Western Enterprises#WB-100, Professional Series HOTSPOTTER

I did a fair amount of research on these kind of items and decided on this one. It turned out to be an excellent choice. Ive used it several times already and am quite happy. Here's why:First thing, it supports a full 500k BTU. Many of them cap out at 100k or less. Its probably plenty since 100k is like an entire 4 burner grill on max combined! But still, its nice to have the potential if needed.Secondly, the piezo lighter is a great feature! So many come with a dinky flint lighter that you are supposed to hold WITH YOUR HAND in front of the huge stream of gas that will start accumulating as soon as you open the valve. No thanks!Not only does it light really well, but if it blows out... its super easy to resume immediately without having to turn off the gas, go find the lighter, etc. Or leave it on and risk a blowback when you do relight.Third, you have a 2 valve system. First you slowly turn on the tank valve. Then, slowly turn on the main valve of the flamethrower (the red turnwheel on top). Then you can light it. You turn the valve to stop the gas flow which you can do onboard instead of needing to get to the tank, which I feel is safer.You control the strength of the "pilot light" or normal mode or whatever with this valve.Fourth, it has a sort-of variable trigger. When you pull the trigger the gout of flame becomes significantly higher. A small turn-screw on the bottom limits how far you can pull the trigger so you control how much of a booster the trigger applies. If you had a really light touch you could variably control it with just your hand force, but for me its easier to have a minimal "pilot light" that stays on, and adjust the trigger for Blast mode.Be aware that on super high the flame tends to blow itself out just from the force of the propane. This thing can put out a scary amount of firepower so this limitation should not be an issue, but you DO NOT want to wear headphones or something stupid like that when using this. You need to be able to hear if the propane goes out right away to relight or turn-off. Don't blow yourself up.Also note that you don't really need to incinerate weeds into oblivion to do the trick. Blast em till they wilt and this will kill them. If you want to save propane keep this in mind. I found its much more entertaining to atomize them and figured a few extra bucks of propane was worth it. :-)

I have used this unit on four different occasions.Here is what I like: Hooks to a 20 lb propane bottle like you BBQ. Easy to assemble. Love the Piezo lighter. Love the variable squeeze propane throttle. Unit works great on burning tumbleweeds.Here is what I don't like: The hose is very stiff. The Piezo lighter wire is easily bent and will probably break, shutting down the unit. At that point, the whole unit would have to be sent back for repair because there looks to be no way the wire can be replaced.This unit would rate a 5 if these two items were changed.

I've burned a whole tank of propane with this thing now, and here are my pros and cons:Pros:Self-igniting saves so much time, and is a nice safety feature -- you can set it so that when you let go of the handle, the flame goes out, and the self ignition makes it a lot easier to restart.Powerful -- blasts weeds really wellComfortable angled grip -- much better than a lot of straight-wand competitors with no gripGood size, comes with everything you need, seems decently well-builtCons:The two flow control dials take a lot of fiddling to get used to, but once you get used to them it's not a problemOther tips:- Propane threads are backwards (left=tight, right=loose) and I didn't know that and I was like, WTF is going on- You want to store your propane tank at room temp, because if it's stored in cold weather, you won't be able to use it very well with this thing -- you won't get enough propane flow- I strongly recommend wearing a respirator (breathing mask) when you use this thing. The fumes from burning propane and burning whatever else are pretty strong and can't be good for you. 3M makes good respirators for pretty reasonable prices.- The best time to use this thing is after it rained, so the ground is nice and wet and you're not going to set anything on fire.- You can burn your ornamental plants while trying to burn weeds. The best way to avoid this is a bit counterintuitive -- get the weed burner outlet CLOSE to the ornamental, and point the flames AWAY from the ornamental. This way, any excess heat is pointed away from the plant you want to save, and not towards it.- In cold weather, the wand and the propane tank can get frost on them as you use them. This is normal.- A dolly, four-wheeled cart, or small wheelbarrow makes hauling the propane tank around your property a lot easier.

I had a smaller and much older torch. I thought that I would try one of the higher heat units. Received it today, and put it to use within hours. Large crack in driveway, first burned out the grass/weeds, then used the torch to melt tar to pour into the crack and seal it. The torch was easy to use and performed above my expectations! If it holds up under a lot of use, it will be a great buy!

This is a really powerful torch that can freeze your tank in a hurry if you aren't careful.The automatic ignitor has recently broken on me, and i can not seem to find a replacement part for it. Any help here?

Works great! first poisoned all the weeds and grass in my gravel driveway and a week later torched them, month later no weeds. Unit simple and easy to use, a quality tool, well worth the money.

The striker falls off a lot since I 1st day I bought i

I got this to selectively kill weeds in the lawn. I have a certain weed that is difficult to eliminate with just a pre-emergent. I'm hopeful that this will make the difference. The ignitor is a helpful feature; no bending down to ignite. The control works well, however I never used the flame to it's highest level.