Contractors What Do You Think About the Munchkin Boiler ?

James_7

Please give me your honest evaluation on the Munchkin Boiler. It has been out in the market for a few years now.
Please let me know the following:

How many have you installed?

How many did you have a problem with at start-up?

How many have you had problems with during the first 90 days?

Would you continue to install this product?

How do you rate the product support from the following resource (1 - 5 )( 1= poor & 5= great)

Wholesaler?

Dirstributer?

Manufacturer?

What would you do to improve the product?


Thank you for your response...

James.

[Deleted User]

Just curious...

Are you a homeowner, builder, consultant, manufacturer? Not many people ask questions that way...

ME

James_7

Reply

I am a contractor considering the product for a future installation. My searches really don't give me an idea on how the product is performing. There are a lot of new products on the market in the last couple of years and more on the way. I hear lots of claims and sales/marketing advertisement. I always hear "buy my product, it is the greatest. I see a lot of products with great performance however, service call labor and parts are expensive. Most manufacturers only provide a one year warranty and limited heat exchanger warranties. Are we really saving $$$ if you put your savings into parts, service and warranty contracts. Parts cost for most of the older equipment is minumal in comparison.

This is an open forum. Is there only one way to ask a question on the Wall? Since your more sophisticated please reword my question and I will re-post in a more suitable manner. I will apologize if I have offended anyone.

J.

Mark Eatherton1

Welcome to the Wall

Jim, I took nothing personal about the wording of your question. It just kinda reminded me of some of the survey forms I get asked to fill out about ALL the people I work with. I do however take offense to the use of the word sophisticated...you haven't met me yet:-) Just kidding...

I like thier product. They've stood behind their product 100%. They've even been know to pay for things they really didn;t have to pay for. The product is only as good as the people behind it, and to date I've found their whole operations great. From manufacturer to me and everyone in between.

What would I do differently? I'm reserving my judgement on that. There are a number of things I'd do differently, but I'm not in the boiler making business. They are. To be honest with you, their product shouldn't be considered a "boiler". It should be considered a Thermal Conversion unit. It converts natural gas to heat at efficiencies approaching 99% if properly applied. And that's just boiler efficiency. It says nothing about overall system efficiency. It is service intensive. Any piece of efficient equipment is. Expect annual service needs to retain efficiency. If you ignore it, it will still work, but less efficiently and will eventual shut down completely. You have to stay in front of the curve on this class of boiler..er I mean converter.

Should you consider condensing equipment? It depends... If it were my house, I would (DUH, I already did:-))

And in my opionion, if it is known up front that maintenance is required, and performed, these system can be the most fuel efficient there is. Between this and waste heat recovery, a person could probably eliminate their heating bill completely with just a touch of solar augmentation. And these boilers are PERFECT for use with solar. Er I mean converters...

Anyway, welcome to the wall. Stick around and you might learn something. As Dan says, You already know it, you just didn't realize it.

ME