Empyre Elite 200 Pro Fab

[tommygun.tjd]

I am a first year owner of an Empry Elite 200 Indoor Wood Boiler. Within the first 2 months of running the unit my entire secondary burn chamber is cracking and falling apart. My dealer has been great but trying to deal with the company Pro Fab is a nightmare. I first get that it is normal usage and we will not replace them. Then finally after practically begging they have now agreed to replace. If I can't get service within the forst year of owning this thing, what will happen in 2, 5, 10 years down the road.

At this point I am ready to pull the whole unit out and find something better.

Does anyone have any good ideas for a different boiler or suggestions for me??

Thanks

 

[bags]

Old school Woodmaster here and have had zero trouble from it. I did replace the thermistor and an air intake flapper last winter in it's ninth season. Simple machine but not as efficient and clean.

 

[maple1]

New secondary refractory is really prone to damage the first few fires. Should do a few very small burns to dry them out fully & get them cured. If you fire gung-ho from the get-go, they will suffer. Not sure that was a factor here or not though - just putting it out there.

If it comes to a different boiler - no single easy answer to that. Just bury yourself in this place, and assess your situation/layout/preferences.

 

[tommygun.tjd]

I like the unit itself, don't get me wrong just want the company to back it up and be there for me. To first get the answer that..... it is normal..... then I get that they changed the secondary burn chamber around. Why did they change it? maybe because what they had was not working? It's the fact that you spend all this money installing a system like this and then to have to shut down in the first year of burning is really frustrating.

 

[Roundgunner]

They gave me all the stuff to replace the lower chamber in mine. I broke a couple of the uppers in the process, I hope to get them replaced in the spring. The fire brick on the lower door has been replaced twice.

 

[Woodfarmer1]

Go get a case of beer and do a search, there is tons of reading to do. After one year with a 100 I sold it and bought a garn jr.

 

[Obadiah]

Greetings,

I am the dealer that sold the Elite 200 to Tommy Gun. It was unfortunate that the refractory failed prematurely. Obadiah's processed the warranty claim for Tom, with Pro Fab.
The refractory panel to the door was shipped to the wrong address. The second refractory package was caught in a snow storm and delayed. It was delivered as soon as UPS could get around again a few days latter.
We have had some issues with parts getting shipped out in a timely manner and I raised hell with Pro Fab as a result of Tom's issue. Hopefully this issue will be resolved and parts will now ship faster.
Let me say this about the Elite, it is the only Upside Down Gasification Boiler I know of that will idle and does not require water storage. The design is unique in that manner. There have been some engineering issues that needed to be resolved.
Pro Fab and Obadiah's go back to 2001. In the 14 years I have been a dealer, they have stood behind their products in every claim I have filed. It is unfortunate when a manufacture has problems that result in warranty claims. It is how the manufacturer handles those claims that really matters, as well as the dealer you bought the boiler from.
Obadiah's has been around a while and we have many vendors we deal with. We are under no illusions and understand we are only as good as those who supply and support the products we offer. It is our best suppliers that get the majority of our business, those who won't support us, we drop the line. We will continue to offer the Pro Fab line as long as they continue to stand behind their products they manufacture so we can honor our motto, "Extinguishing Mediocrity".

 

[maple1]

Let me say this about the Elite, it is the only Upside Down Gasification Boiler I know of that will idle and does not require water storage.

Not sure about that - there are quite a few on here running other 'upside down' gasifiers without storage. They would certainly run better with storage but don't 'need' it - as I suspect is the case with the Elite.

 

[Roundgunner]

Woody,
Glad you spoke up, feeling like a underdog here. My dealer retired and CT being a nanny state we are not allowed OWB anymore so no new dealers locally. I will send my business your way.

On another note my wife and I sent our daughter to UM in Missoula, MT and have rode our motorcycle all over out there. I grew up outside Toledo, OH and spent a lot of time in Michigan (a lot nicer than my area in Ohio) but nothing like MT, WY or CO.

 

[tom in maine]

Unfortunately, idling always seems to cause problems. To try to idle or quiet down an ongoing combustion process indicates to me, IMHO, a lack of understanding of the process of burning biomass.
The evidence is here with folks who have systems that try to function by stopping a fire because the house is up to temperature.
Solid fuels in high temperature situations are not going to stop just because a designer thinks combustion should stop. There is going to be a price to pay, either deterioration from polycyclic hydrocarbons inside combustion chambers, on dampers or build up on heat exchangers or flues.

I wish it was otherwise, but that is the reality. Either use all the heat and let the fire go out, regulate the feed rate of the fuel or use some form of buffer.

 

[Obadiah]

Woody,
Glad you spoke up, feeling like a underdog here. My dealer retired and CT being a nanny state we are not allowed OWB anymore so no new dealers locally. I will send my business your way.

On another note my wife and I sent our daughter to UM in Missoula, MT and have rode our motorcycle all over out there. I grew up outside Toledo, OH and spent a lot of time in Michigan (a lot nicer than my area in Ohio) but nothing like MT, WY or CO.

