Heating your home

[SwampDonkey]

@ 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

[OneWithWood]

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.

[Norm]

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

[SwampDonkey]

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

[Corley5]

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  

[pappy]

swamp donk,

dry wood = dry feet with no fret of chimminy fire

[OneWithWood]

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.

[Neil_B]

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  ???  :

[Mark M]

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

[OneWithWood]

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!!!!

[Neil_B]

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.

[Neil_B]

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

[slowzuki]

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?

[Neil_B]

Nope slowzuki, just one big house  

[Corley5]

  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

[beenthere]

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.

[Neil_B]

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.

[SwampDonkey]

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

[D._Frederick]

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.