I am very pleased with my new boiler. It is a well-made little unit and was delivered to me complete and damage free. Two mentionable items. First, I had to swap the wires going to the flame detector, other than that the system started and operated perfectly. Secondly, the design of the hopper is not as advertised on MBTEK website. It is unpainted galvanized metal construction with a slide open lid not a hinged lid. I like the design, no complaints there, I’m only pointing out that it’s not what I thought I was getting.
I’ve been operating the unit for about 3 months with no issues. I went as far as to purchase wood pellets from every big box store around and the unit performs the same using all of them. I have even operated the unit on 100% Cherry Pits, and it operated flawlessly.
The one feature that I was really looking forward to, was the ability to use firewood as a small supplemental heat source. I started a firewood burn twice now, just for fun. It does a good job controlling the solid wood fire. I was pleasantly surprised. My only complaint is that, at the end of the burning, I have to manually switch the unit to pellet mode. I hope that there is a software update (or I figure out how to set it up properly) that it will allow the unit to automatically switch over to pellet fuel after the solid wood fuel burns out.
Lastly, I would highly recommend MBTEK. They have answered several of my questions in a timely manner and are very easy to contact.