The Forestry Forum

I am getting sick and tired of the rising cost of propane and fuel oil  >:( so I am thinkin of a second source of heat for my house, and was wonderin if anyone here uses wood pellet stoves, if so do you like or dislike it, what btu is your unit,etc, etc any info would be appreciated


  Doug

Don't know about pellet stoves. But why not consider an outdoor boiler, then you can use your slabs for fuel.

This is what we use, an outside wood burner. Wife keeps the heat up to 78 degrees when I'm not inside, she's kinda cold blooded I guess. We use to have a $400 fuel oil bill a month.
EZ

Pellet costs are a little high, and not much better than the other fuels.  Costs in my area are at $150-175/ton.  I think you would do better with coal, especially in your area.

Have used electric heating and it woks good, low invest- and using- costs. My last electric bills have been to big now. :'(
I´m looking at heat pumps. Air/air  types can even heat wather and isn´t very expensive.
 I´ll try to find some .com links.

Swede.

I use the hot water furnaces too.  I have a Taylor for the house as well as one for the kiln.  I am heating a 3,000 sq.ft. house very well.  If I had it to do over I would buy a unit that is a combination wood and probably fuel oil or maybe even sadust.  But with sawdust you would have lots of creosote build up I would imagine, due to its not being totaly dry.  I gus I could start running it into the kiln. ;D  but, agian, I would have the hig  electric bills for fans running for two or three weeks at a time.  No win, I reckon. :-/

  I sure would consider a water furnace of some sort with wood and a secondary type of fuel it would burn as a backup, or if you were toooo tired to go out and stoke the firebox with wood.  I have heard that some units will also burn used oil as well as wood.

I heard about a man fireing with used oil. He placed a brick in an old furnace and heated up the brick  with wood. Let some drops/miute through a pipe and a valve on the hot brick. I think the brick works like a  wick.

New oil isn´t healthy, used oil is poisonous. So I send my used oil for recycling and pay for it.

Swede.

Ron that is high for pellets. Considering you get 2.5 tons per cord of northern hard maple or beech at $110/cord = $44/ton stove wood. Canadian $$  :)

I burn 1.25 cords/mo and electric is $75/mo average. Not bad eh?

phew its turned quite mild here (well 20's and 30's) the last few days, almost too warm for wood, considering I have to keep the window open with a low fire hehehe  :D

I know every time I look at pellet prices, I just shake my head.  When they first came out with pellet stoves, the price was over $100/ton.  We could buy cut and split for $80/cd back then.

Pellets are a lot cleaner, and are supposed to have a more even heat.  I just don't see the economics with it, especially when you can get firewood at a pretty low price, depending on how much sweat equity you want to put into it.

I think the comparisons are 1 ton coal = 100 gal fuel oil = 1 cord hardwood.  

We've finally got the wind chills out of the single digits.  My house is hard to heat when its windy.  When oil goes up, the thermostat goes down, and the wood stove gets used a lot.  

145 gallon fuel oil = 1 cord northern hard maple or beech. My oil tank is 200 gallons and I know I'de burn 75 % of it in a  month and it would never give the heat my wood does. There's a 20 F difference in the heating between my oil and wood furnaces. Wood being the hotter. My mother's uncle used to burn a  full 250 gallon tank a month and his house is smaller than mine, it never got above 75 F and he also burned wood in a kitchen stove. You don't need no quilts on the beds in my house unless you'de like to be a grease spot by mornin  ;)

Gotta love that wood heat. Our minister of Natural Resources said we have to start using more efficient heating sources to save electricity. I figured it out that running the fan for my furnace only costs me $20 a month. Electricity is $20 cheaper from May 15th  to October 31st, around $60 average. And I only have to sweat 4 days a year bucking, splitting and handling the wood. Nice trade off  ;)

I use a Central Boiler 500,000btu outdoor wood furnace to heat my house, my parent's house and all of our domestic hot water.  Neither of these houses has much in the way of insullation, so I burn alot of wood.  The wood can be unsplit, green, and fairly large if you have some smaller wood around the big stuff.  This is an open vented boiler system, so you don't have to worry about pressure build up, etc.  Heat pump for back up in case I break a leg  :o.

I think I hit the wrong button gizmo :D

They say those outside furnaces are nice, but i just can't get my head around having a furnace outside loosing heat that wood be best used to heat my basement. Sure you can pipe it into the basement but seems inefficient to loose heat to the -20 outside air, which try as you might, you'll never heat up. And I don't like the idea of wading through 4 feet of drifting snow with windchill to feed this thing-ah-mah-jig  ;)

cheers

I use wood and coal, when its in the 30's or higher I burn just wood, when it gets below the 30's I use wood and coal. I fill it up about dark time and dont mess with it until the next day. I burn about 2 ton of coal a season, the house is well insulated.
EZ

Central boiler- heats shop, house, domestic, and (soon) kiln. It ain't fussy, but it is hungry. Used 11.8 gals heating oil last month- like that part compared to last season. 8)
Just can't see a savings in pellet stoves. Firewood is cheaper.

Ok Ok I use wood in the two stoves here but with 3200 sq ft I also hit the lottery once a month when the oil man delivers for the front of the house on the same day the gas man delivers for the back.

@ EZ:

Yeah your setup is nice but don't you find it hellish hot when your burning in the 30's? A little bit of wood goes along way.....gosh I'de die with all those heat sources and I have 10 foot ceilings throughout :)

Today I burned 4, five inch by 18 inch sticks and 3, two inch by 18 inch sticks and windows open. It got up to 35 F outside today. :)

@ Woodmills

Isn't it awefull we have nothing to talk about but ways to keep our butts warm? Doesn't anyone saw in the cold?   :D  :D  :D


cheers

I gotta saw some pallet wood tommorrow, hope the battery made it through the chill :D

> around having a furnace outside loosing heat that wood
> be best used to heat my basement

All the ones I have seen used buried insulated pipes for the hot water and a heat core/sink/exchanger sometimes in the basement too. Very little heat is lost, far more is lost in a normal fire place.

