heatmaster g200

ford4sale said:

Looking at a g200 gasafyer
Anyone have experience with one

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yes i have one and love it after fighting with profab for two years. feel free to ask any questions you want

ford4sale said:

fighting with profab?
have you had dificulty getting wood dried down enough to burn? What % moister?
is maintance an issue ?
how bad does it smoke compaired to a conventional oudoor boiler?

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yes i original had a profab empyer elite 200. well actually two of them in two years and they were both junk. it was so bad on the second stove that Ben the engineer came down to look at my stove.

no i have not had a problem dry. i am one year ahead on wood or better. as far as moisture it has averaged 13 to 15 on the outside and 17 to 19 in the center, i burn all types of wood. the one thing i have figured out about this stove is that the wood needs to be split a little smaller then before. the reasoning is for the purpose of getting the wood falling into the center of the stove over the opening. about 2 minutes a day for maintenance and about 10 minutes on Sundays to clean out all the ash. i have had the stove almost two months and no real issues.

ford4sale said:

you have a g200?
what is your heat load sq feet and domestic hot water
smoke is a comcern for me, does it smoke when you load, at idle or when running?
thanks for the help

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yes i have a g200 my heat load is a two story house with a basement for a total of 2400 sq feet. the house is just a little over two years old and fairly tight. yes i am also running domestic hot water too. sorry i did not get to your smoking question yesterday been a long week at a new job. let me break your smoke question down to explain a little better. yes the stove smokes when you load the stove sometimes it all depends on where the stove is at in its firing cycle. but you need to remember that when you open the by pass the fire box is under negative pressure. the fan pulls all the smoke out of the fire box and none comes out the door. the only time the stove smokes at an idle is right after the stove shuts down from a firing cycle and it is only for a minute or two. now while the stove is running depends on your definition of smoke. if you are just talking about the bad smoke it really depends on timing of the cycle. worst case the stove might smoke for two or three minutes at the most till the secondary gets warm enough to light the gases and that is it. the other smoke is the good smoke or just water condensation in the really cold air.

the stove runs on a 20 degrees (160 to 180) water cycle temp which helps cut down on any smoke and makes it more efficient.

i hope this helps

Treefrog do you plan on running it in the summer? If so what will you do about it idling for to long.

It also modulates from low to high fire, reducing the amount of times it really starts from full idle to full fire (and therefore smoke). I have only looked at show models (not running) and I like a lot of the little design details I saw on the models. I also like the fact that it's UL listed for indoor installation and Negative draft which reduces smoke spillage when loading.

toecheese said:

Treefrog do you plan on running it in the summer? If so what will you do about it idling for to long.

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no i do not plan on running it during the summer. i normally shut it down in April depending on the daily temps. then i let the tankless kick in and do it job all summer

Thanks treefrog. Has anyone run a gasser in the summer months?

Can you turn down the boiler from 160-180 to 120-130 for DHW in the summer? Seems like that would keep it from idling alot since there is no big load as there would be in winter. I've been researching the g series and like what I see so far.

The g series is not adjustable. The dealers can adjust them but mine said the only thing the factory will let him do is bump it to 185. You don't want to run any boiler below 160. Those lower temps cause sweating in the firebox and will rust out boiler.

Trying to lower a boiler temp that low will also increase idling by a lot - and condense a lot of creosote inside. Not a good idea, likely.

How bout a small tank like a 250 gallon for a "buffer" for dhw in the summer? Or I guess for the money one would have wrapped up in tank one could get a tankless water heater depending on one's situation.

I personally don't see any big advantage to running in the summer just to heat dhw. I have a 50 gallon hot water heater and it costs me about $40 per month to run. Pretty cheap in my opinion.

I only stated my question because I read posts from people with gassers and storage heating for dhw in the summer.

Maybe the g series isn't the correct boiler for that situation but it seems a varm, eko, tarm etc with storage is. From what I have read in the past.

I bet either one will keep you warm in the winter and the heating bill down.

If you burned flat out with storage it would work on any gasser.

Yes but a $9700 G200 vs a $7000 eko 60 is a big difference. Granted it's not apples to apples, but you get the idea.

jasonh said:

I only stated my question because I read posts from people with gassers and storage heating for dhw in the summer.

Maybe the g series isn't the correct boiler for that situation but it seems a varm, eko, tarm etc with storage is. From what I have read in the past.

I bet either one will keep you warm in the winter and the heating bill down.

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I have been through 3 summers so far with my boiler + storage setup. The first two summers I heated DHW with wood, this past summer I let storage go cold & turned the breaker back on to my ordinary electric water heater. For me it comes down to how much junk wood I have laying around that I could get rid of over the summer heating DHW. At $20-25/mo to do it with electricity, it isn't a big money saver - plus even though my storage is pretty well insulated, I suspect it does add to the summer heat in the house. Although I can't really notice it here. I can burn once a week for just DHW. Rough estimate is that burn is around 8 cu.ft. of wood, so maybe 1/4 cord of wood per month. So over 4 months I spend maybe $100 for electricity to save 1 cord of wood. If it's good wood, that's good saving. If it's junk wood, maybe not. Those are my numbers, and I don't think you could heat DHW all summer using less wood than I did. Especially with an OWB.

If you throw a heat pump water heater into the mix, or living in a warmer summer climate, that makes it even less worthwhile to burn wood.

Yeap the eko 60 is less money but it all depends what you want to do. If you want your wood outside then you have to build a shed. Then if you want it to work efficiently you need to add storage.

jasonh said:

Yes but a $9700 G200 vs a $7000 eko 60 is a big difference. Granted it's not apples to apples, but you get the idea.

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But that G-200 you can set on a pad, hook up some PEX and some pumps and you're good. the EKO is a whole different animal and really needs storage, and that ain't cheap. the G-200 has 200 gallons internal, and the EKO 60 has 47 gallons internal and doesn't modulate. That greatly affects the burn characteristics.
if you add a chimney, loading unit, and some (not full storage even) storage to the EKO you will be at least in the range of the G-200.
there ain't no free lunch.
karl

Ya I know Karl, I think that was part of our conversation a couple months ago. It all really costs about the same. At least it seems.

Anyone ever put a G200 indoors?

Is there an insulated panel that covers the back of the boiler on the G200? Covering the water inputs/outputs/electrical? Tough time finding any detailed images of the boiler. Thanks.