Outdoor Wood Burners / Who Has One ?

[Batz]

I am looking into an outdoor wood burner to heat my hot water tank which also heats my home. Does anyone use these ? How often do you need to stock the box, and how much smoke do they really produce. I live on 2.5 acres with neighbors all around, and don't want to smoke them out. The Central Boiler unit looks pretty nice.

 

[wildcard]

Ive seen the adds in the various mags...I just dont think it's a great idea for a home. Think about it. The colder it is outside, the more you have to go out to load wood. I think a better option is to prewarm the water on the back of an inside wood stove. Works when your up and around, main system takes care of it when your not.

 

[catssuk]

my neighbor has 1 and loves it, heats his 5200 sqft house ,and 8000sqft shop, loads it 1 time a day, and i never notice the smoke at all, he has the 20ft tall stack on his, which really makes the smoke not an issue at all,

 

[Bubbles]

Unless they changed.. ... I looked into it, the only thing I didn't like was you could not leave your house for a few days, the water jacket would frezze with no fire in it.

They say they go through alot of wood and they smoke alot.

 

[AZ800]

Had one in Northern WI for 1 year (rental house).
DId a fantastic job of heating the house, basically for free.
Only have to load it once a day, even in -20 deg weather.
Smoke was a factor of how hard it was running and how wet/green the wood was. The stove'll burn about anything, seasoned, green, doesn't matter. Lots of creosote build up, prolly due to the green wood I was burning.
Burned close to 20 full cords of wood I estimate to heat a 2000sf old drafty farm house for the winter, Oct thru April.
Good idea, IMO, but only if you can cut ALOT of wood.

 

[SNOW JW]

A guy at work has one. It has the tubes the are filled with glycol to the boiler the pumps in the house.

It heats I think 4000 sq foot and also does there hot water.

He loads it two times a day with 3 logs. If I have a shop someday that is the way to go. It also can have propane to backup on or can run off oil as well. I think it needs a 20' smoke stack though as his is only 6' and is a bit to low.

They are spendy $9000 I think is what he paid.

 

[Transporter]

I have the coalman homesteader.Burns coal not wood.Dont get a boiler that you have to add wood or coal to everyday cause you will never be able to leave home.With the coal boiler it holds up to 7 days of coal when its warmer but when its cold I fill it every three days.Thats enough for me me if it was everyday forget it.Not really any smoke but you can smell the coal smoke the odd time.

 

[1500psi]

i just looked into it and it looks pretty cool. you can have dual fuel so like if it runs out of wood it can start burning propane,oil etc.. whatever you want for a back up system...

 

[Snowizard]

.......you could not leave your house for a few days, the water jacket would frezze with no fire in it.......

There is a special antifreeze solution for use in hot water boilers. My house is heated with a gas fired HW boiler, that circulates hot water in radiant baseboard radiators. A few years ago I had a heating company familiar with this type of system flush the whole system, and re-install "hydronic heat" antifreeze.

It came in 5 gallon containers, and they used a small electric pump to install it in the system. I don't rmbr the cost, but seemed reasonable. The labor and service call chg was more. Then it was two days of bleeding radiators every few hours. No problems since.

Don't use automotive antifreeze. Someone had done that to the system in this house and it had turned almost black, and was building up sludge in the radiators. Not a good thing.

I don't know why it wouldn't work for your wood boiler. I wanted it installed in case the furnace failed, or the power was out for extended time.

.02

 

[TIM]

wood can be a pain in the azz. How far do you have to go for wood? how comfortable are you dropping trees, How are you going to get the logs to the road, and than home? Who spitls and stacks? where do you store the wood?

cords of wood go anywhere from $150-220 around here. I am lucky in that i border natl forest and there is alot of wood around me, but it still takes up a lot of time.

tim

 

[Batz]

I appreciate the good information. The model I am looking at has a 13 foot stack on it. I heard the same issues about smoke. It seems if you burn seasoned wood, it smokes much less, and usually only when you first stoke it. I currently have an oil fired water heater which I would use as my back up. My last oil fill of 213 gallons ran me $770. I am getting tired of the winter fuel bills.

AZ800, 20 cords of wood is a lot of cutting! I was thinking about the log truck delivery method.

Anyone in the Washington area with one of these?

 

[crazymf]

Hey,
Outdoor hydronic heating is the cats meow. I've used coal for 10 years, At the farm I have 2 Coalmans heating the shop, barn, houses, everything. I figure I save $5000/year over gas there.

At my business, I have huge heating demand and installed 2- 1.5 million btu coal fired upright boilers. I did a calculation when gas was at $13.50/gj and figured I saved $8000/month in the winter. That's what makes the heating viable.

Yes, you want to put a 50/50 mix of glycol in. Normally you'd use propylene glycol because it is non toxic.

I use my tractor trailer and a 30 foot gravel trailer and haul 20 tons of coal per trip. I'm too lazy to cut wood I guess.....

 

[opus]

All is great until you have no electricity. I would be sure to set something up where you could use it without power....or use a battery for the circulating pump. Amazes me how many people take electricity for granted.

 

[Extreme-One]

Are there any web sites that someone would recommend on this subject?