OK, I'm on my second season with the new GT220 from Nature's Comfort. I thought I'd give my experiences to help anyone out there considering buying one.
Fired it last year in September. We had a mild winter, pretty much the nicest weather ever in the history of Iowa. I burned 9 cords of wood heating about 2500 square feet of poorly insulated 1 1/2 story house built in 1952.
All my wood is oak and locust 2 years cured, and covered. Very little smoke, I live in the city and no problem with neighbors so far.
We had a few problems during the first year. ( all parts covered at no charge to me ) I performed the labor:
-electric motor that opens fan door to firebox went bad. easy fix.
-ceramic catalytic discs replaced with stainless steel. easy fix.
-fire brick below cast plates of firebox floor broke-twice. In my opinion, the fire brick cannot withstand the intense temperature of gassification.
-cast plate at rear of fire box floor broke. Clearance issue due to expansion of plates and no room to expand. I received a new plate from NC and ground enough off all 3 plates to insure clearance when hot. Then I made a single plate of 1/2 inch steel (HEAVY) to cover the whole floor of fire box to protect cast plates and fire brick.
So, we are up and running again this season now. Stove is working well again for now so we'll see how this season goes.
My observations about the efficiency are not as great as they claim. Yes the stove will make an incredible amount of BTU's per hour. Of course it will, we stock it with completely dry wood and the stove forces 500cfm of fresh air into the firebox to create a blast furnace, just as it is supposed to. The problem is that it is blasting A LOT of that heat out into the atmosphere! The exhaust temps are incredibly high, you can feel the radiated heat coming off the exhaust pipe from 5 feet to the side. I haven't measured the temp but I'm guessing at least 600 degrees. By comparison a Portage and Main gassifier has stack temps around 200 degrees and they show someone putting their hand into the exhaust without getting burned. If you tried that on the GT 220 you would loose your skin immediately. There isn't enough passes through the water to absorb all those btu's.
By comparison, the GT220 is about 5 thousand dollars less than a Portage and Main, and that helped me make my decision to buy a Nature's Comfort. I'll always wonder if my wood consumption would be that much less with a more efficient stove.
Anyway, my experiences so far. Hope this helps someone and I'd answer any questions you may have.
Fired it last year in September. We had a mild winter, pretty much the nicest weather ever in the history of Iowa. I burned 9 cords of wood heating about 2500 square feet of poorly insulated 1 1/2 story house built in 1952.
All my wood is oak and locust 2 years cured, and covered. Very little smoke, I live in the city and no problem with neighbors so far.
We had a few problems during the first year. ( all parts covered at no charge to me ) I performed the labor:
-electric motor that opens fan door to firebox went bad. easy fix.
-ceramic catalytic discs replaced with stainless steel. easy fix.
-fire brick below cast plates of firebox floor broke-twice. In my opinion, the fire brick cannot withstand the intense temperature of gassification.
-cast plate at rear of fire box floor broke. Clearance issue due to expansion of plates and no room to expand. I received a new plate from NC and ground enough off all 3 plates to insure clearance when hot. Then I made a single plate of 1/2 inch steel (HEAVY) to cover the whole floor of fire box to protect cast plates and fire brick.
So, we are up and running again this season now. Stove is working well again for now so we'll see how this season goes.
My observations about the efficiency are not as great as they claim. Yes the stove will make an incredible amount of BTU's per hour. Of course it will, we stock it with completely dry wood and the stove forces 500cfm of fresh air into the firebox to create a blast furnace, just as it is supposed to. The problem is that it is blasting A LOT of that heat out into the atmosphere! The exhaust temps are incredibly high, you can feel the radiated heat coming off the exhaust pipe from 5 feet to the side. I haven't measured the temp but I'm guessing at least 600 degrees. By comparison a Portage and Main gassifier has stack temps around 200 degrees and they show someone putting their hand into the exhaust without getting burned. If you tried that on the GT 220 you would loose your skin immediately. There isn't enough passes through the water to absorb all those btu's.
By comparison, the GT220 is about 5 thousand dollars less than a Portage and Main, and that helped me make my decision to buy a Nature's Comfort. I'll always wonder if my wood consumption would be that much less with a more efficient stove.
Anyway, my experiences so far. Hope this helps someone and I'd answer any questions you may have.