The best thing is the newer EPA approved stoves with glass fronts and side door feeds. If you get a smaller one and keep it constantly feed so the temp. stays up there, you can burn practically anything.

Why is it so cold over your way and so darn mild over here? The wind is even out of the northwest here which is usually frigid. Maybe the jet stream had looped north of us for a few days. I don't mind, I've been wearing nothing but a cotton sweater and light cotton pants. 20's and 30's sure isn't a heat wave, but its not windchill either :)

Yes we had a cold snap but we had warm fall and I bet warm late winter early spring.  So, it really isnt so cold here mostly normal and expected.  sometimes not fun though. :o :D :)

I figure that I've got about $150.00 into this winters wood heat.  Fifteen gallons of gas for the saws and tractor, a jug of bar oil and some two cycle mix, two new saw chains, and a days pay for one of my haying crew who helped pick up wood on a Saturday.  I spent some evenings and a couple weekends cutting wood for Dad and I.  I cut around 35 face cord.  I'm burning mostly green sugar maple with a little beech mixed in this year.  It's actually starting to season a bit now as it doesn't sizzle as much when it starts burning ;D.  It's freeze drying ;)  On a cold night you can see the frost on the wood in the shed.  Next winter I'm hoping to have an outdoor furnace like Dad's Heatmor.  It loses very little heat to the outdoors.  Snow will accumulate on its roof.  I love my wood heat and with all the hardwood we've got it'd be foolish to use anything else but I'm getting tired of having a fire in the house.  The mess and most of all the safety concerns are beginning to bother me.

@ Rebocardo

Yes with a fireplace you might as well burn your wood outside in an open pit and let the wind blow the heat into the living room window, since your heat just goes poof up the flu. And a flu of a fireplace is generally on the outside of the house which is the worst place for a flu. Your flu is best in the centre of the house where it is kept heated and less soot and creasote. I don't see how heat isn't lost in an outside stove either. I know the pipes are insulated and burried, they'de have to be. But there is a tremendous amount of heat being wasted which is radiated off the stove. And being in the cold it consumes alot more fuel, that's why your struggling to keep sufficient heat for combustion.  Also, those setups are very expensive. That setup would be fine for people with alot of scrap in the yard and don't mind wading snow drifts all winter and digging the wood out from under snow. If I had to go build a shop to hold the fuel or house the darn thing it would all be too rediculous. I have other uses for my money. I can get a wood furnace for $1000 installed and if properlly maintained will last at least 25 years. I only spend 4 days manufacturing my stove wood, for a 7 month winter, all inside under cover piled up, dry, easy access, no hassle fuel source ....sigh. And as long as I do the labour myself its no cost to me, otherwise uncle sam would be taxing me for that.   ;D

'nuff said

cheers  :D

@ Corley5

My gosh man......green wood   eeeek!!! I see where you'de be afraid of the hazards there. The heat of combustion is alot higher with green wood and the build up in your flu, frightening. I bet the walls of that flu have big balls of soot all over. Do you ever brush your flu or add soot remover to the fire? Clean your pipes monthly? If your flu is outside that is double dangerous. Also, when you open the stove door does the smoke roll out, bad sign? Why wouldn't you cut your wood the fall before to season it ahead of time?  :o

cheers and safe burning

I still haven't got my wood boiler hooked up. We had nice weather just before Christmas so my son and I got the chimney installed but didn't get the pex tubing run to the house before it got too cold. Right now I'm worried about trying to work with it when it is so cold so I may just have to wait. I'm still looking at getting a heat exchanger and putting antifreeze in the system. One of the fellows at work lost power in his farm house and broke 4 radiators. We just got our heat bill for the thurdy-room house, it was $525 for last month :o. Boy I sure wish I had that boiler running.

QuoteThe mess and most of all the safety concerns are beginning to bother me.

Vermont Castings stove with a catholic converter.  Heats 2,000 sf. house easily with two ceiling fans.  Loaded it in the morning, 6PM, and again about 10PM.  Hot fire every time I loaded for about an hour to get the creosote out.  Only burned split oak and a little walnut stove wood air dried for at least a year.  Ran a brush down the flue every couple of months but still managed to have a flue fire that cracked and broke  the clay tile liner inside the brick chimney after 10 years.  Not for sure how I will fix it but I'm sure it is going to require a lot of money.  We love the wood heat but???

I like the idea of Franks outside furnace.  Really like seeing the solar kiln running at 65 degrees on a sunny day with outside temperature at 20.  Just wish I could figure out how to get some of that heat into the house.

Green wood's not so dangerous if you're set up right.  I've burned mostly green wood here in this house for 9 years.  I've got an 8" metalbestos chimney that's about 14' through the roof with NO elbows to collect creosote.  The key is not to throttle the fire down.  Let it burn so nothing or very little condenses in the chimney.  Once a week or so I open it up and let it burn and maybe throw some cardboard in for good measure.  This dries it out and a few taps on the pipe and everything falls back into the stove and is burned.  At the start of heating season I clean the top four feet of pipe and knock the build up out of the chimney cap and it's good for a year.  I've got other things going on at other times of the year so I cut my wood fresh in Oct. or Nov.  A great, great uncle wouldn't burn anything but green wood.  Dad thought he was doing him a favor once by hauling him a load of seasoned maple buzz poles.  Uncle Frank told him the next day he didn't have to bring any of that $hi! up again and Dad didn't.  The rest of them rotted in woods.  These outdoor furnaces are insulated.  I don't know where you get the idea that they lose heat.  You can lay your hand on the outside of Dad's Heatmor and it's not even warm and snow will collect on the roof.  Heat loss?

@ Larry


Sounds like the flu is running up the outside of the house. Or the flu was not sufficient for the stove your using. You should seek professional help and not go trial and error.

