Need help with new construction heating alternatives-in favor of wood furnace

[blackfoot griz]

 

  

 


It heats..and cooks! What is strange is that the top does not get hot. There is a live plant on the top.

[Norm]

Way to go and nice setup too.

[red]

www.heatkit.com    lots of info

[Handy Andy]

  Before  building my house 30 years ago,  read all the passive solar books could find. Mostly what  came out of it was to site the house longways east and west, so you can have as many large south facing windows as possible.  And as few on the north as possible.  Amazing the heat gain you get in the afternoons of sunny days, and even better if you have snow on the ground. If you have south sloping land, you could have windows that give that gain into the basement as well, just don't put a deck over them so you don't shade them.  The other part about passive solar is to over- insulate, at least 6" walls, lots in ceiling, consider styrofoam on bsmt walls etc.  About windows, I used pella casement, and they don't last.  Use double hung windows so you can put storm windows on, or you have to replace the sashes every 15 or 20 years. The wonderful thing about a walk-out is how easy it is to just carry your wood inside and stack it in a store room.  Where it is dry when you need it.

[schweizer]

Hi piston, and others,

Just found out about this thread (thanks Red).   Looks like you are doing your due diligence.   Sounds like it will be a beautiful home.   

To put in my 2 cents, we have a custom built masonry stove that heats our 2600 sq ft new log home.   The central core is by Heat Kit.   The kit was about $6000 if memory serves correctly.   It's an even temperature.   You make the fire and then don't have to tend it all day.   Just close it all down in a few hours when the fire is close to burned out.   Ours has a stainless steel water loop in the back of the firebox which I use to heat water in a 500 gallon water storage tank.   That water, in turn, is used to pre-heat domestic water for the house.   Here are some pics of the heater under construction:  http://www.docbryner.com/mossy_hollow/Masonry_Stove.html   The page hasn't been updated in the past year since we started heating with it but it works great.   You can see more pictures in the "Stonemill House" & "Thermal Storage" sections of my website.
Our masonry stove is very similar to the Tulikivi that Blackfoot Griz is describing, except that the Heat Kit or Temp Cast cores are very customizable.   For instance, we added a heated bench on 3 sides and used 4" thick rock from our own land for the facing.

When heating with masonry stoves, you can keep the house air temp a bit cooler because the radiant heat from the stove makes you feel warmer.   Also the walls and solid structures in the room will be warmer than the air.   Sorta strange at first.   It works best w/ an open floor plan.   They work well as an architectural focus, open to 3 sides of the room.

Oh, and the county made us install a backup heating system besides wood, so we installed a propane forced are system, with ducts only on the main floor.   I found it's great for heating up the air temp much faster when we've been gone for a few days on vacation and want to get the house back up to temp quickly.   

My house/land project website:  http://www.docbryner.com/mossy_hollow
Heat Kit gallery pages:  http://www.heatkit.com/html/gallery.htm

We'll be interested in whatever you decide.

Marcus

[Piston]

Schweizer,
That is an impressive looking Masonry Heater to say the least  8)

I love how you used rock from your own land to face it.  I honestly never even considered a masonry heater prior to starting this thread.  I started reading more and more about them and they are indeed very interesting. 

I read quite a bit about the Heat Kit and how it works.  I'm curious how much extra the masonry labor cost for your setup, using your own rocks on your land?  I have many many rocks on my land that are field stone piles, plenty for probably a decent sized home!  They are already piled neatly from some poor farmer who probably died of back pain!


As much as I'd like large windows to the south in my home, unfortunately the view is to the North, about the worst direction possible for passive solar.  I do plan however to have some sort of windows facing south to try and take advantage of at least some of it. 


My main concern unfortunately is going to be price.  The house I WANT to build is about 600k, which is quite a ways over our budget, so I'm having to weigh the options we want, need, and can do without. 

It seems like everyone and their brother is building gigantic homes these days.  I try looking at floorplans and homes online to get a good idea of what we want, and every house I come across is huge by my standards.  We originally sort of settled on something around 2,000-2,500 square feet, but we are not thinking more and more that we really don't NEED that much space if the house is thought out well. 

Try google imaging 'timber frame home' and you get mostly 3,000+ homes!  We're trying to find some nice home floor plans for around 1,500-1,800 square feet.  Still quite a bit bigger than our current home which gives us plenty of room, however we don't have any kids yet either, just 3 massive dogs, but one child on the way, so we are certainly planning for 'additions'

[Piston]

It heats..and cooks! What is strange is that the top does not get hot. There is a live plant on the top.

Blackfoot griz,
I thought I commented on your masonry heater already but I guess not.  Thanks for posting pics, that thing looks VERY inviting to sit near!  I wouldn't mind trying out one of those fresh oven baked pizzas either  ;D

[jdonovan]

As much as I'd like large windows to the south in my home, unfortunately the view is to the North, about the worst direction possible for passive solar.  I do plan however to have some sort of windows facing south to try and take advantage of at least some of it. 

