The constantly developing and the broadly understood automation of production processes in foundry industry, creates both new working conditions - better working standards, faster and more accurate production - and new demands for previously used materials as well as opportunities to generate new foundry defects. Those high requirements create the need to develop further the existing elements of the casting production process. This work focuses on mechanical and thermal deformation of moulding sands prepared in hot-box technology. Moulding sands hardened in different time periods were tested immediately after hardening and after cooling. The obtained results showed that hardening time period in the range 30-120 sec does not influence the mechanical deformation of tested moulding sands significantly. Hot distortion tests proved that moulding sands prepared in hot-box technology can be characterized with stable thermal deformation up to the temperature of circa 320oC.