Anyone have knowled on Portage and Main Ultimizer

[izod]

From wood heating options i'm looking in the direction of an outdoor wood boiler unit. I live in SE Minnesota, and have 12 acres of mostly hard woods. For what's out there on the market i'm leaning hard towards a Portage and Main Ultimizer, a Conventional style of boiler, for how they are designed over other brands. The company claims that their unit, compared with the majority of other conventional boilers already use 1/3 to 1/2 less wood. Their exhaust route runs an extra 7ish feet which is able to extract a lot more heat to the water. I asked them then how the wood consumption of the Ultimizer compares to their own Optimizers, which are the Phase II burners. They said it's not much of a difference at all...! So this brings me to my questions.

Could that be right?

Is there ANYONE out there running a Portage and Main ultimizer that could give me an idea of their burning consumption for the year with a rough idea of how much area you are heating?

Also If you just have an opinion (good, bad, whatever) about Portage and Main please let me know.

Here is the Ultimizer PDF brochure.
http://media.wix.com/ugd/61224a_ea3ed5612a264acfb9aedbdf3264e1d5.pdf

 

[Guswhit]

I'm glad some one else is bringing this up! I have been doing some research myself on these, specifically the 34-44 model. While the 2 different dealers I talked to both agreed that the unit would use less wood, they thought the 1/3 to 1/2 less statement was boastful. My reasearch has also indicated that these units work better(less wood usage) with large water storage. Found lots of info here, http://**************************/forum/index.php?board=31.0 . Might want to check out http://www.**********/talk/forums/the-boiler-room-wood-boilers-and-furnaces.13/ . My biggest problem so far in buying one is the 2 dealers I spoke to have no experience in setting up the infloor heating zones. They only want to set the units and do a conventional air handling setup. Until I can research more on the finer points of the infloor circulation system I am hesitant on pulling the pin, plus trying to find anyone to help you with useful information setting up a system without a purchase is tough!

 

[midwest_170]

The statement about air under the grate in the brochure could cause a nice debate.

 

[jrider]

Outdoorwoodfurnaceinfo is the best place I've found for OWBs. I own the opt. 250 from portage and main and have nothing but praises.

 

[mbergeon]

look at my avatar photo...

I've been running it for 4 seasons, it works great, but I don't think it is that much different than the neighbors central boiler. The ash pan is the best part.

I also have a 30 x 42 barn with in floor heat in concrete and 800 sq ft of floor in the house retro-fitted with tube under existing wood floors.

I installed everything myself and pretty much followed central boilers install instructions.

 

[Cheesecutter]

I have nothing but positive to say about mine too. Mine is a 6 year old ML36 model. I would agree that 1/3-1/2 less wood usage is stretching it. I'm heating 2 houses to 71-75 degrees, 5000 sq feet of average or less insulated older farm houses. I burn 15-18 cords per year. Burn times of 12-18 hours are common unless it is above 50 then 24 plus hours depending on the size of the wood.

 

[izod]

I do have to add, that we have a heat pump on our AC so we can effectively heat our house down to freezing...and if it's just a little bit too cold for the heat pump to run we don't mind using a little LP through the night time. So really we only use our current in door, forced air, wood burner late Nov through March-ish.

 

[Guswhit]

Any body have any real world experience designing a system here?

 

[mbergeon]

Any body have any real world experience designing a system here?

Are you asking about setting up the stove, or running an in-floor radiant system? Lots of people here have done both.

I studied the Central info and used it as a general guide.

http://www.centralboiler.com/otherExamples.html

http://www.centralboiler.com/Tech/C250.pdf

http://www.centralboiler.com/Tech/C260.pdf

 

[Oxford]

I do a lot of hydronic work as part of my paying job, but without seeing your system I wouldn't want to give advice. I do strongly recommend the book "Pumping Away" by Dan Holohan. It's aimed at pressurized systems, which no OWB is, but it's a really good primer on primary/secondary pumping, including radiant floor heat, and that's how IMO all OWB should be piped. It's more work and a few more parts, but a lot better approach.

 

[Guswhit]

Are you asking about setting up the stove, or running an in-floor radiant system? Lots of people here have done both.

I studied the Central info and used it as a general guide.

http://www.centralboiler.com/otherExamples.html

http://www.centralboiler.com/Tech/C250.pdf

http://www.centralboiler.com/Tech/C260.pdf

I set up my last system and it worked fine, but I added it after the house was built so no radiant floor system involved. Pretty easy to hook up to a forced air and domestic hot water
I want to set up the new house with radiant heat in the floor of the basement and in the under garage shop floor, then I want an air exchanger in the upper garage and in the forced air furnace for the living space. I have 1000 gallons of water storage I am going to put in as well to run things off. I'm studying up but it is difficult, I'm one of those see it do it guys, not so much from reading

 

[Guswhit]

Bump
Anyone want to help design?