If you design so you have a large roof area that is south facing you can put panels on the roof to collect the sun and make hot water. You can then store/use that for radiant heating. Not quite as good as a fully passive system, but still way better than oil/electric/gas.

It seems like everyone and their brother is building gigantic homes these days.  I try looking at floorplans and homes online to get a good idea of what we want, and every house I come across is huge by my standards.  We originally sort of settled on something around 2,000-2,500 square feet, but we are not thinking more and more that we really don't NEED that much space if the house is thought out well. 

Don't forget that some day you may need to sell. Try and build close to what the area has for an average home. You don't want to be the mansion in the neighborhood, but being the shack is equally bad. I'm in a similar situation and we are going to put a few few bedrooms upstairs, but don't ever expect someone to sleep in one. We are doing a bit of a modified cape-cod style, so 'upstairs' is in the roof system and doesn't' cost that much more in the truss system to make livable spare out of the attic area.  Also it shouldn't take too much to get a 'legal' bedroom in a basement area. You can use the room for other purposes, but when it comes time to sell, you've now got one more bedroom than you original planned.

[Holmes]

  The building of starter mansions has slowed down a lot.     A 2400 sq.' house is a great size and better if you have a 1200 sq.' walk out basement. Now if you add a 2+ car garage with a full basement under it with a garage door for your equipment you will have plenty of space until you build the barn you need.

[downeast]

You've got some serious research from the ideas here Piston.

We did similar research into wood heating 'systems' when building besides the insulation, building orientation, and cost. The final choice was partly economical, but also space design, and simplicity with familiarity of technology. For ~ 2000 ft² two larger/medium BTU cap. stand-alone wood stoves were the best for us: one cat, the other non-cat.

Masonry heater/Russian Fireplace: required space, and infrastructure cost and cost of materials and construction were ~ $20 K. From visits to homes using the heaters there were minor problems heating; variability of the heat, no method for lowering heat when not needed. The large mass heats up very efficiently then stays warm for the day. Great in dead winter here, not so in shoulder seasons.
The most efficient wood heater available.

OWB: no. Too much plumbing, pumping, power need, going outdoors to load ! At that time OWB technology was non-gasifier, they had and still do, a poor rep for dark smokey burns i.e. creosote. " I burn anything in my boiler." >:(

Wood furnaces: close to what we wanted but also expensive, required extensive plumbing for hot water, or ducting, and needed power.
Tarm was one manufacturer we investigated . I think that they have a dual fuel furnace burning wood and an auto transfer to the fossil burn when the wood fire stops. Not a bad concept. 8)

At the time, we had no power, now run down to the place. Running the generator just for heating and the 4-6x per year with downed lines was not something we wanted.

The two stoves now run 24/7, a propane 'space' heater will bring 1/2 of the space up to ~ 50 F when we're away for short periods in winter, for the plumbing, while the other 1/2 is shut off (no plumbing to worry about --the design ).

Stand alone wood stoves are low tech, and take some minor effort to run and maintain. It's done well here Downeast for over a decade. The woodlot gives us the needed wood and will so until we can't "come down for breakfast." ;D

Nice suggestion to think about a future sale---we did not.

[logman]

Our house is 1400 sq. ft. and it's too big for my wife and I.  When we were building it we built one section for my mother in law but she passed away before we were finished.  Now we have a whole upstairs that we don't really need.  600k, is that you building it or someone else?  Check out Cowee Mountain Timber Frames, they have lots of frames under 2500 sq. ft. 

[John Mc]

There are a couple of very good timber frame companies near me that do custom designs.

Vermont Frames (Hinesburg, VT) will do custom designs, and has some existing plans on their web site that they can build as is, or serve as a starting point for your thinking. The page linked has some of their designs, including smaller homes.

Liberty Head Post & Beam is who we had do our timber frame. We're very happy with the work they did. The page linked shows sketches of some of their houses, with floor plans.

I did notice when we were looking around that some of the timber frame companies we looked at really leaned towards building "McMansions" or larger (seemed to be more of those types of companies the further south we looked as we checked out timber frame companies in VT and NH). The ones I linked above build a range of sizes (and in fact, Liberty Head was encouraging us to think about what we really needed, and "think small" where possible.)

[Piston]

John,
Thanks for the recommendations of companies.  I've actually been meaning to post a thread on timber framer recommendations as we start getting closer to being ready to build.  Do you have any others that you would recommend, or better yet NOT recommend?  Feel free to PM me if you have any that you wouldn't recommend but don't want to post it. 

We started looking into Timberpeg, Bensonwood, Davis Frame Company, Vermont Timberworks, Yankee Barn Homes, and a few others.  However, we haven't met with any of them yet, just a few phone calls so far. 

