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[userdk]

Empyre Pro 200

  This is my first season and shut down the boiler for the first time last week for 6 months.  I used just shy of two cords a month heating my 140 year old two story farm house that is well insulated including foam sprayed basement walls.  I also have a 40X80 shop that I heat when it isn't too cold with a 100k BTU dragons breath air handler.  The 200pro capabilities are pretty much at their max with my setup. 
   I am really happy with the unit and only had a few problems I was able to work out pretty quick.  The combustion fan in the back of the unit has sealed bearings that only lasted about 4 months.  The warranty process was incredibly easy and a new fan was delivered in five days.  I would highly suggest oiling the bearings with a drop of oil when cleaning the unit once a week.  I usually remove the fan when cleaning so ash does not intrude the motor housing.  I think this is where bearing failure begins.  My electronics warranty has run out so now I am on my own.  I have a total of three fans now (one new one on machine, one backup and one I am taking apart this summer to design a better bearing setup.)  Pretty much everything else I might need can be bought and shipped out online.
  Creosote build up seems to be the problem for alot of owners.  I do not have any to speak of but I think keeping the load times shorter is the key.  All gassers like seasoned wood but with a keen eye or a 30 dollar moisture meter you can mix up the wood.  I have only had a few bridge outs but eventually they cave in and it starts making good heat again.  I also put in a cap full of creosote killer powder a few times a week.
   I started my fire Sept 12 of last year.  It was a bit early but I wanted to be able to work out some bugs if need be.  The fire has never gone out.  Even when the fan quit and the unit idled for 12 hours reducing a full box of wood to a not even a smoulder all had to do was get the fan going again and the fire roared to life.
  I decided to build a fire today as we are dropping down to -9 tonight but well into the positives early this week.  It took about 2 hours to go from stone cold to 180'F.
  The manual and video shows the stove being loaded with optimum shaped wood.  6-8" in diameter for the 200pro and 3'long there abouts.  I do not have access to this type of wood and I burn just about everything that doesnt have nails in it.  (ok, maybe the odd pallet too).  I have not had a problem at all.
  The only thing I would change is the firebox size.  It is ridiculously small but I guess its part of the design.  If I had bought th 400 pro it would have too long of burn times and create creosote.
   The smoke door has a hinge that is in a sheety spot making the stove difficult to fill to the top but on the other hand the ash cleanout is stupid easy and very efficient.  I create about 1 bucket of ash a week and have never had to clean out the firebox as the ash is directed out the bottom holes in the brick.
  All and all if this bitch doesn't spring a leak in the next 4 years I am one happy guy.   I spend about 4000 in oil/propane a year and purchased this unit at a deep discount.  My total install including concrete pad and walkway was under 10k.

  Maintenance,

   Pretty easy all and all and takes less than 15 min.  I keep all the tools including a cheap drill in the back of the machine.  Cleaning out the tubes with the fly ash brush supplied and a power drill is a snap.  I also lightly scrub around the gaskets, oil the motor and blow out the fan with compressed air.  I wouldn't even call it maintenance to be honest.  I was doing it once a week, then once every two weeks and left it for three once.  I think the buildup after three weeks was a detriment to the efficiency so now I just do it every Sunday morning as a rule. 
 

So. How effective is that creosote powder? Tell me about it.

[slimjim]

Well I think the majority of us that have gassers have been happy with them, there is a bit of a learning curve with them all but with proper support they all seem to work pretty well.

[userdk]

So Slimjim, looks like you're burning a G200 how's it been treating you?

[slimjim]

Not any more, HondaRacer now owns it, it went VERY WELL from February through this summers shows, I'm back to my old WoodDoctor for now until I get my new unit to try out, ( it's a secret ) and then I'll be putting in a G 400 for my permanent unit I think!

[mlappin]

I think I have a guess or two what your secret might be but I’ll not say it to leave everyone else in suspense. 

Installed my G400 a week ago, had it up and running late Friday night/early Saturday morning. Followed lighting directions from the manual and from what I’ve read on this site, relatively straight forward once a coal bed is established. Don’t let it burn down too far, won’t go out but you’ll get some smoke until the fresh wood gets going well, far as I can tell up to 6 to 8 inches of a coal bed is just fine in the G series. Haven’t seen the slot in the bottom plug up with anything as of yet.

I’m heating 2700 square feet of 1800’s farm house and 45x45 shop with no insulation under the floor or perimeter, have used a quarter cord in a week.

I almost think somebody that has never used a OWB of any kind as long as they’d follow directions would have no problems getting the hang of a G series, I was guilty of letting it burn down too far to stay ahead of the coals and ash which was imperative in my old one, not required with a G, don’t even need to really stir it up like my old one, just move the partially burnt pieces around to make sure they aren’t bridging underneath anywhere and add more wood.