My flu is 100 years old since great grandfather built the place and I've never had a flu fire in my time. My flu draws good and smoke does not bellow out the door when opened. I clean pipes monthly and sweep the flu once annually. I also use addative to the fire to loosen the creasote. When I open the cleanout most of the creasote is at the bottom broken free, roughly a paleful.


cheers

SD,
We put the chimney in the center of the house when we built it to lessen the chance of creosote build up and maximize heat transfer.  Plenty big for our stove.  Hired the best in the area to build the chimney.

Something ain't right though and I will hire another professional to rebuild it.

@ Corley

Your regular maintenance schedule sounds good. That is the key to your green wood situation. Its with folks that just feed the fire and have no regular maintenance that are at risk with the green wood. Next door neighbors are prime example, several flu fires there and they use a flu like your own. Exclusively burn green. A furnace is not suppose to be run wide open though, the experts say the damper should be no more than 1/2 open. I only leave mine 1/2 open 10 to 15 minutes for the fire to take off at startup, then I close it. I only use kindling wood once a year to startup the fire, then I start from coals. If I ever left it wide open for a long period the shellac would be runnin down the walls and I'de be a grease spot on floor. And if you have to leave the damper wide open, its because the wood is green and your fire will burn hotter for sure because it has to evaporate the water out. Heat of combustion is increased. Water doesn't burn. I only collect about 1 cup of soot from my pipes to the flu during my monthly cleaning when I disassemble each peice and scrape the insides. There's roughly 10 feet of pipe.

regards

An old buddy of mine once had a typical little 1200sf ranch house with a garage at one end. He converted the garage to a den and had a big fireplace built where the door had been. He went to the hardware store and bought some short pieces of water pipe and a sackful of elbows. From that he built a heat exchanger and mounted it in the top of the fireplace, and ran insulated pipes under the house to an old cast iron radiator in the central hallway. He installed a small circulating pump in the line, filled it with water(he may have had a small holding tank) burped the system and lit a fire. The radiator heated the rest of the house until the fire went out, then the gas furnace kicked in. The little system worked well and save him some bucks in the winter. :)

 You must maintain a flue temperature exceeding 250 degrees F during combustion to prevent creosote condensation. Even if you burn dry wood, if you don't maintain that stack temp you will form creosote. The problem with green wood is that a lot heat is robbed in the process of making steam, thus making it harder to keep that stack temp up.
One of the great things about my outdoor boiler is that stack temp is no longer a concern.

Having a mill, it makes sense to burn wood to heat your home via whatever means one preferrs,(indoor,outdoor). I been burning wood for some time now and  have learned a thing or two reading this thread. Hey Larry, the 'Catholic Converter" line killed me :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

If the sun wasn't in my face, and if it were not a foggy day I would have taken a picture of the neighbors yard with all that green smoke bellowing out the flu. Almost hard to distinguish from the fog with the sun in your eyes   :D  :D  :D  :D. Then I'de like to take a shot of my flu where there is almost no smoke. Now which situation do I want?

'nuff said :)

@ Chet

Yes, that outdoor boiler seems to be the answer for some. Those folks that are heating more than one building, it would be most economical for them I specs. Too expensive for me though.

Enjoy your heat whatever the source  ;D

QuoteThose folks that are heating more than one building, it would be most economical for them I specs. Too expensive for me though.  
 

My outdoor furnace also heats my shop and domestic hot water, besides heating my house. My furnace has a full 10 year warranty. Even if it only lasts 10 years, the savings realized by not using the electric water heater will more than pay for the furnace.

QuoteIf the sun wasn't in my face, and if it were not a foggy day I would have taken a picture of the neighbors yard with all that green smoke bellowing out the flu. Almost hard to distinguish from the fog with the sun in your eyes         . Then I'de like to take a shot of my flu where there is almost no smoke. Now which situation do I want?

I have been in our fire dept for over 20 years now, and every year we seem to have a couple of homes lost due to in home wood furnaces. Now...... thats a lot of green smoke.   :o  I've never been to a structure fire yet that was the result of an outdoor furnace.  ;)

'nuff said  :)

I'm ahead of you there Chet.  We had an outdoor furnace that was installed pretty close to the house that caught the outside of the home on fire.  We saved it though!  I believe the furnace got moved a bit farther away.  ::)

Larry,
   You might consider a stainless steel liner to repair you chimney.  Lot of folk build their chimney with to large of a flu. I have a 6" pipe coming from my wood furnace and put in 8X8" flue liners when constructing the chimney. It's maintains a very good draft without having to have an extremly hot fire to heat the volume of space inside the flue. I aslo poured pearlite insulation around the liners as the chimney was going up to maintain heat within the flue.  Go to walmart and buy a magnetic stack thermometer and put on you flue pipe. It has three colored ranges on the dial, to cold, just right, to hot. You can always see what happening that way.  
   Drove 45 min. to school to find they closed for the day, said they had just called, drove 45 min. home. I just hate that.

All I can do is just grin  ;D


Its all in maintenance and proper installation folks. Also, the more passive an attitude one has about his safety the higher the risk of flu fires. Well I've figured out the math on the hot water. For me it costs about $40, including a $4.95 rental from the power company, for electricity for hotwater heater and over ten years thats $4800 and those outdoor setups around here cost around $20,000 or more. Also those units will consume alot more fuel than my wood furnace which I only use 7-8 cords in 7 months depending on severity of winter, plus one 200 gallon barrel of oil for backup and milder weather. I know some folks only use 4 cords in smaller modern homes and propane for backup. My folks have had 1 tank of propane for 3 years and never refilled it yet, there main heat is a electric furnace with heat pump. Their heating bill including electric is under $300/month. In my shop I wouldn't burn more than a cord in my heater stove plus shavings and scraps. Now I'm no math wizard, and this isn't calculous 1002 but where's the savings in those outside furnaces? And if those furnaces don't loose alot of heat then how did poor Minesota_boy nearly burn up the side of the house? I've never seen no snow sittin on top of any of them around here, and we get plenty most winters :)

regards

Swampdonkey certainly has a point.  I did a lot of research into outdoor burners as we were going to install one.  The open atmosphere ones have a terrible history of corrosion.  The poor draft and cold water jacket temps on most causes smoky burns.  And the loss to ambient and from the water lines can be large, like 50% of the heat generated.  They also tend to be very oversized by the manufacturer so small smoky fires get used or the draft is closed down tight.

