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Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 5:38:30 PM   
Aileen1968


Posts: 6062
Joined: 12/12/2007
From: I miss Shore, New Jersey
Status: offline 		So my heating bills for this winter have been astronomical.  At least six thousand and still counting since it's still in the 20's some mornings.  Anywho...I've been investigating outdoor wood furnaces and was wondering if anyone here has ever used them and if so, did you like them?  I already have about fifteen downed trees on my property that I can burn so it would be a while before I'd have to worry about wood supplies.  A cord of wood goes for about $120 here, unsplit.... a lot cheaper than heating oil.  A typical season uses approximately 10-12 cords of wood according to my research.
So....pros and cons of this type of system if you have it please.

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 6:22:47 PM   
thornhappy


Posts: 8596
Joined: 12/16/2006
Status: offline 		Some communities are banning the lower-efficiency ones due to the smoke and particulates.  If you've no close neighbors and in the boonies, it might not be a problem.

thornhappy

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 6:40:14 PM   
TankII7871


Posts: 174
Joined: 4/22/2005
Status: offline 		Only 1 bad problem  when its 20 below someone has to go out and put wood in it  the colder it gets the more trips you make.  When I was growing up my dad tried just about every way there was to heat the house  coal ,wood, gas wood was the least problem of it all.  Hell i never had central heat and air till i joined the USMC.  The only time i slept in ac was at someone else's house and then that was a window unit.  If you want to go this route it will work but bundle up quick and run to the wood shed.  ( your going to need a shed to keep the wood in so it stays dry and doesn't freeze together  nothing like chopping frozen wood apart in the snow :)

Eric 

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 7:04:11 PM   
ThinkingKitten


Posts: 447
Joined: 6/15/2006
From: Ontari-ari-o
Status: offline 		Aileen, what is happening to all the heat that you are currently generating, at enormous cost? Wouldn't it be more cost effective to make your home more energy efficient? Caulking, insulation, new windows, that kind of stuff? Stop the heat from escaping in the first place?

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 7:15:35 PM   
Aileen1968


Posts: 6062
Joined: 12/12/2007
From: I miss Shore, New Jersey
Status: offline 		There's no ban here.  We are farmland and rural.
Temps rarely get below 0.  Thanks for the shed idea Tank...didn't consider that, but it makes sense.
Kitten...we built the house 12 years ago.  It is well insulated and the windows are double paned.  I just have large rooms with vaulted ceilings. 

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 7:29:20 PM   
Real0ne


Posts: 21189
Joined: 10/25/2004
Status: offline 		Aileen how much fuel do you go through now?  I mean in terms of gallons of oil, pounds of propane, therms of natural? How many sq feet is your house?

Do yo uhave a skid steer or any machinery to handle logs?





< Message edited by Real0ne -- 4/1/2008 7:32:54 PM >

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 7:31:28 PM   
BOUNTYHUNTER


Posts: 9259
Joined: 2/5/2004
Status: offline 		Out door furnaces call Hosea's I believe is very effect,heating with steam generated by the wood burning..One of our friends has one and if I was to build a new house you bet your sweet ass I would have one as well...My wood is free well sort of,it takes work to cut and haul to the house,One thing about wood heat it will warm you up in 3 ways..one when you cut and stack it...Two when you lug it into the house and three while toasting in front of a nice warm fire....The loggers around here will give you the tops left from their logs just go cut it and haul it home...WE have a 150 year old farm house and it took some work to save on the heating and cooling bills..New storm windows and doors,blowing in insulation and in general just a tightening up job...one place often over look in this process is your electrical outlets,get those insulating pads to place under the covers..

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 7:33:42 PM   
popeye1250


Posts: 18104
Joined: 1/27/2006
From: New Hampshire
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

There's no ban here.  We are farmland and rural.
Temps rarely get below 0.  Thanks for the shed idea Tank...didn't consider that, but it makes sense.
Kitten...we built the house 12 years ago.  It is well insulated and the windows are double paned.  I just have large rooms with vaulted ceilings. 


Aileen, vaulted ceilings?
Holy shit, you're heating unused, empty space.
You might consider a false ceiling set up in the winter or something like that.
Or maybe just "close off" rooms that you don't use, close the heat registers and doors.
Man, I'm glad I don't live up North anymore, I'd tell you how much I paid for heat and electricity here but it'd probably make you cry.

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 7:41:10 PM   
Aileen1968


Posts: 6062
Joined: 12/12/2007
From: I miss Shore, New Jersey
Status: offline 		Yeah vaulted ceilings.  Live and learn.  I'll never build another home that has those.  I get taxed on that space too.  It's impossible to close off those rooms as they are in the center of the house and rooms lead off of them.  Plus one is my bedroom.

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 7:50:27 PM   
popeye1250


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From: New Hampshire
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

Yeah vaulted ceilings.  Live and learn.  I'll never build another home that has those.  I get taxed on that space too.  It's impossible to close off those rooms as they are in the center of the house and rooms lead off of them.  Plus one is my bedroom.


Wow, they tax you on it too?
Here's another solution, move down South here.
You can buy houses and condos for one third of what they go for up North.
If this 3 b/r condo were on a golf course in southern N.H. it'd go for $350-$400k.
And the taxes would be $7 or $8k per year.
I pay $378 a year in R.E. taxes on this place.