Great pictures, looks like my backyard. Next time your out here, look me up and I'll take you sailing on Flathead Lake. Our daughter just graduated from U of M in Missoula last Spring.

 

[GENECOP]

The company standing behind a product and dealer support does not really go to far IMO while in the middle of the winter, the first year owning a unit, and having catastrophic failure....it should not happen, we are not talking about new technology, Profab should have some system of quality control in place to prevent this kind of failure....

 

[Obadiah]

Unfortunately, idling always seems to cause problems. To try to idle or quiet down an ongoing combustion process indicates to me, IMHO, a lack of understanding of the process of burning biomass.
The evidence is here with folks who have systems that try to function by stopping a fire because the house is up to temperature.
Solid fuels in high temperature situations are not going to stop just because a designer thinks combustion should stop. There is going to be a price to pay, either deterioration from polycyclic hydrocarbons inside combustion chambers, on dampers or build up on heat exchangers or flues.

I wish it was otherwise, but that is the reality. Either use all the heat and let the fire go out, regulate the feed rate of the fuel or use some form of buffer.

I totally concur and could not have said it any better.
The difference is the designers of the Elite set out to make the unit idle whereas most of the Euro models I deal in were designed as batch burners and are sold with that in mind by folks who understand as you say, "the process of burning biomass". Laws in Europe in some places require batch burners because they burn hot and clean. Not necessarily efficient from the Thermal Transfer end of things as temperatures in the white hot range are pretty extreme when your transferring into a medium that boils at 212 degrees. If we were using liquid sulfur or something as our medium it may make more sense. There are many forms of combustion, which in all cases consist of three very simple things, fuel, ignition and oxygen.
(broken image removed) Remove or limit any one thing and it affects the combustion process. The process of "Gasification" has now been marketed to mean a certain type of boiler, instead of a step in the process of high temperature combustion. Looking at some of the examples that were in DC for the Clean Burning Stove Challenge there were some interesting examples of folks thinking outside of the box.
If we can design woodstoves to burn as clean as they do today, without defying physics, but rather using it to our advantage, can't someone design biomass boilers that burn the same way? Simple, bullet proof and affordable?

 

[Obadiah]

The company standing behind a product and dealer support does not really go to far IMO while in the middle of the winter, the first year owning a unit, and having catastrophic failure....it should not happen, we are not talking about new technology, Profab should have some system of quality control in place to prevent this kind of failure....

I totally agree, there is no excuse and I was not making them, merely stating the facts. The facts are, if your involved in fabrication or engineering, engaged in manufacturing a product as complex as a boiler, the chances for problems are there. We see that everyday in many ways with various suppliers. When this happens it puts a sour taste in many folks mouths, including my own. Yet at the same time, if we don't step out and take some risks, we'd all still be sitting in caves looking at a campfire. The most important part is the comapny step up to the plate and make it right.
I have seen the same thing to happen to Woodmaster, WoodDoctor, Central Boiler and many other companies. Some have gone under or moved into building other products. Others made it right and it cost them big time, but they still did the right thing.

 

[Woodfarmer1]

Idling creates creosote which is profabs #1 problem. I purchased the 100 second hand but it was one of the early ones and I had no problems with rot. however profab would not warranty my unit without low temp return water protection. I told them this unit was manufactured before that was required and still had warranty so they should supply the $600 unit that they required. Nope they wouldn't even consider it.

Long story short I sold it and bought the garn jr.

Now as for not needing storage as they promote: this is an approximation at 6* outside @ 9pm
100 Burn Garn
190*. 2hr. 190*
After 9hrs
80*. 140*
What I'm trying to show is that the 100 with only 60gal of water cannot supply heat for any more than 2-3 hours.
I had to relight every 4 hours what a pita and very difficult when your at work all day or would like to sleep at night.
I don't know how profab can keep telling customers that they don't need storage, which is re-enforced by dealers like my local one and Obadiah .

 

[kuribo]

If we can design woodstoves to burn as clean as they do today, without defying physics, but rather using it to our advantage, can't someone design biomass boilers that burn the same way?

It has been done for hundreds of years- it's called a masonry heater!

 

[kuribo]

Idling creates creosote which is profabs #1 problem. ..
I don't know how profab can keep telling customers that they don't need storage, which is re-enforced by dealers like my local one and Obadiah .

To burn wood cleanly and efficiently you need to burn flat out. Unfortunately, the heat output which results from efficient boiler operation does not match the load profile of most homes. To match the output to the load you can either idle the boiler or use storage. We know that idling is contrary to efficient wood burning so either store the btu's or idle with the resulting reduced efficiency and creosote....You would think a boiler manufacturer would at this stage of the game understand this...

 

[maple1]

It has been done for hundreds of years- it's called a masonry heater!

Don't think a masonary heater is a boiler?

But as to the post you quoted - there's a big difference between a wood stove, and the water-cooled firebox of a wood boiler. Also summed up nicely in your last post.

 

[kuribo]

Don't think a masonary heater is a boiler?

Well, they can be....See this thread:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/kuznetsov-boilers-field-reports-from-russia-and-canada.31859/