Whole house wood stove suggestions

Slab Slicer · September 27, 2012, 09:56:19 PM

We're in the market for a whole house wood stove that will duct into our existing forced hot air system duct work. Counting the basement space this will be heating, we only have about 1100 sq ft to heat. Most stoves are larger than this. If I go larger, can I just keep the fire low, or is the rated sq ft of the stove just it's max. I don't want to overheat the place, and be sitting around in our "skivvies" all winter.

:D

beenthere · September 27, 2012, 10:10:21 PM

Don't have to put more wood in it than you want for your heat requirements.

On the other hand, a wood fire can't be "turned off" like a gas or oil fire, so there will be residual heat to handle somehow. And some hot coals will be necessary to get the fire going again when heat is in demand.

sparky1 · September 27, 2012, 10:19:29 PM

I would think you can buy a pretty cheap one at a box store. Lowes, menards, HD Doesnt sound like you need much to only heat a 1000 sq feet.

JohnW · September 27, 2012, 11:41:55 PM

I don't know anything about the feasability of hooking up the stove to to your duct work, but you can definitely heat your house with a stove. Especially if you have ceiling fans in most rooms to keep the air moving. Two stories, no problem.

Al_Smith · September 28, 2012, 07:22:39 AM

With 1100 sq feet I wouldn't get too excited about ducting it .If you get a big giant stove and burn it choked down what you'll get is a bunch of creosote which you don't want .

FWIW I'm heating twice that amount with just a 1980's Lopi insert with fans and have no problem .Nothing fancy or high tech ,just a stove with a fan ,ell shaped house to boot .

Holmes · September 28, 2012, 08:33:29 AM

You could consider a smaller stove with a catalytic combuster around 35,000 btu. That might be as small as you can get. With the catalyst you will not get much creosote with smoldering burns and you may not cook yourself out of the house. When it gets cold it should do the job of keeping you warm.

bill m · September 28, 2012, 08:58:07 AM

My wood stove is in the basement and heats the whole house with out fans or duct. It is a Fisher all nighter. My house is a ranch house about 24 x 66

Axe Handle Hound · September 28, 2012, 09:00:14 AM

My father ran this set up for years. He bartered some work for a wood furnace, not a wood stove. Wood furnaces have a plenum around the firebox and a ducting adaptor on the side, top, or back. He used a large squirrel cage fan that he scrounged from somewhere else to blow the hot air out of the plenum into the house. The furnace was grossly undersized for the house, but it still kept the place from freezing up. If appropriately sized a wood furnace will heat a house just fine. There's a lot of vigilance required with one though. If your wood is dry, dry, dry you shouldn't have too much trouble with creosote, but investing in a set of chimney rods and a brush right away is always a good idea.

sparky1 · September 28, 2012, 09:29:44 AM

check with your insuracnce, or get new lined up if they wont cover you. It is deffinetly an issue with many companies to have a fire in the house. What are you going to do about a chimney? It will require a seperate chimney apart of your existing furnace (depending on insurance compaies)

Al_Smith · September 28, 2012, 11:08:29 AM

You can certainly get a stove that is way too large .In the 70's I built a stove patterned after a Vermont down drafter that was rated at 55,000 BTU's per hour .

Like a dummy I increased the physical dimensions by 50 percent .Not a grand plan ,the house was 1400 square feet and it could become like an oven within .

Because it was of the down draft design it really didn't creosote it was just hard to control except opening the windows and doors and sitting around in your undies .Not a bad deal if in your thirties perhaps but old farts like myself sitting around half naked is not really a pretty picture .

