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[american-pacemaker]

I just put my deposit in for an optimizer 250 thanks to Rory and Slimjim. So now the questions begin. What is the best size to split wood for this stove ? Also what is the best wood to try to start with so that I have enough dry wood for next winter ?
I cannot say enough good things about Slimjim, he was instrumental in helping me make the decision on a P&M.

[slimjim]

Thank you for the kind words and for the credit on the sale, Don't be picky about wood sizing, 8 inch rounds should be split once, 2 feet in length and a good mixture of softwood and hardwood as well as mixture in sizing splits is the best, give me a call when you are ready to start.

[randy_1]

I cut mine 22 to 24 in long try not to have anything bigger than 6 to 8 inches like slim says split anything over 8 in and you should be fine. I will say smaller stuff seems to burn better when i'm under a light load due to short burn times. the bigger stuff seems to last a little better on the long cold nights 0 or below my house is 2500 sq ft. with radiant & baseboard and domestic HW. im looking like ill burn about 8 cord this year starting in October her in northern central Maine . I keep the house at 73. I did learn that I may have been guilty of over feeding it  rookie mistake...

[american-pacemaker]

I have a few differant loggers to deal with right know. One has triaxel loads of all oak or mixed hardwoods. One other one has triaxle loads of pine and hemlock. Should I get one load of each to start with ? Slimjim I will for be more then happy to pay you
to come down when I start the boiler so that we know every thing is right from the start.

[slimjim]

Sounds good!

[jrider]

I'm on year 3 with my 250 and each winter my splits get bigger and bigger.  What I've learned is the big splits work quite well when it's cold but the smaller splits work best when it's warmer out and the stove isn't working as hard.  Just out of curiosity and because it splits like hell, I put some real big gum ( 16-18" diameter, 28" long) in during our coldest stretch.  I then threw smaller pieces around it.  This worked but I wouldn't go quite that big again - maybe up to 12"-14" in diameter max.  I sell wood and what is too ugly/rotten/softwood that I can't sell goes toward heating my house.  I've burned a large variety of wood (pine, gum, maple, walnut, dogwood, oak, holly, sycamore, cherry, elm, poplar) and it's all burned just fine but at different rates.  I've also found that most anything over 6-8 months works just fine.

[mlappin]

Nows the time to be dropping next seasons firewood, before the sap starts to flow most trees will be around or under 30% moisture, I've heard ash is around 25% in the dead of winter. I could be wrong on the actual percentages by a few points, but once the buds start to show it will take longer to season.

[american-pacemaker]

Thanks for the help guys. This is my first wood boiler, only inside wood stoves before this. I have a tri axle of pine and hemlock
coming monday and another tri axle of mixed hardwood the following week. Hopefully that will be dry and get me thru next
winter. It will be so nice to watch the oil and propane trucks just drive past the house !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[slimjim]

You are well on the way now.

[karlk]

congratulations your going to love the new boiler

[american-pacemaker]

karlk, I did a lot of research and think I made the right decision. It looks like every one that has the optimizer 250 is happy with them.

[James]

karlk, I did a lot of research and think I made the right decision. It looks like every one that has the optimizer 250 is happy with them.

Did you happen read all the threads in the P&M folder??  Although I can say that I go through periods of tolerance with the 250 (as in sometimes I don't want to give it back to the factory), I most assuredly am not happy with it after almost three seasons running it.

That said, my house is warmer than if I didn't burn wood and slimjim has helped me immensely.  But after spending around $20,000 on the unit and installation + countless hours of my life trying to get it to run properly...It was probably a mistake.  Sorry slim.

[american-pacemaker]

James what problems have you had with the unit ?

[James]

James what problems have you had with the unit ?

Oh boy...that seems like a real simple question to answer, doesn't it Mr. Pacemaker?  Unfortunately, it's a multi-faceted, multi-leveled question and I'm going to try and be as fair to all parties as the truth and my experience will allow me to be.  All I need is another 45 minute phone call from Brian scolding me for relaying my experiences with the 250.

I should start by separating my answer in to three separate parts.  One is the stove, the second is Portage & Main as a company and the third and probably most complicated part is Mr. Slimjim.  Why is that, you might ask?  Because my involvement with Mr. Slim predates his employment with P&M but he's also the person who sold me the stove.  He's also the person who did my installation and continues to service my boiler and the system to which it's connected.  And I need him to continue helping me, but unfortunately my boiler has given me nothing but troubles.

The other thing I should also point out is that I bought my boiler in 2011 and many of these items may have been updated and/or solved on current and future boilers - but I wouldn't really know any of that.  All I can comment on as fact is my experience with my boiler, Portage & Main and Mr. Slim.

The first thing that should have been a tip off for my future experiences was that my boiler was shipped without any type of owners manual.  No manual, no DVD, no "do's and don'ts".  Nothing of the sort.  OK, I thought, it's just wood and fire, right?  No.  Not right at all.  The learning curve on my stove was steep and LOOOOONG.  In hindsight, I think this O-250 boiler was probably rushed to production and in that rush, an operator's manual was overlooked or just brushed aside as unnecessary.

