Portage & Maine Boilers?

[Frogburner]

Thoughts on Portage and Maine Gasification boilers? Been looking at the EGR-250, are they good people to deal with?

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

I use to recommend people take a look at them since thier bl series conventional has been pretty good. There have been very few people around with the egr 250 but the two people that I had talked to seemed to like them. Well recently someone bought one on the Facebook page and there is something wrong with possibly air flow, it doesn't gas. He has been through 4 cords in a month. The company has a poor dealer network which I have heard is because the owner sells factory direct around the dealers so nobody wants to get involved with them. The owner was assured before the purchase that he would have any warranty problems taken care of by a qualified tech. Well the owner sent another home owner that owns a egr to diagnose the problems. Obviously he had no clue what was wrong with the no gassing. Then the homeowner was told that the qualified tech who was four hours away was to expensive. After much pressure from people on the page portage is sending te guy that was " to expensive". All companies have problems, it's how they deal with them. It appeared that this situation was handled poorly and the pressure had to be put on them to do the right thing. One last thing is that they require I think 30% glycol. That gets pricey fast and the boilers are already $12,500 I Beleive.

 

[Greyhousemogul]

I use to recommend people take a look at them since thier bl series conventional has been pretty good. There have been very few people around with the egr 250 but the two people that I had talked to seemed to like them. Well recently someone bought one on the Facebook page and there is something wrong with possibly air flow, it doesn't gas. He has been through 4 cords in a month. The company has a poor dealer network which I have heard is because the owner sells factory direct around the dealers so nobody wants to get involved with them. The owner was assured before the purchase that he would have any warranty problems taken care of by a qualified tech. Well the owner sent another home owner that owns a egr to diagnose the problems. Obviously he had no clue what was wrong with the no gassing. Then the homeowner was told that the qualified tech who was four hours away was to expensive. After much pressure from people on the page portage is sending te guy that was " to expensive". All companies have problems, it's how they deal with them. It appeared that this situation was handled poorly and the pressure had to be put on them to do the right thing. One last thing is that they require I think 30% glycol. That gets pricey fast and the boilers are already $12,500 I Beleive.

That person was me!! I bought a egr250 directly from Brian Martin, as he assured me I would have dealers and techs near me in the event of a problem. The unit came with missing panels and a faulty fill guage that resulted I a 700 loss of glycol. I have dozens of videos documenting the unit not gassifying correctly and I also have the owner of the company admitting the unit isn't right. He told me he would refund me my money and wood. The next day he said it would cost him too much money to make things right. I have gotten nowhere with them and have filed with the BBB and am on social media to let anyone know a out how they treat their customers after the sale. They dont stand behind their products. My unit burns a cord a week which is more than a conventional burning unit. Now they have bought the company polar to help them sell under a different name. I have attached some of the screenshots of the owner Brian Martin admitting the unit isn't correct, but still they say it will cost too much. Come on!

 

[Woodfarmer1]

It has been my experience that most boiler companies are the same, as soon as there is a problem they don’t come through. I had an Empyre elite and then bought a Garn which I still had issues with. These boilers cost way too much money for what they are and their customer service is lacking.

 

[S.Whiplash]

The P+M EGR series is a nightmare to deal with, they basically copied the Polar design but did it their way and screwed up the gasification process with alterations. I don't believe this model will be in production long, I've serviced two and could not make either gasifiy properly even with the driest wood. I basically threw up my hands and walked away unable to overcome the bad engineering they've employed. Sad to hear they purchased the Polar line as that was a very good unit and a good company to deal with, hopefully they don't mess it up.

 

[E Yoder]

Furnacecompare.com has quite a few reviews of various brands. People don't always review the correct model but it's still interesting reading. I haven't looked at P&M specifically but there should be some reviews.