We are concentrating on getting the land finalized and once it is officially in our name (hopefully within the month) we will start visiting some companies/builders and getting a better feel for prices and floor plans. 

Logman,
We will be having someone else build our home, I wish I could do it myself but that just won't happen  :D

[logman]

Don't know if it matters to you but all those companies you mentioned except maybe Vermont produce machine cut frames.  I looked at Vermont Timberworks prices, they are actually fairly reasonable, in the $15-16 sq. ft. range for the frame.  I really don't know how machine cut frames compare other than I lost a job to one a while back.  They outbid me on the panel installation.  Good luck with whatever you build.  In case you don't know also if you send a request to the Timber Frame Business Council you will get lots of companies responding to your request. 

[red]

check out www.GarlandMill.com  and www.NotsoBigHouse.com 

[John Mc]

Piston -

We looked at Bensonwood as well, and visited their facility. My impression was that they were a first-class operation, but on the pricey side as well.

We went with Liberty Head because we liked some of the details of how they did their framing, and also because we liked their design philosophy and just clicked with their people.

[downeast]

Marcus:
Spectacular place you've done in Grants Pass. Interesting website ! 8)
Can you share some costs of your home and infrastructure ?
Thanks.

[Crappiekeith]

Lots of talk about geo thermal...OWB/IWB heating.
After reading the entire thread...how about a multifuel wood/oil warm air furnace that lites itself.

[beenthere]

Usual problem is the size of the combustion chamber that holds the right amount of wood for the btu size of the furnace is so much larger and thus less efficient for the alternate fuel, be it oil or gas.
If a design is available that takes care of that difference, then the combo system might work.

[Crappiekeith]

exactly....Yukon.

[Piston]

Lots of talk about geo thermal...OWB/IWB heating.
After reading the entire thread...how about a multifuel wood/oil warm air furnace that lites itself.

I do like the idea of a multifuel furnace, however, I've thought a lot more about it, and the more I think of the pros and cons, the more I think I'd really like to have the separate wood burning furnace and separate regular furnace.  I want this for "backup" since I'm away a lot, and I don't want something that my wife has to worry about while I'm away, if it breaks.  Also, I don't think she'll realistically fill the firebox each and every day  :D  Although she does surprise me with how much she keeps the woodstove going while I'm away.

I'd like to be able to leave, have the furnace come on (even if I have to manually switch something over) and let it run until I come home, then get back to burning wood. 

I visited a family friend to take a look at his setup.  He and his wife were telling us a lot about it (although I can't remember the manufacturer).  He has an indoor wood furnace right next to an oil fired furnace.  He uses it in a vacation home in NH and when they are there, all they burn is wood, but when they're away (which is the great majority of time) they use the oil fired furnace.  They said if they were to do it all over again, they wouldn't do the indoor wood furnace, however the reason was because they are almost never there, which makes perfect sense.  I told him that his setup was pretty much perfect as far as what I was looking for. 

I have mostly decided (which all subject to change of course  :D) that I want an IWB and a separate oil (or gas) fired furnace.  I will have to weigh the completely installed cost vs. how long it would take me to make my money back, which would probably be double the time it took most of you, since I"m not always around. 

Even if it costs me slightly more, I may still go that route, only because I can't think of anything more satisfying than heating my entire home on wood alone, that I cut out of my woodlot. 

On a side note:  It's been a LONG road and we've run into a LOT of headaches with the land we will be building on, but this past week we finally got all the required paperwork done, waivers accepted, and deed signed.  So, needless to say, I'm more than excited about this now that it's truly our land.   8)

[doctorb]

It's the journey, along with the destination, that make projects like this fulfilling.  Good luck!

[Norm]

Congratulations Matt!

[Hilltop366]

No where to go now but up!

It took me almost two years to get a right of way to my property, I had almost given up but glad I didn't.

I don't have a basement so it was not an option for me, but I've always been hesitant to put a lot of firewood in the house. I did add a small porch on the back of my ground level furnace room so I could keep 1/2 of a cord inside for those stormy nights so I don't have to go outside for wood to load up the furnace, Seeing others having to load wood and re-stack it in a basement or try to walk down stairs with a arm load makes me glad I didn't.

For me the ideal set-up would be a ground level furnace room with a attached wood shed or covered storage, make some stacking pallet sized 3 sided wood boxes so that when I split my wood I would stack it directly in the boxes and move them to the wood storage by tractor forks. The next step would be to use a pallet jack to move the wood boxes around as they are emptied.

I've got everything but the boxes and a door big enough to put them through.

[Piston]

Thanks guys!  ;D

Hilltop,
I've thought about that a lot as well, and what you described sounds very efficient.  I like the idea of using the pallets to build a 3 sided box and stack them up right from the splitter, that way also you can have all your firewood drying far away from the house as to not cause any issues (and keep the wife happy) and simply bring a new pallet of wood over when the current pallet is empty.  I like handling the firewood as few times as necessary  ;)