of my heater as I bring them home from work for zero cost. 2) Place a couple of your cut euro pallet pieces in a square block tower fashion with 3 kleenex tissues scrunched up in the middle of your wood pallet pieces. DO NOT use the large compressed wood blocks at this stage. Use the small flat boards to construct your wood block tower. 3) Using an old but large tomato squeezy tomato sauce bottle with closable nozzle, soak the tissues with a liberal dose of dieso. 4) light with a pistol style fire refillable butane lighter. 5) Open damper fully 6) On ignition, continue to build your towering inferno of softwood pine pallet pieces around the flaming tissue ball until you reach the top plate 7) Pull a beer. Or a scotch. You won't have to go near that heater for an hour. 8) Now that heater has reached operating temp, start kicking in the large EURO wood blocks from your pallets. Two at a time and kick them into place ensuring a gap between wood and the glass door when the door is closed.

Note: euro pallets are a chunky style softwood pallet with EUR heat stamped on the blocks. Google them. Very distinctive shape. Don't pick up imitations as they are a bit light on and not worth the effort. Easy to cut, easy on chainsaws and chains, don't have nails where you don't expect them and burn smokeless after initial start up. And the're free.

Re "smoke in the room". May not be the heater. Turn off rangehoods and any other extraction fans that are drawing air out of the building envelope when all other doors and windows are closed. When you close alternative ventilation sources, extraction blowers draw air BACK DOWN THE CHIMNEY. This phenomenon most noticeable on start up but as flue warms up to operating temps the effect is less noticeable.

Made another couple of mods to my Jindara that may alleviate your smoke issues. First thing I did was replace the top plate with something of my own creation. The original fire brick type OEM setup fell into the fire...twice! Gave up on them and started using bits of grader blades and all sorts of scrap meta lacross the top of the inside of the firebox. Settled on BBQ hot plates in the end. Good ones are cast and free on the side of the road if you are quick enough when someone puts their old barbie out for the clean up. The trick seems to be to increase the air gap between the plate and the front of the heater. This allows air to move more easily through the restrictive gap which is right before the open door of the fireplace. The more you increase the size of that aperture, the less smoke can bypass it to come out into the room. Easy when you get on your back and have a look up there to see why it's happening. The only time it smokes now is when all doors and windows are shut and rangehood extraction blower is on when starting the fire. Not sure of the brand of the range but it's one of the newer range hoods that can extract a cubic metre of air every second so it will draw air in from every crack or vent in the house if given the opportunity, including smoke back down the chimney. Once the flue heats up not a problem. Sufficient draw of hot air rising up the flue to overcome the negative back pressure created by the extraction fan in the rangehood. Next mod. Extended the flue by 1 length. Can't say it seemed to make much difference but then again, never have smoke coming into the room. Last mod. Doesn't stop smoke coming into room but definitely reduces smoke output. Removed the secondary combustion air inlet pipe from the back of the firebox at the top (burnt a hole through it) and replaced with something similar from Bunnings. A length of 40mm heavy duty square steel tubing but drilled the air holes oversize at about 5/16". Heater positively growls now as it draws air through the oversize holes. Does not seem to have compromised burn times. Using softwood euro bricks, still has hot coals in the morning and even though the damper is closed, there are zero visible emissions from the chimney, It would seem the extra air coming in through the injector rail that is not controlled by the damper is causing the heater to run leaner and hotter and reducing emissions by mixing more pre-heated air under the top plate to burn any smoke before it leaves the heater. I would never run the heater with the damper closed before as I didn't want any complaints from the EPA about emissions but now, no worries. Set the damper at whatever you like - other than start up, zero smoke!

I have been constantly getting 8-9 hours burns with small mix Euc logs. Longers with large Euc and Redgum around 10-12 hours. And easy to light with coals left by morning. As for the smoke, i have learnt the trick! Wait till the flames have died down (small dancing flames are ok) switch fan back to 1 and crack the door and leave it like that for a couple of mins. Then slowly open the door. No smoke. ( i had the same issues when i first used it).

Thank you for the answer shall pass it on and see if it helps