OWB vs wood stove

[Alcranb]

I was wondering how much more wood one could anticipate burning in an OWB vs a stove or furnace in your house? I went from a wood stove in my living room to a furnace in my basement. I probably ended up burning a third more wood but I realize I'm heating my basement too. Like everything there's a ying a yang. My floors are warmer and a LOT less mess and soot in the house but more wood consumption. Now I'm thinking of going to an OWB a and wonder if it's worth the initial expense. Thoughts?

[thecfarm]

I burned wood with stoves,indoor boiler. All with natural drafts. Now I have a OWB with a forced draft by fans. It has the ability to smother the fire. I am able to burn white pine and cedar that before the OWB that wood was going into the burn pile. My OWB will smother the fire out and not have any boils over. I like having the mess outside too. I do have allergies and that the smoke is all outside. But those OWB are not cheap now either. But that's about how everything is now. I would not want to burn wood inside my house again. I do have an old cook stove and a fireplace I fire up every so often. I am on my second year of burning just about all softwood
I know I burn more wood in the OWB than the 2 stoves that I was using. But the house is at an even temp,controlled by a thermostat. Much longer burn time and I am heating more area and using no oil at all.

[gspren]

   Similar experience as cfarm, the OWB uses a bunch more wood but it saves a bunch more oil since I also get my domestic hot water off the OWB. I don't buy any wood and I don't even need to leave my farm to get it so keeping the wood pieces bigger and not needing to carry any wood with the associated dirt indoors using more wood isn't that much more work. I like my P&M.

[Firewoodjoe]

I've been around in house stoves my entire life and saying that I loved the direct heat of the inside stoves but now that I have an OWB I will NEVER go without one. I actually take it for granite now. But u do burn more wood (about twice as much) and they can be pricy. I bought a home built one for $500. For the pump and heat exchanger and intended building my own. Well I've been heating for three years now on the boughten one and still working on mine. Go figure

[martyinmi]

If you go from a conventional non-gasser wood furnace in your basement to a gasification OWB, you will burn less wood if you keep your thermostat set the same way you have it now.
If you go to an efficient conventional OWB, I'd guess you'll go through 25% more.
The biggest variable we seem  to encounter when going from an inconvenient source of heat to convenient one would the increased temperature we keep our homes at. When we only have to fiddle with loading once or twice a day we don't seem to mind going through a little extra wood to keep the house as warm as we want. Remember, that's saying we go to an efficient conventional OWB when replacing our indoor furnace.
When I had an indoor furnace at one of my old homes I could BARELY get an 8 hour burn out of it in colder weather. We usually made the trip down the stairs to the cellar to load it 4 times daily, and it really liked wood! I don't remember the brand name of it, but it was the biggest one that TSC sold back in about '89 or '90.
My home back then was nearly the same size as the one I have now and heated roughly the same(1000 gallons of fuel oil plus or minus a few hundred gallons depending on the weather). I burned roughly 10 full cords on a cold year with the indoor wood furnace with the thermostat set at 68*. My outdoor gasser is on par to burn 8 cords this winter, but we keep the house at at least 73*, sometimes warmer. _grin
So your wood consumption will really depend which type of OWB you go with- conventional vs gasser. I'd definitely recommend a gasser. There is a bit of a learning curve involved in operating one, but once you get the hang of it it will amaze you at the amount of heat you can get from a smaller amount of wood. 8)

[AnthonyW]

My father burned in a wood stove in the basement for decades and then transitioned to the OWB. He is burning the same or less amount of wood with the OWB as he did with the wood stove. But he is also burning stuff that could not be burned in the wood stove (pine and softwoods). Comparing cords per year, the consumption of the OWB equal or better. Comparing BTU or heat capacity, the OWB outshines the wood stove any day. Much of the same volume of wood (>50%) is pine. So the same size pile has less heat capacity but still lasts the same amount of time.

[OntarioAl]

Folks
This is my 22nd winter heating with an OWB  (forced draft).
Heat about 1500 sq ft and use 5 cords of White Birch and 1-2 cords of spruce balsam fir aspen pine (junk wood) in the shoulder seasons. The house is usually 73-75
I use split dry wood and do not fill to more than 2/3 capacity (balance between burn time and maximizing surface area of boiler for heat exchange) During the recent cold spell temps to -40 I would load the stove at 9 pm and check it at 6 am the house temp  was a study 75 and the boiler was down to a bed of hot coals.
The one factor that can really drive up your wood consumption is a water logged trench the water wicks the heat away.
I also it a discount on my insurance because I do not have any wood fired heat sources in my home.
Thanks
Al

[r.man]

I know of one person that went from heating an established house for many years with an indoor source to heating the same space with an OWB. He doubled his wood use. Don't know if he changed his indoor temp but I doubt if he did that it was anything drastic. I keep hoping he changes to a gasifier to see how that does. He always burns dry hardwood.

