Outdoor Wood Burning Furnace

[BigMamaBird]

Hello all!

 

Do any of you heat with an outdoor wood burning furnace? I have never seen them before, but after we looked at a house that has one, I'm seeing them everywhere! I grew up in suburbia where, if you wanted heat, you hit a button, so I'm a bit apprehensive about what's involved in heating your home with one of these.

 

How efficient is it? How much wood does it use? How much work is it daily? Do you use other sources for heat in addition, or is this it? What about spring days where you only run the heater at night to take the edge off? I heard you get discounts on your insurance? If you had it to do over again, would you go with an outdoor unit?

 

I'm sorry about all the nosy questions, but I'm really curious about this, if it could work for our family. I'd appreciate any input you could give me.

 

Thanks!

[BigMamaBird]

Anyone?

 

Bueller? Bueller?

[Holly IN]

We have an outdoor unit. We LOVE it!! Our house is much warmer than it was with Propane heat. We didn't pay for our heat at all this year. We got a lot of free wood from people that wanted trees taken down on their property. So they let my dh go in and take the trees down and haul it away with no charge. :) We have been blessed this year!!

 

Now....the cons is you have to feed the boiler every day!! It is not easy and simple. It is complex! It is worth it though. Depending on the size of the boiler you have and the type....you may be feeding it every 12 hours or 6 hours. If you have the ECO friendly one then it will burn less wood and give you good heat but the upfront cost is about $2000 more than a regular same size unit. We decided to not do that. We get no discount with our insurance...no tax break at all.

 

You can press a button on the thermosat but you still have to make sure the water temp is high enough to burn the wood. So it is much more than throwing logs in the boiler. You have to look at the temperature of the water in the boiler. We got ours through Central Boiler. They have reps for your area so you can get on the website and find a rep for your area and go to their house and see it in action. They really love to talk to you and show you how it works. Our rep is very helpful to us. We had a problem with the coil....he came over and saw it then took the coil with him and gave us a new one. So helpful!! He gave us a lot of pointers on how to do it.

 

So if we had to do it again....YES we will!! :)

 

It is HARD work but very well worth it when you see there are no money wasted on propane fuel.

 

 

 

Holly

[3and3]

:lurk5:

[OHGrandma]

I think the insurance break might be compared to having a wood burning furnace inside your house. We pay extra because we have a wood burning furnace inside.

[Blossom'sGirl]

We have a Central Boiler outdoor furnace. I really like it, but I am not the one who has to get the wood and load it everyday. We are not strangers to heating with wood as our previous house was heated with just a woodstove. It was so messy and there was always the concern of a chimney fire, but I do miss curling up in front of it.

 

I don't know anything about insurance discounts but ours was about $8000 to install and dh and I put the underground pipe in ourselves. Installation would be a lot more if you had to add hot water piping to the house.

 

Our house was already set up with hot water baseboard heat which works wonderfully with the boiler. There is a heat exchanger in the basement which transfers the heat from the outside (boiler) water with the pressurized system inside. The house stays comfortable warm all day with no fluctuations.

 

This past summer, we (a term I use very loosely) installed a 50 gallon hot water tank with another heat exchanger so that the boiler also provides our hot water. In addition DH had underfloor heat put in our new study (schoolroom) which is wonderful. We do burn all year using free amish slabwood in the summer just for heating our water.

 

Overall. I love our wood furnace but they are not for everyone. You definitely don't want it close to neighbors unless you plan on lengthening the chimney quite a bit. Also they do use a lot of wood, which is in ample supply where we live. Cutting, splitting, and stacking wood is our exercise program. I would do choose it again but only because the circumstances made it a good choice for us.

[Ginevra]

Hello all!

 

Do any of you heat with an outdoor wood burning furnace? I have never seen them before, but after we looked at a house that has one, I'm seeing them everywhere! I grew up in suburbia where, if you wanted heat, you hit a button, so I'm a bit apprehensive about what's involved in heating your home with one of these.

 

How efficient is it? How much wood does it use? How much work is it daily? Do you use other sources for heat in addition, or is this it? What about spring days where you only run the heater at night to take the edge off? I heard you get discounts on your insurance? If you had it to do over again, would you go with an outdoor unit?

 

I'm sorry about all the nosy questions, but I'm really curious about this, if it could work for our family. I'd appreciate any input you could give me

 

We have one from Central Boiler. It is awesome! Our "other" heat is oil-fired and the fuel costs were absolutely horrifying! We got the furnace a few years ago when fuel costs started going crazy.

 

It is a lot of work. Dh feeds it every day and spend a substantial amount of time in securing wood and chopping. It would not be practical if he was not in the type of work he's in (construction) and did not have equipment and access to felled trees.

 

We turn the heat to oil-fired during certain times: over the summer, when it is bitter cold (furnace can't keep up if it's in the teens or less) or when all our wood is buried in 3 feet of snow (like now:tongue_smilie:).

 

It was one of the best investments we made. We could not go on spending $700+ a month on oil. :svengo:

Edited February 16, 2010 by Ginevra