With that, there are some nice closed ones with a well designed water jacket, power vent draft, lots of insulation and other nifty features.  But they won't get my dollar.

We're putting in a wood stove with a selkirk flue in the house and all the correct clearances.  The stove is getting a hot water loop for the floor too.  Had to have a stove to look at inside anyways!

As a note:
Make sure any loops through a stove have pressure relief valves! Hot water loops can be the cause of a big booom if the power fails.  Don't assume a valve on the tank or rad will be able to protect it.  Relief on inlet and outlet on stove, always!
Ken

The house probably caught fire from sparks coming out of the chimney when the forced draft kicked on.  I've seen Dad's look like a fireworks show.  I know where there's one installed right next to almost touching a garage.  That's way too close.  I'm a little nervous about a one causing a grass fire in the spring before green up.  The only time Dad's smokes is when the draft blower first kicks on and then it burns clean and that's with green wood.  He also figures that it uses the same amount of wood as the old furnace in the basement did between 17 and 20 face cording depending on the winter.   Dad adds something to his periodically to prevent corrosion.  I'd recomend using boiler antifreeze and forgetting about it.  My parent's gas bill went from$50 a month for hot water and cooking to $20 for the whole period from Nov to Apr last last year.  Here's a pic of my stove.  It'll keep my 1,200 square' foot house a nice cozy 85 degrees or warmer with no problem.When I visit other people's houses in the winter who have conventional heat I tend to be cold. ;D  I burn between 12 and 15 face cords a winter.                                                                          (https://forestryforum.com/images/04_01_03/Wood%20stove.JPG)

@ Corley

How many inches do you cut your firewood to? A face cord with 16 inch wood is less volume than with 22 inch wood. Some people try to sell by a face cord and some unsuspecting individual thinks he's getting a true cord and in reality he's getting less than half that, even if the rank is 16 feet long.  ;)


cheers

Mine averages 16" but my eye varies from 14" to 20" ;D  I can fit 24" in my stove.  Most all firewood sold in these parts is sold by the face cord in 16" lengths.  $45.00 per cord is going rate last time I asked.  I couldn't name one person who sells standard cords of firewood unless your talking 100" pulp cords by the semi load.  It's a regional thing ;)  When ever someone here talks cords of wood it's face cords.  If you're talking standard cords you need to verify.  

@ Corley:

Yeah I buy mine 100 " by the trailor load becuase it doesn't cost the contractor any more to manufacture it than it would to make pulpwood ($1320 for a whole load, roughly 13 cords). I share half a load with my brother. But your price works out the same as around here all bucked up. Further south from me they seem to charge double that for bucked wood. They might as well burn oil, not as cosey though :)

cheers

Snow on the HeatMor ;) ;D  It'll melt off eventually depending on the weather.  This is the least that it's had on it in weeks but the last couple days have actually broke freezing and hit 34.  Real heat wave :D :D  Snow slid off my metal roof last night at 2:30 AM for the first time since the Holidays and almost buried the trucks ::).  Makes the house quake when that much load moves off it ;D actually woke me up and made the dogs bark ;D ;D
(https://forestryforum.com/images/04_01_03/Outdoor%20stove.JPG)

Well I dont know about everyone else but this spring my first major project is more insulation in the crawlspace, new windows, and a secondary heat source like an outside wood furnace.

Got my propane bill and had heart failure.  We used 140 gal in the last 10 days!  We were averaging 100 gal month up until this last cold snap.  When the wind blows and it gets as cold as it did last couple weeks the furnace just keeps running.

The farm house was built by my Great Grandfather in 1901.  After my grandfathers death 10 years ago my Dad has been renting out the house to locals.  5 tenents in 10 years.  Now I udnerstand what they meant when they complained about how much propane it took to heat the place.

Boy a wood cutter up your way would do will in south Arkansas two cords well do all winter . :D

@ Kirk Allen

I know what you mean about heat loss. We used to have a kitchen wood stove and a gravity fed wood furnace in the middle of the basement. You could sit on the furnace grate above the furnace and freeze your butt. Father took and ripped the old clapboards off and stuffed the place with insulation. He then put on insulated metal siding. There's 6 inches thick insulation in the walls and about 2 feet thick in the upper attic. Outside walls are double boarded, plus the siding. That was over 30 years ago. Nice and cosey with my forced air furnace now. But, too hot right now with one 6 inch stick and 2 small sticks as big as your rist in with it. Won't need no wood again till 7 am, last wood added at 8 pm. Its quite mild these days. In cold weather (below 0) I add wood about every 6 or 7 hours, just an armload. Insulation will save you alot of heating cost, especially the attic. Your attic needs proper ventilation too to prevent moister build-up and dry rot. I'm going to install new vinyl chloride or aluminum windows some day also. I'll be standing guard over the installers as they typically like the skimp on the chaulking around the window edges and contacts. I just noticed one window a local contractor installed and the chaulking is as thinning as masking tape. Guess what was starting to happen, the chaulking was breaking down and there was an open seem appearing to let rain water in. You wouldn't think you'de have to watch they people, but you have to.  :-/

cheers

SwampDonkey I wasn't aware of the exchange rate changing so much. My furnace cost me under $4500 US. My water heater was running me about $50 a month when I installed my furnace. If my math is correct over 10 years that works out to $6000.

