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Wheel House Options & Thoughts


Cobber

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Good afternoon, all!

Well, I finally received the go-ahead from the lady to start the search process for a good wheel house.

While I'm hoping not to turn the thread into a "brand-bashing"- I am really curious to get thoughts/opinions on different houses, options, cant-live-withouts, and I-wish-I-wouldn't-have's.

I know just enough about wheel houses to be dangerous- so I'm making sure to take my time, make my lists of options/etc that are must-haves for my house.

Also- I'm familiar with a few brands that are out there, but it seems that every few months a new upstart company comes on the scene- so I wanted to make sure I covered every possible option with my search- as it's likely a one-time shot to get a quality place that I'm going to be happy with for a long time.

Can we get the .02 of whoever has something to share, recommendations, negatives, positives, brands, etc.

The brands that I'm familiar with are mostly just the Yetti and Ice Castle. I also have heard that Firebrand is kind of a Yetti spin-off and a decent house- but there are many more out there-

Any help or opinions are both welcome and VERY appreciated!

Thanks!

Cobber

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If you have more money to play with a Yetti or similar brand will make a more high quality house. Ice castle houses are more affordable but the quality tends to go down a bit.

I have an Ice Castle and love it. It does what I need it to do. There is a pretty big price jump from Ice Castle to Yetti.

I like open layouts. It seems like a lot of the new houses out there are packed full of bunks and tables and whatever else that gets in the way of fishing. I do a lot of lake trout fishing and a lot of the new layouts are not good for lake trout fishing. The holes are too close together and you can't really fish a long rod in the house.

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Thanks for the opinions-

I'm also trying to make sure that I give a little look to all other brands- are there any thoughts on the other ones like the FireBrand, Team Lodge, etc?

Any other brands out there I'm overlooking?

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The fish house I have is a steel frame...I think the ice castles are wood frame...my next dream house will be an aluminum frame...they are lighter & won't rust or rot!

I would start with size & weight & what you have to pull it with. Some of those big rigs are nice but can you pull them in 2 feet of snow??

The new clam hardshell perm shacks are sweet, lightweight & have spray foam insulation throughout!! And you can put atv or sled inside as a toy hauler. But if you want something like a cabin style inside (wood interior, cooking stove/counters, bunks & recliners than I would look at a ice castle or something similar.

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I Have been doing a little research and a couple of custom places I have found is CDI in St. Cloud and precision engineering in Glencoe. CDI is new but from what I have seen from the pics on Craig's list and Facebook he makes a nice house and prices reasonable. Precision has been around quite a while and honestly couldn't find a bad review on his houses. He has his prices and options on his HSOforum and seem to be reasonable as well. I have been trying to look at Custom cottages out of shakopee but their HSOforum is down but have heard decent things about them.

Otherwise I have heard yetis are decent but pricey, Grey wolf stay away from and Ice castle has huge list of issues. Still doing more research and checking out reviews but I think I would rather go custom to get what I want and make a 1 time purchase instead of settling and wish my house had this or that. Plus if I have a issue I can go right to the guy who made it instead of trying to go through the dealer to get any issues that come up to be fixed/resolved.

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I'm going to be doing something along the way of a wood finished interior- looking for something to use as a camper as well during the non-ice time.

I've been pretty adamant that I want aluminum since I like the lightweight of it- but the more I search it seems I'm really cornering myself on brands, and sheer quantity of available good used units.

In a perfect world- I'd have a nice big wheel house, and one of those Clam Shacks that you posted the link to- haven't heard of those until now but that's an awfully impressive unit!

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I finally received permission this year as well and just picked up my wheelhouse on Saturday.

We looked and looked at all the different brands before settling on the Firebrand 8X14. It was more expensive then we thought we were going to spend but its the first one my wife actually liked.

We had looked at the Ice Castles, Salems, Gray Wolf.... and some were defintely better than others.

In the end we opted for the aluminum because of the weight and the layout inside that the wife fell in love with. We upgraded to more of an RV setup with the A/C and such so we can use it year round. After two days, my only "complaint" so far would be the time it takes to drop with the electric jacks but thats a MINOR complaint as I don't see me moving it around too much once I pick a spot.

Firebrand is a newer company so there isn't much information or research out there so keep that in mind. I have no idea what the long term quality is as we found them by accident driving thru Savage.

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