Wood Stove in place of Furnace?

[CarolfromIL]

Would there be any advantage to replacing our thermostat controlled gas furnace with wood stove? Our heating bills are reaching $250 a month. Where we live there is plenty of wood. I would think the down side would be having to place wood in the stove every few hours? Has anyone made this switch?

[DaffodilDreams]

:lurk5: our bills are in excess of $300 during the coldest months, so I'm joining you for this topic.

[Denisemomof4]

dh chops trees off our land and we heat most of the house with our stove. I am a California transplant and have learned to LOVE winter. It truly is my favorite season. No matter how cold and windy it is out side, or even if we lose power, we crank up that stove and it's always so warm in our house. We have a Jotul and our house is over 3000 sf. That thing heats our entire house, all but dd11's room (above the garage and on her own heat zone) and ds18's room.

 

One of my favorite things is sitting inside during a blizzard, sipping hot tea, and wearing shorts if I want to. I just love a stove. If you're going to burn to save money, you better check into wood vs pellets. Both can be quite pricey.

 

Dh goes to bed at 10:00, flashes the stove, and fills it up. I go to bed between 12:00 and 2:00 and I put more wood in. Dh does come down once during the night to put more wood in and will usually sleep on the couch after that. It does need to be filled during the evening but our stove is probably 8 years old now and maybe the newer ones are different. Jotuls are excellent stoves as are the soapstone ones.

 

We have all southern exposure and can't burn during the day. Even today, where the thermometer didn't go about 5 degrees, we were warm inside wearing long sleeve t-shirts. When the sun started to fade is when we felt the chill.

 

We go through 4 - 6 cords of wood per season and also spend probably $1200 - $1600 on oil heat.

 

Hth

[Blossom'sGirl]

We did this at our last house. We had to either replace the furnace, which worked but was horrible inefficient, or go with wood. DH grew up with wood so he was comfortable with that. We lived in that house for 6 years heating with mostly just a woodstove. Because it was not centrally located, I kept an oil filled radiator going in the upstairs baby's room. Once the house was insulated an sided we didn't even really need that.

 

We would generally have to feed it about every three hours when the temps dropped below 20º. Thus we nicknamed it our woodbaby. We could go more like 6 hours on warmer days. Burn time will vary for each woodstove, but I think some are exaggerated in many catalogs. If I remember, our woodstove was a Quadra-Fire and it had a way to be shut down and burn its own smoke for a cleaner, longer burn.

 

Another big job is getting the wood. Some people have it delivered all nice and split to their doorstep, but we, I mean DH, would go get the wood, load it on the truck, unload it, split it, and stack it.

 

A final concern I has with our woodstove was that DH would load it at 3 in the morning and leave for work. Sometimes he would forget to shut it down and I would wake up later to a glowing woodstove. So fear of a chimney fire was always in the back of my mind.

 

Oh, and the mess with ashes and dropped wood bits is a constant battle. It is also quite dry.

 

We actually still heat with wood but now we use an outside boiler which runs hot water through our house. It uses a bunch more wood, but it is hard to compare because this house is bigger and poorly insulated.

 

I know I have not been very encouraging but burning exclusively with wood is a lifestyle. We could not leave our house for long periods of time in the winter because it would be freezing when we returned. All that said .... I miss having an indoor stove. We lost our electricity last week and our outdoor burner doesn't send us hot water without it. I would love to get a wood/coal cookstove for back up and emergencies and to stand in front of when I'm cold.

[SonshineLearner]

Don't get rid of it... just add the wood stove. Sometimes you'll be... maybe sick... or away... and need to run the heat... But wood warms differently. Think of a good path for the wood.... we have wood chips all over from when the kids haul the wood in....

[happypamama]

We have an outdoor wood-burning boiler, and we've been really, really pleased with it (this is the fourth year we've had it). Most of the time, DH only needs to fill it once a day. In the coldest weeks of the year (like right now), he checks it twice a day, though it doesn't necessarily need a complete fill both times. And sometimes in the fall and spring, I think he can sometimes skip a day between filling it. It usually takes him 5-10 minutes and is just part of his evening routine when he gets home from work. (And the kids help.) I can do it too, if he cuts the wood small enough for me, but it's generally a lot harder for me to lug the wood from the storage shed to the furnace than it is for him.

 

Drawbacks: it's more expensive than a woodstove (I think), and it does need some electricity to run its pump. So we have a generator that we can use if there is an electric outage. But it does run our hot water in the winter, so that saves a little money. You do have to go outside, even when you don't feel like it, to feed it, but it sounds like a woodstove would have the same issues. But no mess in the house, no worries about children getting burned, no concerns about smoke in the house. It's been great for us!

[ClassicCole]

This is our second year using a wood stove instead of propane. We haven't had to spend near the money we did before. We have access to plenty of wood. However it is work to cut, split, stack, haul and feed the wood stove. You do have to get up at night and throw more wood in. That all said the heat it provides is awesome. We feel very blessed to have our wood stove.