[Sonofman]

r.man, it sounds like the person you know that is using twice the wood has something wrong with his installation, like possibly wet underground lines. As OntarioAl says, that will eat you up. I went from a fireplace insert and a house that was always cold at the far end, to an owb, warm house and using about 30% more wood. Well worth it, IMO. I will not go back if I have any option.

[woodmills1]

If the wood use is up, then the house temp is higher or more uniform.  Also the use of oil or other fuels falls.

I use between 20 and thirty cord with my OWB.  That does 2 things, first I no longer burn any fuel oil, 3700 bucks replaced in 2004 dollars and second the place is toasty not chilly

[LeeB]

20-30 cord. Is that for one season? is this a normal amount for everyone? seams like an awful lot of wood, but I live in the South, so wouldn't really know what normal is for your area.

[beenthere]

I heat my house with 6 cord max, and it is 2800 sqft of floor space heated (hot water heat).
Keep all thermostats at 72 deg F. But bedroom heat run vents closed.
That be in WI (southern). 

[thecfarm]

Seem like woodmills1 is heating a kiln. I use to plan on 8 cords with my other house,that was with an indoor boiler. I use to heat the basement too. I have no idea how much here. I just work on it through the winter.

[JJ]

Hi LeeB,
I buy 6 cord per year, and burn about 7 cord each season (more if pine).
Before installing the E-2300 OWB I burned ~1000 gal of oil.
I still burn about 200 gal of oil, mostly in summer for hot water, and when I am traveling and not feeding wood stove. 

           JJ

[r.man]

Sonofman, everyone that I know of in my area that have switched from indoor to outdoor noticed a big jump in wood use but all of the others added shops or additions to their heating when they switched. This was the only household that stayed the same size and went from warm to warm with properly seasoned wood. It would have been dealer installed so I expect it was done correctly.

LeeB as to the amounts of wood used by the other members in this thread I expect some are talking face cord and others bush.

[LeeB]

You'll have to explain bush to me. Never heard that term for firewood.

[doctorb]

Here's a previous thread on the same topic.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,56230.msg814278.html#msg814278

There's no question that OWB's burn more wood.  It's all about trade-offs, IMO.  I've learned over my time here that opinions on this subject are very dependent upon what works for you. There's no right or wrong answer.  I prefer the firewood mess outside.

[Sonofman]

OK r.man, I did not notice where you live when I posted. Down here in the sunny south, I am on track to burn 2 chords this winter, it has been much colder than normal. In a normal winter with the insert, I would have gone through about 1 cord, with the owb, about 1.5.

[thecfarm]

Just to be clear my is cords. I almost think that face cord is like grits. More of a southern thing. I never heard of a face cord until I heard it on here.

[r.man]

LeeB, a bush cord or full cord is an amount of wood stacked tightly measuring 4 ft wide, 4 ft high and 8 ft long.

[SwampDonkey]

I also it a discount on my insurance because I do not have any wood fired heat sources in my home.
Thanks
Al

I have a neighbor that had an OWB and some how fire got to the house from the boiler. They said fire went through the pipes. So I'm not so sure about being saver. And recently, another neighbor burnt his shop down and uses OWB.

[Al_Smith]

Do tell Swampish is this per chance the same neighbor that burnt the garbage ,the babies dirty diapers and an occasional dead cat a year or two back?

[thecfarm]

Fire went through the pipes? What pipes? The only pipes I have connected to the house are full of water. Yes OWB can cause a fire. Someone cleaned out the ashes in a plastic bucket and than put it by the house.   :
Than a guy in town had a wood stove and cleaned out the ashes and put them in a carbaord box and set it on his porch. House caught on fire.  :

[SwampDonkey]

Al, no. That was an out door burn barrel not a stove. ;D

Two different neighbors with boilers. Cfarm, don't know how or why, but that's what burnt the house down.  They never burnt another stick of wood since, in the new house.

I to have heard of someone putting live ashes in a card board box and setting on the porch. A neighbor up the road from my uncle's place did that, more than once.  :

[thecfarm]

Must of been something they did wrong to burn a house down with a OWB. Sparks pouring out of the chimmey might do it too.