Newmac quality?

[n1gus]

I am thinking of getting a Newmac wood/oil boiler. A big part of the decision is
a single exhaust port on the boiler. I have only one flu in the basement.
Has anyone had any trouble with them? Are they reliable?

 

[webbie]

We sold against them when I ran Tarm back in the early 1990's. They were decent products, but the fact remains that you are buying a boiler with 1970's technology (as were the regular Tarms we sold back then also).....

That aside, they have been in business for a long time and I do not remember any bad reports about them.

 

[cricco]

I have a Newmac BC 160 combo. It's oil/wood. Thus far, I don't have any complaints. It seems to work quite well, the drawbacks being that:
A) Burning oil seems a bit inefficient, but I am also keeping my boiler heated all summer because I have an 85 gallon indirect water heater for DHW.

B) Burning wet or unseasoned wood seems to cause a lot of creosote buildup. It seems to work best if you have smaller, hotter fires rather than packing it full of wood.

Overall, it is very well built, and I am happy with it. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. I live in Western Massachusetts.

 

[n1gus]

Newmac_owner...How did the install go? As far as the oil side bing inneficient I was curious about that too. I am not too concerned about that because If I burn wood Nov 15 - Apr 1 that will take care of 80% of my oil usage. I planned on using the DHW option for the boiler.

Thanks

 

[cricco]

Sorry about the delay in my reply. The install went fairly well. It did require the plumber and electrician to spend some time on the telephone with Newmac. Newmac does offer pretty good technical support though. My system has 4 zones, and a seperate gravity fed dump zone in case of power failure. My garage is heated, and acts as the primary dump zone for excess heat, while the gravity fed zone also acts as a secondary dump zone, and primary in case of power failure. This zone is 36 feet of baseboard mounted to the ceiling in my basement. Thus far, I have never had an overheating issue. While I stated that the oil burner is innefficient, I will add that it was tested at 85% efficient. I did replace the nozzle, which was a 1.5 gph with the smallest recommended, which is a 1.0 gph nozzle. This seems to help a lot. I hope this helps you. Feel free to PM me if you need to.

 

[cricco]

I forgot to mention that I also have the hot water option on mine, but i didn't connect it due to the building inspector not liking the idea of using it without a mixing valve. I don't think it would have supplied enough hot water for my needs anyways.

 

[steam man]

Just thinking about a combo set up: I would definately go with the indirect water heater. You possibly could use the tankless coil option to act as a "heat dump" by using it with a remote bulb thermostatic valve pipe to a drain. The valve temp would be set for when things get a little hot. A few solid fuel boilers out there are setup like this.

 

[muncybob]

I have doen a lot of reading lately and decided before making a purchase I better find an installer that seems to know what he's doing...so i have 2 guys coming next week. 1 of them started immedialty talking about the Newmac oil/wood boiler. Now I already have an older oil boiler that will primarily supply off season DHW if I keep it so I'm not sure the $$ spent on a combo unit versus a dedicated wood boiler plumbed to my oil boiler makes sense. A dedicated wood boiler costs about the same as the combo unit. I guess I would probably save some $$ on the install going with the combo using the same chimney. But, if the wood boiler part of the combo unit had a problem and I no longer have my old oil boiler am I without heat until the wood/oil combo boiler is fixed? Am I sacrificing a lot of wood burning efficiency by installing a combo unit? The last thing I want to do is install a combo unit and wind up using as much wood as a standard OWB!

 

[cricco]

Am I sacrificing a lot of wood burning efficiency by installing a combo unit? The last thing I want to do is install a combo unit and wind up using as much wood as a standard OWB!

The Newmac is designed to work primarily on wood. I don't think efficiency is going to be lost there. I have heard that the Tarm is a more efficient unit, but I have no problems with my Newmac.