iDRY Vacuum Kilns

Sponsors:

Forced air outdoor wood stove.

Started by okie, November 03, 2008, 04:52:06 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

okie

A buddy of mine helped his folks install a outdoor wood stove that forces air through their cha ductwork last year. I dont believe that this is a boiler. The stove is tied into their thermostat and a blower kicks on and off just as the cha would. They did have to upgrade to different ducts, he said something about high heat static resistant ducts. I hadnt heard of this before and was wondering if any of y'all have any experience with one of these. I cut wood for them last year and they only used 3 ricks of wood with it, I used about 7 with my indoor stove, he said that they fill their fire box 3 times on a cold day and twice on more mild days.
Does anyone on here use these, what is a popular model.
Thanks
Morgan
Striving to create a self sustaining homestead and lifestyle for my family and myself.

woodmills1

James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

okie

Oh, Sorry. Central heat and air. My wife sold real estate for quite a while and that is the only way I ever saw it referred in print.
Striving to create a self sustaining homestead and lifestyle for my family and myself.

OneWithWood

We converted our cha for use with our OWB by installing a heat exchanger just below the AC coils.  The programable thermostat kicks on the blower when heat is called for.  Be sure and turn off the gas or disable the electic heat coils.  We did not change our duct work.
One With Wood
LT40HDG25, Woodmizer DH4000 Kiln

iffy

I built one of these years ago and used it successfully for about 15 years in my previous house. I built it with hopper bottom and a sliding trap door so I could dump ashes without shutting it down. I put a high/low fan limit furnace control in the side of it with the probe going into the air chamber around the firebox. I connected the fan limit control to a separate thermostat beside my gas furnace thermostat in the house. We would set the wood furnace thermostat at the temperature we wanted and the gas furnace thermostat several degrees lower.
The wood furnace had a squirrel cage blower on the back of it to circulate air. Insulated ducts connected it to my gas furnace. I dumped hot air in to the cold air return just above the furnace. Pulled cold air out from higher on the cold air return. I put a light aluminum sheet swinging door inside the cold air return so the hot air from the wood furnace would swing it open but it would block any hot air trying to short circuit back to the wood furnace.
Discovered that by the time the air got to my inside furnace, the velocity was pretty low. So, I wired in a relay that was activated by the wood furnace blower. When the wood furnace blower would come on, it would trip the relay, which would also kick the gas furnace blower on.
I also put a small blower on the front of the wood furnace to supply combustion air. When the thermostat called for heat, it would kick the forced draft blower on and revive the fire.
Burned almost exclusively Osage Orange. About the heat equivalent of old tires. Had 2" dia solid bars for my grate and after one week they would be bowed 6". I would pull them out and take a sledge hammer to them. At the end of the heating season they would be 1" dia in the center.
I would load it with wood once a day on mild days, and twice on normal winter days. During extremely cold spells I would load it first thing in the morning, put about a half load in when I got home from work, and a full load before going to bed. I always used the biggest logs I could handle early morning and at night, and smaller logs during the day.
Would I do it again? Although it worked very well, probably not. If I were to install an external woodburner at my new house, I would probably use one of the stand-alone boiler types that have the heat exchanger in the furnace plenum and use the existing furnace ductwork and blower.

Thank You Sponsors!