Great kiln, perfect size for hobby potter, some Evenheat snafus
I originally ordered a doll kiln, but decided it was too small for my needs, settled on the Evenheat HF 1413HF, after calculating it would hold at least 8 of my very large mugs for a glaze firing. Discovered it actually holds about 10, which is great. Opted for the simplest Icon controller and I'm glad, it has just enough info for me to keep track of how each firing did, including the cost per firing, and the menu selection is super simple to choose and modify if I want to. Was surprised at the cost -- I'd heard horror stories of people swearing firing a kiln at home would break me financially for the energy costs, but once I fed in our local (admittedly low) utility rate and wattage, my bisque and glaze come out somewhere between $1.20 and $1.50 per firing. Nice! I'm quite happy with this size kiln, it isn't so big that I go weeks without being able to fill it, but is also compact enough that if I wanted to fire just a few pieces one week, it's easy to do without wasting a ton of empty space.
By far, the nicest thing about this size kiln is the firing time -- I can reliably now start it anytime in the morning, and unload it the next morning. That makes for very quick turnaround! Nice to know when I need to turn some things around for a show quickly.
The snafu from Evenheat was that they sent me the wrong size shelves for the kiln -- not once, but TWICE! Apparently a mis-labeling of boxes of kiln furniture at their warehouse? But I called them directly and emailed when I got the second wrong box, and they handled it quickly, even overnighting the corrected size.
Overall, happy with the purchase. Like the 2 year warranty, and Evenheat seems easy to work with if the need should arise. This is my first kiln and the ease-of-use is ideal for a newbie. The size means any future maintenance should be simple enough, so I would highly recommend this as a perfect-sized first kiln.
