Well . . . if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have spent all the money on about the most expensive inside boiler, then turned around and pay alot for the GW. The GW produces enough (and I should say, at 4,000 [] and the GW-100, I am pushing the limits with the small hydronic furnace). Of course, some of my Viessmann cost was the TekMar mixing valve, and that would have still been needed for the GW with pex radient. Putting the GW inside sounds great, but I am so glad I didn't do it. My house is new (read - white walls) and ANY smoke in the house is acceptable. Any manufacturer and/or sales person that tells you that you can open a feed door and NO smoke will enter the room is an idiot. . .or he thinks you are ;-)
I'm a huge fan of keeping the fire, wood, and any smoke OUTSIDE . . .but I have 13 acres and all of my neighbors have either a woodstove or a fireplace. If your neighbors are close, I don't think wood makes sense, no matter who the manufacturer is.
Now, you asked me to quatify the smoke . . .not an easy task.
Under perfect conditions, I doubt anyone smokes less than I. But I burn any wood, and try to match the wood to the weather. Even oak will make white 'smoke' when it's been on the forest floor absorbing some water. Once you control the quality of the wood, the next most important thing is to
Let the fire burn down to coals, then reload fully. Any water will blow out the stack for a while, but I simply refuse to think of white 'smoke' as smoke. . .it's mostly water condensing in the cool air as it leaves the stack. I have never seen the GW smoke from over fueling/under aspirating when using chunk wood. It WILL smoke if loaded with dimensional lumber.
Now, about 'idling'. Once the box and all the wood in it is hot, the stack will barely wisp when the draft closes. When the draft opens after a long idle, I would still say very little smoke. The problem I had the first winter was that I was buring too much Bass (is there a WORSE wood to try to burn??) and freaking out when my oil burner came on. I ended up with the air inlets blocked, which will make the GW smoke when it comes off idle because it can't aspirate.
Bu honestly . . . I live in a rural area, and many people have OWB's, especially Central Boiler. When these boilers are run with good wood and no garbage, they don't smoke that bad in my opinion. For the people that groan about the smoke from a wood stack versus an oil one . . . go look at an oil refinery . . . now THAT is smoke.
Somewhere in all this, did I answer your question?
Every burner has problems. The GW is no different.
The problem IMHO with GW is the company, not the product.
Jimbo