[Lostinabook]

My parents have always had a wood stove and they really like it. I loved that I could go sit in front of it when I was cold & would be instantly toasty warm. When I was a kid my favorite place to take a Sunday afternoon nap was in front of the stove. But the other parts of the house are really cold even though they do still have a furnace that they use in addition to the stove when it's super frosty outside. There's also the dust issue. And the hauling wood into the house is messy. The stove does make for a cozy living room area though!

[SonshineLearner]

We have an outdoor wood-burning boiler, and we've been really, really pleased with it (this is the fourth year we've had it). Most of the time, DH only needs to fill it once a day. In the coldest weeks of the year (like right now), he checks it twice a day, though it doesn't necessarily need a complete fill both times. And sometimes in the fall and spring, I think he can sometimes skip a day between filling it. It usually takes him 5-10 minutes and is just part of his evening routine when he gets home from work. (And the kids help.) I can do it too, if he cuts the wood small enough for me, but it's generally a lot harder for me to lug the wood from the storage shed to the furnace than it is for him.

 

Drawbacks: it's more expensive than a woodstove (I think), and it does need some electricity to run its pump. So we have a generator that we can use if there is an electric outage. But it does run our hot water in the winter, so that saves a little money. You do have to go outside, even when you don't feel like it, to feed it, but it sounds like a woodstove would have the same issues. But no mess in the house, no worries about children getting burned, no concerns about smoke in the house. It's been great for us!

 

This looks like what we wanted. The one we looked at could go 3 days in between "feedings".... and also could run things like... dryer, hot water, the hot water things below the floor (can't think of what they're called...) and other substitutes.... Basically, you could put logs in... ;)

 

Very Happy Thought!!

[FaithManor]

I'll jump in on this. My dad is a heating expert and owns a fireplace, energy system business. A HUGE amount of whether or not this is going to be cost effective is the layout of your house, how much you can afford to invest, whether or not you will harvest your own wood or if you will buy it, and what kind of wood you have access to. Wood stoves, for safety and efficiency, must burn hard woods that are properly dried. Pine is a no-no. Wood stoves do not burn hot enough to prevent kreosote build up in the chimney which can happen awful fast when burning pine sap or green woods. Whether or not you will get a good draft depends on the engineering and structur of your roof. So, there is a lot to consider. But, if I remember correctly, congress did extend the alternative energy tax credits...it might be possible to get the $1500.00 tax credit for converting from gas to wood stove. This does help offset the costs.

 

In our area, hardwoods properly dried run $50.00 per face cord. That's $150.00 per cord. We heat 3000 sq. ft. (the other 1000 isn't finished and so we don't have the heat hooked up to it) with radiant floor heating and an external wood boiler. We burn a full cord per month so we'd be paying $150.00 a month if we didn't harvest wood ourselves. Since your wood stove can't handle 24 Inch, unsplit logs - boilers can but not stoves - you'll need to order pre-split wood or split it yourselves. If they are large logs, you'll need to either get amazing with an axe or rent a log splitter at the beginning of the year. Although, if you want to heat long term, buying a gas powered log splitter is a nice idea. I think renting is $75.00 per day around here.

 

If you want to also produce hot water, then you are probably looking at a "buddy" to go on the wood stove or boiler. They an run from $600.00-1000.00 each depending on the size. It is an efficient method of producing hot water and the water stays hotter, longer than with an electric hot water heater.

 

Unless you are prepared to rip all the floors out of your house, you won't be able to install radiant floor heating...with exception of high ceilings. If you have vaulted ceilings in every room or those old Victorian celings that are 9-13 ft high, then you could because you could literally lay the plumbing over what you have, sub-floor again, and then lay your carpet, tile, or hardwood. You will need an expert in radiant floor heating to design the system and do the work. Your local fireplace shop guy probably doesn't do this for a living as exterior boilers and radiant floor heating systems tend to be the province of commercial heating contractors.

 

Check out the building codes in your area. There are restrictions in some places to having wood boilers or wood stoves. You'll need permits in order to install anyway or you will lose your house insurance. If you choose an external boiler hooked to radiant floor or to radiators (also a possibility), you'll need someone with a boiler license (a specialty license that many wood stove installers do not have), and a permit to build the exterior shed. The wood stove is actually an easier, interior installation, it is however, also not as efficient...you don't get as many BTU's per log as you do with the boiler.

 

We love heating with wood! We adore not having a gas/propane/fuel oil bill. But, do please educate yourself on it and make a wise decision that fits your family's budget, abilities, and the needs of your structure.

 

Faith

[hoosiermom]

We also have Jotul wood stove. We built our house 16 years ago and put the stove in at that time. When we keep the wood stove going around the clock, we have days when the furnace never kicks on. The Jotul is in the center of our house, which is open--kitching, dining room, living room as one "great room." The Jotul keeps the main part of the house very, very warm (some days too warm when the sun is shining in the south windows). The bedrooms stay cool, esp. the master bedroom on the north side, so I have a ceramic heater in there which helps on the coldest nights. We actually don't mind the cooler bedrooms--makes for better sleeping!