WH_Conley · September 28, 2012, 11:52:08 AM

Not a bad idea Al. My eyesight is not so good, it might keep everybody away. :D

Slab Slicer · September 28, 2012, 05:49:43 PM

Quote from: Axe Handle Hound on September 28, 2012, 09:00:14 AM
My father ran this set up for years. He bartered some work for a wood furnace, not a wood stove. Wood furnaces have a plenum around the firebox and a ducting adaptor on the side, top, or back. He used a large squirrel cage fan that he scrounged from somewhere else to blow the hot air out of the plenum into the house. The furnace was grossly undersized for the house, but it still kept the place from freezing up. If appropriately sized a wood furnace will heat a house just fine. There's a lot of vigilance required with one though. If your wood is dry, dry, dry you shouldn't have too much trouble with creosote, but investing in a set of chimney rods and a brush right away is always a good idea.

I guess I should have been a bit more specific. I realized after I read some of the other posts, that I never mentioned I have a woodstove currently, with it's own chimney, but the thing is so inefficient, I waste alot of firewood, in my opinion. The insurance Co made the policy based on the description of the home from the real estate listing, and the wood / coal stove was stated in the listing.

A wood furnace, like Ax mentions in this quote is what I was looking for. With a regular wood stove, the basement / rec room, will be so hot, you wouldn't want to be in there. We just recently converted the basement, to a rec. room, so the need for a wood furnace seemed more appropriate. It would balance the heat throughout the house using the ductwork, rather than leaving it all in the basement, and or rising mostly to the livingroom above. I sem to find the wood furnace units in the 1500 - 2000 sq ft. These are the stated MAX square footages for the furnaces, so I would think by keeping the fire a bit lower, that I wouldn't turn the house into a day in the tropics.

Sorry about the lack of info in my original post.

1270d · September 28, 2012, 08:52:24 PM

I have a Koss forced air wood burner you can have if you like. Picked it up hoping to use it in a house I was looking at. I don't have the fan and the thermostats are missing possibly. But if anyone is interested and passing through, let me know. (central upper peninnsula) Ended up with hot water heat so an indoor wood boiler is in the basement now,

talldog · September 29, 2012, 08:06:25 AM

Another little trick you might do if your stove is too big would be to burn shorter sticks in it. That way you wouldn't be as likely to have creosote problems.

Local4Fitter · September 29, 2012, 10:51:05 AM

Hey Slab, If you have a Tractor Supply Store nearby you may want to checkout the wood burning hot air furnaces that they have. I dont know what brand they are but it seems they have a few different sizes.

shelbycharger400 · September 29, 2012, 02:24:53 PM

Nothing wrong with putting in too large of a stove.
The one I have upstairs here, I can stuff in about 6 or 7 pieces at 22 in long, about 4 to 6 in dia. It is nice to build a decent fire, and let it go for 6 to 8 hours before you need to stoke it again. It was nice last year, fired up at 4:30, 50's in the house, come back at 7 at night, it hovered around 50-60 deg.

wife did bark a few times when she woke up in the morning and it was 90. btw, upstairs is a bit over 900 square feet, with A LOT of windows. , Ineffecient ones at that too.

muddstopper · September 30, 2012, 10:34:41 AM

A word of caution. If you plan on ducting the stove thru existing duct word, buy a wood furnace and not a wood stove. Several years ago, my dad had a wood stove in his basement, (my basement now). He had a metal worker fab up a duct system to set overtop of the stove and ran it into the rest of the house duckwork. You could really feel the heat coming out of the vents. Dad regulated the heat by the size of the fire and by cutting off the vents in the rooms. One morning, he filled the stove with wood and forgot to open the vents in the floor before going to work. The result was extreme heat buildup in the duct work and resulted in spontageous combustion of the flexible dustwork that was being used. Lucky, the dustwork melted and fell onto the concrete floor of the basement, Fire did shoot out of the vents catching the curtains on fire in the living room. A neighbor saw the smoke and the fire department put out the fire with only minimal damage to the house, mostly limited to the front window where the curtains caught on fire. The ductwork that melted in the basment just caused a huge mess and tons of smoke. Lesson learned, dont duct a wood stove into existing ductwork. As bad as it was, it could have been a lot worse.