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 7:53:21 PM   
UtopianRanger


Posts: 3251
Status: offline 		The wood stove /wood-fired outdoor water heaters are definitely the best bang for your buck. Lots of folks in the part of Oregon I live-in have them. I pay sixty - eighty bucks for a full-size truck load of mixed fir, alder, madrone, etc{slightly under a full cord}

Honestly.....when I retrofit the house I'm restoring later this summer after I have it moved, it'll be with a super high efficiency wood stove and solar hot water heater.

Yes....I definitely think--since you have your own wood supply-- you should go with the wood-fired heater.



Good luck.




- R


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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/1/2008 8:04:58 PM   
Kirren


Posts: 580
Joined: 9/5/2007
Status: offline 		Growing up we had a wood furnace, tho it wasnt out side, it was in a sub room added to the back side of the house, it had enuff room to store about 5 ricks of wood ( what you called a cord) which made life much easier...we could almost pick and choose when to go out side.

I will tell you that it is easier to deal with in terms of heating, if the electric or gas goes out due to ice or storms you will still be warm, the blower just wont blow...and it is more economical...it is also a warmer heat, at least to Me it was.   I will tell you that its a bitch if it goes out. And you also want to be careful what kinds of wood you burn. No cherry. We almost burned a house down with that. Stick to Oak and Hickory I think maybe Birch, tho its been a while and I could be wrong about that.

But it is a better way to heat. I miss heating with it...I love the way it smelled and the way it seemed to heat you to the bones.

Good luck

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/2/2008 5:40:21 AM   
MsSpankhardSk


Posts: 63
Joined: 8/19/2004
From: Saskatchewan
Status: offline 		How about using a renewable resource?:

http://www.canren.gc.ca/renew_ene/index.asp?CaID=47&PgID=1142

Trees need to be saved for using nasty Co2 emissions up.

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/2/2008 6:12:56 AM   
camille65


Posts: 5746
Joined: 7/11/2007
From: Austin Texas
Status: offline 		A buddy of mine that lives in the UP of Michigan has had one for awhile now, and he loves it. It is the primary source of heat for his house and it heats wonderfully!If I could afford one I would have had one years ago.  Edit, I use LP gas now. So far this winter I've spent um... 600 + 959 + 300 + 860 and I ran out of propane this week. 2719.00.Ugh!

< Message edited by camille65 -- 4/2/2008 6:16:39 AM >

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/2/2008 8:03:35 AM   
soul2share


Posts: 7084
Joined: 12/18/2007
From: somewhere out there.....
Status: offline 		Aileen....

Not sure if you'd be too interested in something like this, but there are fireplaces called russian woodstoves that are supposed to heat the entire house/living area.  I've looked into them when I was going to build up north.

Check this link out.....www.tempcast.com/.  You can actually build one into an existing home, and the cost of building one wasn't so outrageous when I was looking to build.  The thoery behind the heating is that it's done over time using radiant heating principals.

Another good place for info on what you are looking for is the Mother Earth News magazine.  They often have a lot of companies with alternative heating ideas, and they are ususally green ideas, so the impact to your area is minimized.  I found out about strawbale homes orginally thru this magazine.  I plan on building one of those in a few years.

Just a thought.....

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/2/2008 8:16:39 AM   
LaTigresse


Posts: 26123
Joined: 1/15/2006
Status: offline 		I love wood heat. Will never be strictly propane heat again. 

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/2/2008 10:09:38 AM   
thompsonx


Posts: 23322
Joined: 10/1/2006
Status: offline 		Aileen:
The older issues of Mother Earth News....when John Shuttleworth was the owner have some pretty good articles on how to build one of them. 
A soapstone wood stove is more efficient than an iron one and if it is fitted with a catalytic converter they are quite environmentally friendly.
For your vaulted ceilings you can use ceiling fans running backward so that they pull the heat down... you reverse them in the summer so they push the hot air up and out the vents. 
Don't burn soft woods like pine and fir...pay the extra bux for hardwood and you will experience a total savings...The wood costs more but it has more btu of heat in it and it requires fewer trips outside to lug it in because one charge last longer.  If the down wood on your property is softwood chop it up and sell it and buy the hardwood.  Hardwood also creates less creosote in your chimney thus less labor to keep it clean.
thompson

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/2/2008 10:54:10 AM   
luckydog1


Posts: 2736
Joined: 1/16/2006
Status: offline 		The main drawback is that it must be constantly filled and kept going or your house will freeze.  Make sure you have a fallback method (preferably hooked to a thermostat)  Just in case or you go on vacation.  Heck, I live in Alaska, and only spent a grand heating my home this winter (natural gas forced air).  If it was 6k I would definatly be chopping wood daily.

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/2/2008 1:20:50 PM   
Kirren


Posts: 580
Joined: 9/5/2007
Status: offline 		I have to agree with LaT. I loved wood heat when I used it. And if you watch you can get it for little to nothing when new construction comes round, or when some one does dead fall. I know My parents used to get their wood for like 20 and 30$ a rick back in the day....

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RE: Outdoor Wood Furnaces - 4/2/2008 3:05:26 PM   
camille65


Posts: 5746
Joined: 7/11/2007
From: Austin Texas
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: MsSpankhardSk

How about using a renewable resource?:

http://www.canren.gc.ca/renew_ene/index.asp?CaID=47&PgID=1142

Trees need to be saved for using nasty Co2 emissions up.
 Trees ARE renewable.

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