@ Chet

Don't forget you could have installed a forced air tight furnace for $900  for a savings of $3600  ;) And add all the costs of accessories beyond the furnace cost itself. Looks like I was a little high though, was just going from third hand pricing. But still I see the price would be around $6500 CDN plus accessories. You also have to consider Chet, that its not just a direct conversion of currency. The dealers up here have a sizeable markup beyond the exchange rate. I don't see any Canadian sites up here listing their prices (for good reason), just US sites.

Just for info sakes, here's my Enterprise WF 200
http://www.enterprise-fawcett.com/wf_series.html

Also some other links below:

Here is a testimonial of an outdoor furnace manufacturer
http://www.woodheat.org/technology/obmanufacturer.htm

More info on outdoor furnaces
http://www.outdoorwoodfurnaces.org/

Cheers all  ;)

SwampDonkey, when you have your new windows installed do a little searching on flashing tape for windows.  Done properly it will provide a permanent seal around the windows against air penetration and wind driven rain. .  Much better than caulking alone.  http://www.graceathome.com/pages/flash_faq.htm

@ cktate:

Will do...thanks for the tip  ;)

As the wise old man said: 'You'll save a little here and waste all the more over there.'  :D

just feeling cheeky :)

SwampDonkey, I heated exclusively with an (airtight) wood furnace until I bought the outdoor boiler. Having used both systems, and seeing the advantages and disadvantages of each, I can easily say I would never go back to the old system. Although it still sits idle in my basement as my backup, but has not seen any action for 10 years now.  ;)

We've had our wood furnace in our basement for 30 years with no problems except for a smoky house ,  dirt,  and an occasional  a couple of flue fires.  We have an electric furnace as back up.

We are building a new house.  It will have a Taylor boiler,  electric furnace  with heat pump as backup,  and a fireplace.  The fireplace has outsice air intake,  glass doors and fans.
The boiler cost about $7000 installed.  We have all kinds of waste wood from the mill that gets burned one way or another and I will be happy to put a little more (or even a lot) through the furnace in order to get it and the smoke and dirt and flue fires out of the house.

The "old" style wood furnaces are not as big of a problem, as the "new" style airtight furnaces for chimney concerns. The old furnaces, because of their inefficiencies would keep the stack temp up. The problem with the new type, is when they go to the shutdown mode,  stack temps drop and creosote begins to form.

lots of opinions shared in this thread.  ::)

When we built our house 6 years ago, we put in a Central Boiler unit.
Top ten reasons for outdoor furnace.
1) less processing involved (cutting and splitting)
2) less handling, pile outside and leave it there
3) doesn't take up any room in the house, (stove or wood)
4) no smoke, dust, sawdust, hot coals, ashes, bugs in the house
5) no chimney on the house
6) savings on insurance. Lots!!!
7) radiant floor heat, really nice
8) heats hot water from Sept to May, shut off electric
9) comfortable heating, set at 75 deg and it stays there, no fluctuations in temp what so ever
10) can burn all my waste
11) can hook up other buildings when time comes, around here we can not have a woodstove in a garage or shop.

Ok so there are 11 reasons. :P

Reasons not to get one,
1) $5000 + initial cost
2) by laws prohibit
3) have to go outside to fill no matter what the weather. Only takes 5mins anyway, twice a day or less for the bigger ones.

I burn roughly 10 bush cord per year. From Sept to May. Heats my hot water, garage, workshop, basement and main floor. Pushing 6000 sqft total heated space. Even if I were to buy my wood that would work out to $1500/year for heat and hot water. Would hate to see the cost for oil or hydro.

Besides, to put in a furnace, woodstove, chimney, separate furnace for the garage and workshop, I would have spent the same amount of money as I did for the furnace, if not more. $6500 Can.

That's my opinion  ;D

One of the best reasons for the out-door boilers is insurance. Many insurance companies down here just won't insure if you have a wood burning device in the house. Or they might but they will charge an extra $100.

I used to have a forced-air wood furnace in our house in Minnesota. Every weekend I brushed the flue and made sure it was clean. We burned seasoned ash and birch and were doing everything right. One night about 1:00am I just happened to get up an go out into the kitchen I was standing there warming my butt and heard a strange noise. I looked at the magnetic thermometer on the stove pipe and it was moving up like the second hand on a clock. Went from 300 to 1000 in just a few seconds. I shut off the air, ran outside, climbed the ladder and dumped my bags of dry chemical down the chimney. If I hadn't been there at that moment we would have lost the house and everyone inside. It just so happened that this was my daughter's birthday and she had 7 of her little friends over, 10 kids total!. This really made me think about whether I wanted to run the risk of this happening again. Next fall we put in the outdoor boiler. By the way the problem I found is there was a spot about 6 inches long in a cleanout tee at the back of the stove that I was not reaching with the brush. You can argue that I wasn't cleaning it correctly and I wasn't but I was sure I was doing everything right and we still could have lost the house and everyone inside.

I'm still in the process of getting my wood boiler installed in the garage and by the time I do the cost will be about $9,000. Based on an average heating cost of $250 per month (year round budget) it will take 3 years to pay for it and after that my only costs will be to haul home the free wood and gas for saw and splitter (plus some much needed exercise)

Mark

Surely we've touched all the basis by now folks.  8)

Anything else we should add? :)

Swamp Donkey,
We haven't even begun yet. Still gotta talk about brands, where to set it, what to fill it with, how to lay out the system, air handlers and exchangers for inside the house etc etc.  ;)  :D

Here on the ranch, life's simple.  :D

Buck wood, chuck wood, pile wood. Smoke rises, heat rises, ashes and soot get cleaned out. Shove more wood in......all's nice and comfy in between and on both ends :D

cheers all

We had to build a fire one time......... ;D

Tom:

Ya big gloat  :D  :D  :D

go saw a few thousand ;)

cheers

Sorry SD but heat doesn't rise. Hot air rises but not heat.

How about discussing pressurized vs. non-pressurized systems.

