outdoor furnaces the good the bad?

[MACDABS]

I just topped off my heating oil tanks with my pre buy and the tractor tanks filled , prebuy 2.57/gallon, new rate 4.10 gallon ouch!!!

I would like to here the good , the bad, the ugly opinions on outdoor furnaces, since another heating season is behind us. I have been kicking around a outdoor furnace to heat a new shop I am building plus my home .
Some of the questions I have:
Is it worth it?
How hard our they to start a fire?
Do they consume wood faster than you can stack wood?
How much time a day do you spend fussing with the furnace?
Can you burn about anything in them,skids,scrap wood,pine trees?

Thanks,
Macdabs

 

[Bandybear]

I can't help you with how they work but I heard the EPA and local governments are cracking down on them. Here where I live in Lebanon County, Cornwall Borough is working on an ordinance to restrict their use. Being as you too are under the domain of Ed SPENNDELL, have no doubt if one area starts restricting them, other areas will also.

I was also considering a corn stove a couple of years ago, but now since all the corn is being used for ethanol, I wonder if the are as cost effective as they were two or three years ago.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

I can't give you specifics but I have a buddy that has two...

One, medium sized one that heats his dad's house

Once large one, that heats his house and a large 60x60 uninsulated building

i think they require more wood than he expected.....he gripes if the fire goes out because it's hard to start......

but, he has lot's of downed trees and he usually doesn't even split the wood, the opening is large enough he just cuts about 4' sections and sticks them in....

they do seem to smolder and produce a lot of smoke but where he lives, it doesn't really matter

large intial investement, decent amount of work but he is beating the system with them.....he said he would buy them again, just so he doesn't have to give the money to the electric company and the gas company


for my uses, i'd much rather have a coal/stoker boiler......uses coal (cheap) and can burn for 3-5 days (depending on temp) without touching it.....just keep the hopper full and empty the ashes....

 

[Wayne County Hose]

I'll try to post the link to the newspaper article, but don't purchase one based solely on the safety factor. About 2 weeks ago, a local family's house burned down because of the outdoor furnace. When the husband checked the fire before work, a hot coal must have fell onto the ground. That started a brush fire which travelled to the house and burned it to the ground.

 

[skent]

Several years ago, I checked into them. Two locals are using them, one does home improvements (decks and fences) and burns the scrap wood. Both users were surprised at how much wood they use. Mainly due to smoking (lots of smoke= poor efficiency). Have to be stoked at least daily, twice a day in cold weather. Maryland government has already started to control them due to the smoke issue. Farmer down the road from me uses it for heat and hot water. Typically uses 12 to 15 cord of wood a season. But he has almost unlimited supply of down trees.

I did the math and ran the numbers, Purchase, shipping, installation and firewood costs bumped against savings I was looking at a 15 year breakeven point. I have 5 acres of woodlot that would supply me free wood. I figured my cost of firewood was $25 cord (not counting my time). Costs were gas for saw, gas for splitter, gas to transport and maintanance on equipment.

Also, Homeowners insurance rates go up if you heat with wood. Insurance company doesn't care that the fire in outside and away from the house, they still charge extra.


Years ago, a good outdoor boiler was $5,000 and only carried at most a 3 year warranty.

 

[Highbeam]

"Both users were surprised at how much wood they use. Mainly due to smoking (lots of smoke= poor efficiency)."

The smoke is a sign of inefficient burning but the stove is only smoking when heat is not being called for so it really shas nothing to do with the massive consumption of these things. They consume a lot because they are doing an inefficient job of transferring heat energy into heated air in the home. A similar amount of fuel burned directly in the living room woodstove will not have losses to the outside, ducts, pipes, or the conversion to water heat.

To be sure here, the original post was about outdoor wood furnaces and not outdoor wood boilers. The wood boiler is the stinker facing regulatory challenges due to smoke. The smoke is largely due to high idle time and because the burn chamber is surrounder by cold water which saps away heat from combustion. There is no emmision regulation on the boilers as there is with wood stoves so the industry has failed to clean up the design.

I would much rather just have a wood stove than a wood furnnace. There are some woodstoves that have very long burn times like the big blaze king models.

 

[coobie]

I helped my neighbor install his outside woodstove/boiler.Very nice unit that heats his water and heats his house.The only complaint he has he spends alot of time cutting wood in the late summer and early fall.He is young 33 years old,me much older than that,HE HE !!Myself I am getting to told to cut wood every weekend,I bought a wood pellet/corn stove about 5 years ago and love it.coobie

 

[MACDABS]

I have a pellet stove in my basement ,and heat 1400 sq ft. My house is a long cedar ranch with a attached heated garage so the heat will not travel to the rest of the house . I was looking at the outdoor boiler style furnace like a Mahoning or Heatmore . I could plumb into my present boiler system , and heat with either furnace . I have plenty of down trees for wood , but I do not want to be slaved to cutting wood to heat my home.

Cost wise $6500.00-$8,000.00 . Heating oil at todays price is golng to cost me $4000.00 a season, so pay back 2-3 years. Not giving my $$$money to big oil priceless.

Macdabs

 

[CamshaftLF]

I looked at the same ones u have i myself am leaning toward a heatmore because i have well water and its on the hard side even tho i have a water softener. The heatmore is 409 stainless the good stainless i don't care for the rear auger for the ashes. I don't plan on cutting a lot of wood, plan on burning coal, but still kicking it around. have a 36x48 pole garage i plan on heating along with the house that's is hot water. and the heatmore works under pressure. most are pressureless. a lot of pros & cons good luck on ur decision

 

[scesnick]

I had one for three years and thankfully found someone to take it off my hands. If you like cutting wood, and I mean REALLY like cutting wood then you would probbly like them. Mine was wood only ( no coal) and I was a total slave to it. The absolute best burn time I got was 10 hours and that is totally packed with wood. I bet I burned 16-18 cords a year...

Now, I now what most are going to say " Your install must have been all wrong" but that isn't the case. Once I sold it I built a garage right where it sat. I used the exact same lines ( never dug them up ) and installed a multifuel wood/coal/ oil boiler inside the garage and I have gotten 24hr burn times... Coal in my area is only $50 a ton and I used 7 ton this past winter
The absolute worst part is standing outside in the freezing wind/cold tending the darn fire every single night before bed !!! ( the wife just loved doing that when i was at work) I installed an AHS boiler and love it. Not to mention it was about $2,000 cheaper than the outdoor wood eater I used to own.....