[userdk]

mlappin,
   How much less wood would you estimate it's burning or is it just too early to tell?

[mlappin]

My guess is half of what old smokey burnt.

Usually this time of year I wouldn’t have bothered starting the wood boiler yet and just use the waste oil to batch burn and heat 700 gallons of water up as it took too much wood even in the shoulder season. Always ran the oil boiler along wit the wood in the winter to cut down on wood usage, not seeing that being a problem. The G400 heats 700 gallons of water up in practically no time, longest I’ve seen it run has been 20 minutes where the old one might run for hours at a time reheating all that wood.

I get done wit harvest I’m going to rerun my test I did on ole smokey a few weeks ago. I took three hundred pounds of wood, started a fire and let it go, 6 hours later the water temp was starting to drop and the water was only up to 160. I haven’t measured it out for the G400 yet but my guess would be it shut off at 180 before burning half that much, but it also heats the water faster than the fifty FPHE can heat the 450 gallons of water in the waste oil boiler tank, so it cycled on and off several times before the shop water caught up.

We had a pretty cool day awhile back with 30-40 mph winds, I turned the heat all the way up in the house and opened a window or two downwind, turned all the air handlers on in the shop, two fifty thousand and one hundred thousand BTU and left the service door open, the 400 kept up no problem and was cycling on and off. I’m also hoping for some real frigid weather this winter to see what it does, I’ll kick the snow melt on next time as well and see what happens.

[Smokeless]

Hi. I purchased  a HeatMaster G-200 in August. My small boiler was not big enough for the added garage. I hooked it up in a few days. We burned pine and hemlock until November it was not at 20%. More like 30- 45%. All I used it for was the DHW. The stove function was flawless. Once I packed the fire box to the ceiling with the soft wood it heated up no problem, but condensates out the front door seal. It was enough wood for three days only doing the DHW. So after that I was only filling enough for one day. Eliminating the condensation problem. Now I switched over to red maple,birch, some ash. This wood is only at 40% moisture. I cut the wood in summer time not realizing I was going to purchase a new furnace. Yes mLappin in the exchanger tubes there is turbulator fins that are dual function, they clean the tubes and direct the hot gasses to the tube. Just pull the handle they move up n down scrubbing the tubes all at once. And you r done Cleaning the tubes my girlfriend can do it quicker than I typed this out. It has a smoke bypass that actually works, pulling the smoke away from you, when I open the Clean out door it is gassifiing on the wood I'm using that is not the 20%. Then you rake out the ash in the reaction chamber once every three weeks. That takes one minute to do. Once a year it is recommended to clean above the heat tubes which is a easy removable panel with slide tabs. Maybe 20 minutes maximum. 
     The only problem I had was I lost a bearing in the blower , on the hot side. The shaft stuck to the bearing spinning it in the holder. This was not the fault of HeatMaster sense they do not assemble the motors. I talked with Ryan at steel tec and he was ok with me taking the blower from a new unit. And they sent a new one to slimjim In a few days. This unit might be pricy but when you buy quality and have service like that it is worth every penny. There was no charge for the motor.

[hondaracer2oo4]

The only complaint I have so far with my G200 is that the fan bearing sounds like its going to give up at somepoint sooner than later. It makes quite the rattling sound when the fan starts up at first. Goes away after it is running for a minute.

[slimjim]

Is it a bearing sound or rubbing?

[hondaracer2oo4]

At first I thought it was possibly the fan being out of balance because of fly ash on the fan blades. I haven't  convinced myself yet that is not the problem. It has been going off and on since I got it dropped off. It could possibly be rubbing, but I don't know what the fan blade could be rubbing on? I think what I will do at the next cleaning is pull of the heat exchanger access panel and fan and flip the bypass lever forward to kick the fan on and see what I can determine.

[mlappin]

At first I thought it was possibly the fan being out of balance because of fly ash on the fan blades. I haven't  convinced myself yet that is not the problem. It has been going off and on since I got it dropped off. It could possibly be rubbing, but I don't know what the fan blade could be rubbing on? I think what I will do at the next cleaning is pull of the heat exchanger access panel and fan and flip the bypass lever forward to kick the fan on and see what I can determine.

The design of the fan blades are pretty much what dust collectors use and are for “debris laden air”. However it might be possible that maybe in some warmer temps a little creosote formed on them than ran down the blade without dripping off and solidified. This is just a guess, mine was pretty darn clean when I pulled it last week given the environment it works in.

[slimjim]

Im thinking its dirty Honda as I never did clean that for the entire season from February last year!

[slimjim]

I have a spare here if you need it.

[hondaracer2oo4]

Thank you Richard, I will pull it when I get a chance so that I can try to diagnose it.