Mark

@ Mark

Makes your thermometer rise though :)

cheers

Yes sir! You are right there SD.  :)

I was a little surprised when I found out that heat doesn't rise myself, (about 2 months ago). It likes to go from a warmer area to a colder area (I knew that), but it doesn't care which direction it moves as long as it's colder. This is why hotwater radiant heat works so good, and why some of the churches in Europe only have a 2 degree difference in temperature from ground level to the ceiling 100 feet above. If it was feasible I would be running tubing under the floor in my whole house. Unfortunately this is a big job but I might try doing it in a couple of rooms that don't have radiators.

Mark, If everything is still open in the basement, you could do just a few rooms at a time. Just get a manifold to accomodate future hookups. If you do have a used basement, there are cheaper ways to put it on top of the cement floor by building up a subfloor. Our piping in the basement floor pretty much heats the whole house until it gets really cold, then the blower kicks on occassionally to make up the difference upstairs.

We've got a high efficiency fireplace in our house so we can have a fire to watch but I'm never going to be able to heat the house with it. Hopefully this fall I can afford an outdoor unit. If you folks that have them now what would you do different if you were to put in a new one, or would you change anything at all. Our basement is unfinished so I'm thinking of putting the tubes beneath the underlayment. Or should I just put a heat exchanger into the existing system. What brand would you put in. I've read all the manufac. info but I'm still not sure what to do.

Thanks for any suggestions you can give this poor frozen Iowan. :D

Norm,
Apparently, Central Boiler is supposed to be one of the most efficient units on the market. They also have combination oil and wood units now which is what I would like to upgrade to eventually.
You can go either route with the rad for an existing furnace, piping in the floors or both. Piping downstairs and rad for upstairs.
The one thing that I wish I had done differently is have more insulation around the main lines that run through the house. The manifolds are about in the middle of the house and I have approx 30 ft of main line running through the floor plus another 25 through the garage. If I had insulated it, I could be running it year round to heat our domestic hot water.

 ;D Just shoven another stick in maw Enterprise Fawcett  ;D

                        THIS
(https://forestryforum.com/images/04_01_03/furnace%20002.jpg)

                         PLUS

(https://forestryforum.com/images/04_01_03/furnace%20001.jpg)

                         EQUALS

(https://forestryforum.com/smile/hick_wiggling_toes_md_wht.gif)

Thank you Neil.  :) I'm curious why you would go with the oil, wood combo, is it for if your not around to feed the fire?

Yep Norm, just serves as a backup incase I can't fill it up in time. Maybe someday I can make some money at this milling thing and maybe go away for a week or two in the winter time.  8)

See, this is our only source of heat, no backup aside from one of those big orange electric heaters that will plug into the dryer outlet.
Speaking of dryers, I was hoping to convert our old dryer into one I could hook up to the water as well. Just to try it see if it worked and how well. Didn't bother when it finally quit cause the blower on it blew apart and it was a pretty old dryer so didn't expect I'd find a new blower.
However you can get dryers that are hotwater compatible and I think it would work thus saving even more in hydro.  :)
May be something else to check into.

Swampdonkey, I do miss the indoor fire but I don't miss the fact that it's 110 at the stove and 65 in other parts of the house. Plus it's 100 when you go to bed and darn cold in the morning until you get the fire going again. Also don't miss the mess I'm creating in the house as well as worrying about burning holes in the carpet when I clean it out. Among other things as listed previously. I grew up with a woodstove in the house so I'm aquainted with both senerios now and like the system I have.  ;)  :)

Norm, another thing to think about when hooking it up is to have it so you can plug it into a generator in case the power goes out. Unless you leave a woodstove in the house. But then you are still paying the insurance even if you only use it once or twice a year.

Another thing to consider with these outdoor units is alergies or asthma (sp?). If our son had been born with either, there would be no way I would be using a woodstove in the house. Therefore I would have had to resort to using fossil fuels.

@ Neil

Neil yes it can be a mess for sure, but in my situation everthing is in my basement. My basement isn't modern, its got quarried granite and stone walls. Some day I want to replace it with all cement and redo the floor. I've seen alot of these old farm houses get new cement in the last 20 years. Doesn't seem to be an impossible job, even working around the flu, when they jack and brace the old buildings up before tearing out the old and puttin in the forms and such. Did it to the old church about 20 years ago and it only had a crawl space underneath and room enough for oil furnace at the time. Making a mess in the old basement isn't a big deal in my situation, just 20 minutes with a broom and shop vac in spring and fall. I use steal pales for the ashes which if some do spill out only going to land on concrete. Even my steps to the cellar are concrete hehehehe. Only takes about 15 minutes to clean my pipes once a month. Ashes get cleaned twice a week. The house is well insulated which helps, never cold in the mornings. And besides its not much of an effort for me to put the slippers on at 2 am if I think I want to add another chunk before mornin on severe cold nights. This winter has been really kind to us here, only a couple days at -20 F, hardly any snow. These days the mercury hangs around in the teens and twenties, sometimes the fifties. The february sun is quite powerful, I can just open the blind on my huge picture window and use solar in the den and living room, but I like a little smudge too :) My uncle uses mainly his kitchen stove in the fall and mild days, with oil for the main house. He doesn't keep the house overly warm during this phase. In dead of winter he uses his furnace and its too hot to run the kitchen stove at same time hehhehe. His total hydro is under $60 every month, mine averages $75 in cold months because I use a dryer in winter. In summer my bill drops another $20 bucks. He recently insulated his place which made a world of difference. Used to be able to see the frost on the nail heads in the den at his place hehehehehe. Grandfather didn't seem to mind the old drafty place back when he was used to crawling up with the horses in a Hudson Bay blanket when workin the woods hahaha. He stayed in some *DanG cold places, tough old fart.
Dad insulated here over 30 years ago when we got our first decent Enterprise Furnace. Before that he'de wrap the place in plastic like a cacoon to keep wind out. The neighbors had a good laugh. But we never had a flu fire here, the neighbors are always burnin themselves out with their green wood. I'm always scratchin my head when people tell me green wood is better. Maybe that's why there are only a few spears of hair left up there...scratch scratch scratch.  ::)

cheers

Norm,
If I was to replace my Central Boiler unit today I would definately go for a dual fuel system.  We heat a production greenhouse as well as the house and domestic hot water with the unit.  Whenever we are going to be gone for 12 hours or more we have to recruit someone to feed the fire.  We used a heat exchanger located below the A/C coil in the existing forced air furnace to heat the house.  It works just fine.

