Here is an honest review of the Polar G2 Plus. We purchased the Polar G2 Plus from a NW Wisconsin Dealer. After several trips from the installer who was new it finally was installed with my help. The dealer told me not to pay too much attention to the manual and said he would come back to show us what we needed to know. The dealer only lives about 10 miles away but unfortunately after leaving him voice mails he never responded. The unit was sold to us as being the best on the market and we were told all the other available EPA stoves had problems with corrosion, warranty issues etc. Upon reading the manual we found out the wood requirements are under 6" and very dry with specifications made and a moisture meter provided.
We have only used wood that meets the specificiations provided in the manual and measured on the meter. The winter is nearly over and it has been a real challenge to pick through our wood piles and find small dry wood. I ended up having to split most of it by hand. We made several calls to the company who answered our questions. I wish our dealer would have told us we needed to be more prepared with having 2-3 yr old wood and then we would have waited a year when our wood was really dry. Comparing the stove to our previous conventional boiler, the Polar uses about 25% - 35% less wood.
Drawbacks include about 75% more areas to clean and maintain and electricity inefficiency. This unit draws twice as much electricity as our previous similar sized conventional unit made in 2003. It costs us around $50/month to run compared to our previous similar sized outdoor boiler that used around $25 of electricity per month. We were told by our local sales person that the fan is more efficient than our previous model and is variable speed but it only runs on one speed when cycling. We are wondering about changing the factory settings which according to manual do include a lower fan speed. We clean out all areas of the front of the unit every 4-5 days, sweep the heat exchanger twice per day, and have checked but have not yet had to clean out the heat exchanger compartment. Every week I scrape down the steel and the 3 doors of gaskets on the inside to remove accumulating creosote to keep the unit as clean and efficient as possible. We set up the unit with all factory parts included including the short stack and cap. The unit puts out a lot of black debris that is all over the roof sections. Even though our wood meets the moisture requirements in the manual measured by the moisture meter, the company told me that the debris is from moisture in the wood and that I should remove the stack cap. We also were wondering about cleaning the stack which is not mentioned in the manual and were told by the company that we should clean this at the end of the season. Apparently access to the stack is behind the fan that also has to be removed and cleaned. We can see some the inside plates are warping (bulging in) and hope we can get at least a few seasons out of the unit before having to call the company and paying for these, removing the old ones, and installing the new ones. I cleaned the stack of my old unit every 3 weeks, it was really easy, it took only about 1 minute once I had the brush set up. In general we find this to be a very good solid stove.
To use it efficiently you really need very dry hard wood that is cut around 4" in diameter with lots of smaller pieces in between. We find the stove works best if we layer about 4-6" of long kindling front to back on the bottom over a really good coal bed and then gradually build it up with larger pieces around 4" with only a few up to 5-6" and then mix in smaller ones. Using short pieces is not a good idea because they can block the bottom slot fan intake area. Because we get all our wood for free (we work for it), the actual net cost of using the G3 Plus is significantly greater than our previous conventional 2003 outdoor wood boiler because it requires significantly more electricity to run. We find the stove works best with wood around 24" long.
In summary, to use this stove effectively, the process of harvest, cutting, splitting, and curing wood needs to be carefully planned 2-3 years before this stove is operated. The glass sight glass (to view the flame in the burn tube below) has been covered by creosote residue since the first firing in the fall. This feature sounds like a really great way to view the bottom chamber but the small size and location only a few inches above the level of the base of the stove makes it really awkward and since our glass has been covered over since we started using it, this is a feature we have not been about to use. Because the glass is toward the outside of the door that is around 3" thick, it would take a special tool to get into the space and properly clean it with fireplace glass cleaner. We will send another report after it has been cleaned in the spring. We did not use the stove in the fall shoulder season and have only used it when the high temperatures were below 25 degrees F. We started using the stove in early December and plan on shutting it down before the end of March or when the high temperatures are above 25 degrees F. The stove works best in the coldest weather. Burn cycles get too long in warmer weather when the stove is likely to smolder and go out. We find using even smaller wood in the warmer weather above zero works better. The unit also comes with a really nice array of cleaning tools, a shovel, and scoop. Bill
