wood in a 1557 hot blast, work good???

Yes and welcome to forum. Here is a post you may be interested in. CLAYTON FURNACE FIRED ON WOOD I think that you will be happy with your prospective choice of hand fired furnace. How long you get it to burn really is subjective to a lot of factors. I can easily get 10-12 hour burns, but only with a barometric draft regulator in my stovepipe. There are some different schools of thought on its use, but NFPA recommends the use of them and if you maintain a clean chimney, you will see the long efficient burn times.

Well you heard it here first!
I'm in the process of the coal burning equipment change operation. I really expect it to be painless!
So to this thread, Long burn times in my 1600 on wood were related to a good bed of coals and then packing the box with all shapes and sizes. The baro is also key to this and I have also done it without it. Truthfully once I learned about the art of controling draft with the baro I had better burns in both coal and wood. Get a manometer and learn with the right tools. It's cheap insurance and what you will save in fuel will pay for it the first month or less. I love the beast. So if your interested in a used 1600 delivery possible this is the first for that as well.
Hate to see it go!
Gone Stoker Boiler

Thanks guys. Is it safe to load the wood above the top edge of the fire brick? Seems like I might want to ad a row of firebrick on top of the ones that come in the stove. Our electric bill keeps going up here in VA so I might see about heating my water with the stove/furnace too. Right now I'll use about 2 cords of wood each winter to heat a 1500's.f. house, might as well heat my water while I'm at it.

Yes! Go ahead and stuff that bad boy until you can't fit another piece of wood into it. Adding another row of firebricks on top of the other ones, I don't see much advantage to that when burning wood. But, for burning coal, It will allow for a deeper fire bed for the coal to have a nicer, longer, and more even burning.