I had not thought of the dryer being hooked up but it is a major electricity hog. Most everything else is running off of LP. I sure am tired of the prices of it being so high. The woodburner in the house is permanent but the mess and danger has me wanting to change over. If I can hook up the hot water and heat the house in addition to the shop and greenhouse I would be able to get by on one LP tank per year. As it is now I burn off my slab pile in the summer because we have so much wood available. Firewood prices around here are real low. Can LP be the other fuel or does it have to be heating oil?

Thanks for all the help. :)

As for making any money off of sawing Electric Al said it real well when he said it was a slow way to get rich. :D

By Dryer I meant clothes dryer. My slippers aren't high enough to get through the 5 foot snow drifts to the clothes line in the winter :)

The biggest thing that I'm considering in the purchase of an outdoor furnace is grates.  That was the main reason that I replaced the original indoor stove with the one I've got now.  With the old stove I had to let it burn down weekly to remove a bucket of ashes.  Not with the new one with grates but I would prefer shaker grates.  Dad went with the Heatmor over a Central boiler because the Heatmor has grates and  has water circulating thru the door.  I like the Heatmor but the grates aren't the shaker kind.  I've been considering the Mahoning http://www.mahoningoutdoorfurnaces.com because of the shaker grate system but they're kinda ugly ::)  I like the Empyre http://www.cozeburn.com for its water filled grates but it doesn't have water in the door but I do like the idea of an ash pan rather than the auger that the Heatmor and the Aqua-therm http://www.aqua-therm.com have.  I've talked to an Aqua-therm rep and like the stove but not the rep ::)   They're a pressurized system (10 to 15 psi) but no shaker grates or water in the door.  Then there's the Heat Source1 http://www.heatsource1.com which looks suspiciously like a Heatmor with a hip roof but in a recent "Farm Show" they showed them with an add on boiler unit that ran on your choice of natural gas, LP, or fuel oil which I like better than the dual fuel options on other furnaces where a jet of fuel is injected into the firebox and ignited.  Reps from all the makers that I've talked to say that system is super inefficient and for the money that the dual fuel option costs you'd be better off buying a high efficiency boiler to use in conjunction with the outdoor unit.  The main reason that I want dual fuel is that wood is my only source of heat and insurance companies won't insure you unless wood is considered your supplemental heat.  Their reasoning is that if you go away and the fire goes out your house will freeze up and the plumbing will rupture ::) and what if the power goes out and you don't have any other source of heat ??? ???  I've got insurance through Michigan Basic Property Insurance and it's a rip but you gotta have it. There are other units I've looked at such as Taylor, Johnson, Woodmaster and some others.  Basically what I'm looking for in an outdoor furnace is shaker grates preferably with an ash pan, a door with water circulation, forced draft, and a dual fuel option that is at least somewhat efficient.  The Heat Source1 meets all those requirements but the shaker grates so I'm leaning that way but I'm still looking.  I plan on going with hotwater baseboard heat as I don't have any existing duct work.  Dad's is hooked up with a heat exchanger in the plenum of his hot air fuel oil furnace.  The old farm house is warmer than it's ever been on the same amount of wood.  The shop has a suspended heat exchanger that looks like an LP unit but if we'd of known at the time that Dad was going to get one of these furnaces we'd have put tubing in the floor when it was poured.  I've grown up with wood heat and the mess somewhere in the house be it in the living room or the basement, the knowledge that no matter how careful you are and how religiously you maintain an indoor wood heat system $#*t can and does happen.  In the 34 plus years that my family has used wood heat we've never had an incident but I know people that have heated with wood for longer than that without any problems that've lost it all because of a chimney fire, equipment malfuntion, or just bad luck.  That's why after this winter I'm done with the indoor variety.  As to the benefits of dry wood.  Yes it's nice to have seasoned wood but the worst creosote build ups we've ever had to contend with came from burning dry dead elm.  The creosote created by green maple is nothing when compared to elm.  One winter when Grandpa worked out and didn't have time to get all his wood cut he used green elm and mixed it with coal.  That alleviated the creosote problem ;D  

swamp donk,

dry wood = dry feet with no fret of chimminy fire (https://forestryforum.com/smile/thumbsup.gif)

Corley5 I can understand your desire for shaker grates and perhaps an auger for ash removal.  I am very happy with the performance of our Central Boiler unit but I must admit the weekly shoveling of ash is not my favorite part of the week!  We let the fire go down to just coals but there are a lot of coals to be raked aside to get at the ash.
We have a generator for emergency use and I installed a switch so we can power the boiler pump and some essential house circuits if the power goes off for any length of time.
I do not understand why insurance rates would go up with an external heat source.  Our insurance actually went down.  If you think about it conventional heat sources do not work very well if at all without electricity do to the use of electric starters.

I may be wrong on this as sometimes I do make a mistake  ;D but I think the reason Central doesn't use grates is to be able to keep the ash stirred up preventing premature corrosion of the firebox because it will trap moisture underneath. Also I find with keeping it stirred up, it will burn up whatever is left to burn of the ash therefore using as much of the wood as possible. With a grate, it will fall off and drop into the cleanout before it burns off all available heat.