 

My husband works second shift. He loads up the stove around 4:00 before he leaves for work. I'll add wood before I go to bed around 10 or 11. He adds wood again when he gets home, sometime around 5 or 6 a.m.

 

Our furnace is electric, which isn't a very warm heat. The wood stove, however, is very toasty! I estimate the stove saves at least $100 a month on our electric bill.

 

The Jotul wood stoves are small and quite cute! Ours is a deep cobalt blue.

[Laura Corin]

We have a combination. We have a gas boiler which heats the house through radiators, as well as providing hot water. We have that set to about 16 degrees C. We also have a wood stove in the sitting room, which heats that area to a warmer heat for sitting around. Once the stove gets going, we open the doors and it heats through the whole of the front of the house.

 

I can't compare bills, because we use LPG, which is very expensive in itself. We have trees on our land, so the wood is low cost. I attend to the stove every hour or so - more often for the first while after we light it. It becomes an easy habit.

 

Laura

[Prairie~Phlox]

If anyone has allergies it may not be a good fit. We used to burn with wood and it was terrible for me.

[happypamama]

This looks like what we wanted. The one we looked at could go 3 days in between "feedings".... and also could run things like... dryer, hot water, the hot water things below the floor (can't think of what they're called...) and other substitutes.... Basically, you could put logs in... ;)

 

Very Happy Thought!!

 

Ours isn't quite that big, but that would be cool. :) Are you thinking of radiant floor heating? That would also be very nice and makes total sense. We've been really pleased with ours so far.

 

Edited to say that DH says it can sometimes go three days, though it's going to depend on the size of the boiler, the size of the area you're heating, and the outside temperature.

 

As for going away, that is a tricky thing. We have oil as a backup so that if the boiler fails for some reason, our pipes won't freeze. It's set to come on automatically if the inside temp goes below a certain point. We've not had to use it thus far. We normally don't go away in the winter, but we did this year, and we just had the neighbor's teenager come over a couple of times to fill it, with instructions to call us immediately if the fire went all the way out. We set the inside temp to be lower than we need when we're there, but high enough to prevent frozen pipes. Came back, and everything was just fine. We also watched the weather, and if our area had had an extended power outage, we'd have returned home asap to hook up the generator. (And if the world fell apart, and we couldn't get back, well, frozen pipes might not be the biggest worry on our minds.)

Edited January 26, 2011 by happypamama

[love2read]

Our neighbors have a wood stove. Calculate in the cost of a good wood splitter, chainsaw, repairs, gas and time spent. The husband seems to put in a half a Saturday all summer just getting the wood ready, but it may be less time than that.

We put in a stoker coal stove a few years ago and love it. Our oil bill was up to $4,000, probably it would have been close to 5K this year, and we now pay only $1,000 for 5 tons of coal that lasts all winter with about 1/2 ton left. The stove paid for itself within the first few months of running it. I'm guessing the same savings would be true for a wood stove.

[mom4him]

We have a wood stove and love it. That being said, I would not replace my gas central heat with it. It does a good job heating the house but we would have to get up in the middle of the night and stoke it, we would never be able to be gone all day, there are simply times when everyone is focused on other things that it doesn't get done, etc. As an add to to help with the bills, if you have the wood, yes. Totally replace? I wouldn't do it.

[Alyce]

When we first moved into our house the first thing we did was put in a wood stove. We thought it would be great to heat with wood especially since we had an oil furnace. That lasted about 5 years. My husband spent most of his free time maintaing our wood supply, splitting it and stacking it. We kept a stack on the screened in outside porch so it would be a little easier to get. He also did all the chimney sweeping himself. As others mentioned you have to do a lot of work to keep them going 24 hours per day and the ashes and wood chips were horrible. Then the kids came and it was a chore to teach them to stay away from the stove not to mention that our house is very old and even with insulating and installing new windows a lot of the heat from the wood stove was going out of the house instead of staying in.

 

Several years ago our furnace went out and it was time to look at alternatives. We decided to go with propane. In the long run, considering cost and time and effort, it is cheaper for us. We have a wall unit that heats our family room and dining room very cozy. We set the rest of the house at 66. We run the gas unit during the day and turn it off at night. It actually saves us more money than the wood stove did and like the wood stove we can still use it for heat if the power goes out. We also have a gas stove powered with propane so we have a source for heating food if the power goes out. Our gas company sells packaged deals that if you buy ahead of time they will set in your rates. We usually do that especially since they do have a 3 month payment schedule. Our stove is hooked up to a different propane source. We have a 100 lb tank for it and it usually lasts us a year or more. We are much more happy with the wall unit than we were with the wood stove. We get the same benefits with less cost and half the hardwork.