So, on to the list of problems I've actually had with the boiler:

- My boiler smoked a LOT at the beginning.  I was told by one party that I needed "good dry hardwood" and by another party that I could burn unseasoned wood.  When I first got the boiler, all I had was green wood - so that's what I tried to burn.  And it smoked/steamed a lot.  The jury is still out on this one because some say you HAVE to have dry wood and Mr. Slim claims he can make the boiler run on green wood.  My wood is dry now and I have 30ish cords stacked for future use - so that's no longer a problem.  All I see now is the occasional smoke at start up and steam.

- The rope gaskets, despite Brian's claims that they were top of the line, leaked a LOT.  So, my $11,500 boiler looked 10 years old after just the first year because of all the steam burns and creosote build up.  These leaky gaskets were also blamed for creosote buildup in my airbox - which I'll comment on later.  Slim has since replaced all my gaskets with the silicone covered stuff and all is good.  The gaskets don't leak now.

- The draft mechanism has a spring that causes the disks to close everything inside the air box down.  My original spring needed to be replaced in the first season - but not until the old one caused the mechanism to stick open, creosote to build up and gum up the whole air box.

- The access door to my air mechanism used to be held on with self tapping screws.  I had to take that door off around 6 times to fix my gummed up mechanism.  Half of those self tappers stripped out and then the air box wouldn't make a seal.  Guess what?  More creosote, more gumming, more problems with the air flappers.  Slimjim has since replaced my air mechanism door but the creosote problem still persists to this day.

- The latch to my gasification door broke one day.  No big deal, you might think?  Does it change your mind if I tell you that it happened at 2:00 in the morning?  Yeah.  When the latch broke it took my $11,500 boiler and rendered it useless until the hardware store opened.  The hardware store in my town is closed on Sunday...Ugh.  Slimjim replaced my latch after I McGyvered it with pieces I was able to hobble together.

- The fire bricks on my gasification door KEPT breaking.  As in almost every time I would open/close it.  That doesn't seem like a big deal until you try and pick one of them up after forgetting that it's probably 1500 degrees!  Probably just a bad design from the factory - but still adds to the list of downright annoyances about my experience.  Slimjim replaced my bricks with a stainless retrofit for the door liner - now there are no bricks in the door of my boiler.

- This is my third season with the boiler and I'm on my 4th gasification nozzle.  In the spirit of full disclosure, one of these four nozzles was from karlk and his original (though much more durable than stock) just didn't work for me - so technically I'm wearing out the stock nozzles at one per season.  I've read commentary on this very website that they should last three years.  Um.  No.

- At the end of my second season, one of my heat exchange tubes sprung a leak.  Slim came and tried to weld it but was unsuccessful so I had to call in a professional welder.  It was only a minor inconvenience but it took about a week to get taken care of - not the one day that has been cited on this very website.  The bill was covered either by Mr. Slim or P&M.  I'm not sure - but either way, I didn't see the bill.

- The wire on my servo motor became detached.  Who knows when it happened but between Mr. Slim & I, we think it may have come from the factory that way.  The symptoms were that sometimes the boiler would miraculously run right, gasify and heat my water.  Yep, you read that right...The boiler would sometimes run right.  In my attempt to fix the servo and to self-diagnose my problems, my Johnson control got fried.  Slim came the next day & replaced my servo and the Johnson control.

- My airbox is perpetually full of creosote & water.  This is a problem that I know Mr. Slim thinks/thought he fixed with the retrofit airbox parts and new door gaskets - but it's not fixed.  The bottom of my airbox is full of water right now as I sit here typing this note.  When I wipe it up at night, it's right back in there the next morning.  What's inevitably going to happen is that water is going to turn in to creosote and gum up the mechanics of my airbox again.

I'm not going to bullet point any more of my issues because these ones are more emotional or cerebral in nature.  Listening to folks describe this stove, you would be led to believe that it is the best thing since sliced bread.  To me, that message is both frustrating and insulting.  I have a LOT of room to admit that some of my issues are because of operator error...But how could I possibly have such a different experience running this machine?  To read on this very website that this stove is "throw and go" after I have just come in from cleaning the airbox for 2 hours?  Beyond frustrating.  Just ask my family how pleasant it is to be around me when I've been problem solving the Optimizer 250!

So - I think that between Slimjim's commitment to stand by the product he sold me and his immense amount of patience I'm still an owner of the 250.  If not for him and his commitment, my wife and I would have begged P&M to come and pick up their boiler.  There may be bleed over credit due to P&M's warrantee - but Slimjim has never mentioned it.

If you've made it this far reading my drivel, congratulations - you've finally read a long but overdue dissenting opinion about this stove.  Again, maybe these issues have all been addressed, but these are my personal experiences.

This very well be "The best boiler design on the market" as I've heard 100 times - but I'm frustrated as hell with mine.  When someone tells you that everyone is happy with the Optimizer 250, just take it with a grain of salt.  I'm not happy.  I tolerate it.

[slimjim]

Thanks Jim, Glad you got that off your chest.