Does this make any sense to anyone  ???  ::)

Neil, what kind/size of pipe did you use under the floor? Is it just fastened to the underside or did you use some of those heat transfer plates? I will have access to the floor from below when I remove the ceiling tile that needs to be replaced. I was thinking about maybe adding some baseboard or hauling one of the radiators down from the 3rd floor but they are so heavy I don't think I can move them.

Do you have any experience with heat exchangers - the liquid to liquid kind? I think I am going to put glycol in the wood boiler in the garage but don't want to put it in the house because I am concerned about developing leaks.

Thanks
Mark

Neil, I believe you are correct.  I knew there was a reason I decided against the grates when we purchased the stove, just couldn't remember  ???
The ash I remove is definately thoroughly burned and real fine -goes right through the face mask!
But I still think about grates and an auger when I am digging out the ash.  I fill the loader (1/3 yard) full every Sunday.  Sometimes I do two loads.  What fun!!!!

Mark,
I haven't put any piping in the upstairs floor. Just installed it in the concrete of the basement. We used 1/2" pipe, the radiant floor type (PEX)???. Can not remember the type or brand for sure. If I find it I'll post for you.
I am still considering to do the bathroom floors eventually though. Will do that before I totally finish the basement. More than likely will go with the transfer plates to hold it up as well as making it more efficient in the transfer of heat.

The only experience I have with exchangers is the one on the water heater. Basically just a 3/4 pipe surrounded by a 2" manifold. 3/4" being the one that the domestic water cycles through.
Check with the insurance company before adding glycol. Ours wouldn't allow antifreeze in our system just water. They are concerned with leaking into the water table as well.

I would go with the baseboard rads. They are probably made to be more efficient than the old rads. Not sure how well the pumps would push the water through an old rad anyway. Guess it would depend on the pressure that your type would put out.

Onewithwood,
That seems like a lot of ashes. I fill up my stove with about 1 to 2 wheelbarrow loads a day. Still only have 3, 5 gallon pails full when I clean it out. Usually every two weeks sometimes a bit sooner.
Depends too on the type of wood. I find oak leaves the most ash. Poplar burns to a very fine ash and very little left. If I burn the poplar all fall I can probably go a month or more before cleaning.
The thing I find is to stir it up well as often as you can. If I just keep throwing more wood into it without stirring first it will build up a lot faster.

I would like to have the auger myself but then I realize how long it takes to clean anyway and it's not that bad. At least we aren't carting it through the house  ;D

We heat our house with wood stoves and only have to clean out ash like 2 or 3 times a winter.  We only remove maybe two five gallon pails per stove per cleaning.

The outside burners you guys are talking about cleaning every week must be big models heating multiple houses?

Nope slowzuki, just one big house  :)

  My insurance wouldn't go up with outside heat.  The way it is now I don't have any other heat besides wood and even an outdoor wood furnace would require another source of heat in addition to the wood so I could get real insurance coverage.  My rates would be lower with all the heating equipment outside.  I had also considered one of the Aqua-therms without the outside jacket set up in my woodshed along with a small LP boiler but I'd still have a chimney to worry about which is one of the things I want to get away from.  One of the things I like about the Empyre is the water in the grates.  It not only increases their life but saves the heat from any coals that fall through them.  Dad augers the ash out his Heatmor every couple weeks.  Another thing I don't really like about the Heatmor is that the ash auger is almost on the ground with no way to get a bucket under it.  You have to auger the ash out and then shovel it a container.  Dad augers it out and we blow it away with the snow blower ;D

Niel et al
I found having an old cast iron house radiator in my hot water baseboard heat system worked just fine. Run pumps in a closed system at about 12 psi. I heat with a bit less than one wheelbarrow load of wood a day when low is 0 and high is 15, and my oak yields about 1 gallon or less of ash every three days. I find oak has the least ash, as compared to elm, walnut, and soft maple. I prefer oak because of the low ash. Just different findings.

I don't have an ash pit with shakers, and would like to have, but it is one more door to seal. Also, I elevate the wood burning unit to be 2' higher than it would be on the floor. That is more convenient for loading and unloading, cleaning out, etc. with little to no bending over.

(https://forestryforum.com/images/04_01_03/WoodBurnera.JPG)

yeah I suppose the pumps would push through an old rad. I've got a section of 1" hose going to my shop which is on the main floor so it's pushing the water up 8' plus it has to push it through the radiator (car type).

Maybe the reason I find oak to give more ash is that it's not as dry as the other woods  ???. Or maybe there are just more coals that are mixed in making it look like there is more ash.

Corley et al

Your furnace or stove will keep you warm in an outage while everyone with electric heat or gas (no blower) will be freezin the death. Its not safe to run those propane furnaces with no fan blowing is it? the heat build-up inside? With these Fawcett furnaces you can remove the side door and close down the damper and your heat is gravity fed. It won't be overly warm but will keep things from freezing if the place is insulated properlly. We used to have just a gravity fed furnace and kitchen stove here. We had no fires while in bed, the folks strictly forbid that. Was real cool in the morning but we didn't freeze up. This old place was only insulated back then with board, plaster and newspaper hahahaha. We also tried hooking water tanks for hot water on the furnace, but was suscepible to corrosion inside and lime build up. Installed a water softner the same time as the water tank. We wouldn't run that because it wasted too much water going through its cycles. Still sittin down there idle almost new. We spend more money on others people's ideas of saving money and now I'm back to the furnace and electric hot water heater. I throw my hands in the air and say, you can have it (well I don't dare post what I'm thinking). ;)

You folks just remember in 10 years what swampdonkey told you when you go through all this expense and headache to try and save $40/month and a pale pull of sweepings off the basement floor hahahaha  ;D  ;D   where's my smiley with the guy shaking his finger, well now you get the picture :)

I used the steam castiron radiators with a hot water pressurized system. The heat is not controlled as good as with the base board system. I ran the water input to the bottom of the radiator and the out put at the top of the other end. The problem with this system is you have a large amount of water to reheat each time there is a demand for heat. It is hard to control so that you will not over heat the room.