I still use a wood stove in the basement, but instead of ducting it into all the rooms, I put more vents into the floor and just let the heat radiate thru open vents. Ceiling fans keep the warm air circulating inside the house.

Hilltop366 · September 30, 2012, 11:23:33 AM

I've heard of doing this with a wood stove in a house to use the hot air furnace fan and ducts to distribute the warm air throughout the rest of the house by putting the stove in a area that has a cold air return near by and adding a cooling thermostat in the room so when the room reaches the setting on the thermostat it turns the furnace fan on and circulates the air through house.

I have also seen these wood stove / furnace online and wondered if they work well.
http://www.psg-distribution.com/product.aspx?CategoId=16&Id=374&Page=description

Slab Slicer · September 30, 2012, 11:54:30 PM

More great suggestions. Thanks folks. No need to wory about ducting through existing ductwork. No flexible ducts in the house. It's al galvanized metal, so no melting. I think we may like it a bit warmer than 50 - 60 in the house. Probably closer to 70, unless were sleeping, then 60 - 65 or so. All new windows, and a reinsulated attic should help the cause this winter. The windows made a big difference in the past couple of years since we installed them, and the beefed up insulation in the attic will be put to the test this winter. Tractor supply, or one of the "Box Store" (HD, Lowes, etc) will most likely be where I buy a furnace. Not sure on the maker just yet. That's why I'm still checking things out. Of course I better make up my mind soon. It's not getting any warmer around here.

Handymark · October 15, 2012, 02:43:49 PM

I used to use one of the models from USSG which are sold at Rural King and Tractor Supply. The ideal setup is sitting next to an updraft furnace and having all the required clearances. I think that is going to be your issue as it was with ours. In this sized house there is often not enough extra space. You need something like 4' in front of the furnace and 18" behind the flue. If you can set it up like this and wire so your furnace blower comes on with the add on blower you will be in good shape. I would go with the smaller green model( I don't know model numbers). The bigger firebox will allow you to use the biggest pieces possible for long burn times without overheating the house so easily.

Handy Andy · October 16, 2012, 07:22:49 AM

Check out the DAKA furnaces at Menards. I looked at the DAka site, and you can buy it for much less at Menards. And if they don't stock it, they will send one from another store without a shipping charge. I bought one at the end of the season last year to heat my wood shop. Just now getting it hooked up.

PaAnkerbalken · October 17, 2012, 09:35:54 PM

Slab Slicer,

Try Tractor Supply for their hotblast furnaces. They burn wood or coal. I have the bigger one. Mine is rated for 3000 sq. foot but Im at only 1500 sq.foot. It has dual blowers with a switch to turn one off. I only ever use the one and it works great. Piped it right into my duct work. I burn wood until I leave the house then switch over to coal. The coal also cuts down on the creosote buildup in the pipe and chimney. 8) I think they are made by U.S. Stoves. You can also get the option for a thermostat.

beenthere · October 17, 2012, 09:41:34 PM

That is interesting. What is your procedure for switching over to coal?

Just toss in coal on the wood?

Paul_H · October 18, 2012, 10:58:19 AM

Beenthere,

I had a stove like that called a Duomatic Olson and it would burn either wood or coal although I never had coal readily available.There were grates at the bottom as I remember and a pan below that.
Wood never seemed to burn as long as it dropped through.
The stove hooked into the plenum and had electric for backup.

PaAnkerbalken · October 19, 2012, 10:24:39 PM

Beenthere,
I just let the wood burn down to hot coals, close the draft for burning wood and open up the draft at ash door for coal and let her fire up some and start adding some coal. Let the flame burn through the coal, add some more coal. I make sure she is good and caught then set the draft. It is a wood/coal stove like Paul had except that the wood doesn't drop down through the grates. ;D After you burn some coal you have a nice bed of ash to start your wood back up on. The coal ash prevents the finer wood ash from just dropping right through to pan. I only shake the grates a little to let a little ash fall through as it builds up.