Wood Burning Add On Furnance (Price of Wood)

[Highbeam]

Using a wood furnace as an "add-on" furance to supplement your regular automatic furnace would allow you the flexibility to choose which fuel to use that day. I would agree that it is not wise to heat with a single system that requires daily or more attention.

I like wood heat as a supplement. It is a recreational deal almost. Hard to beat the comfort of that warm wood stove. During the week in the mornings before going to work, let the automatic furnace keep the house warm.

Heating only with wood is a lifestyle. There is always wood to be cut and stacked or loaded into the stove.

 

[Scrounger]

Final decision and update. Coal pellet stove with a power vent is what I'll be working on. Coal bin below a window into the basement and then tying the air ducts into the house system, basement and garage too.

Lots of work this summer. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[daveh1]

Scrounger, get with the Public Works tree deapartment department in your city or township. They will usually gladly let you take trees and limbs they have to remove on right of ways. (Less work for them plus they same money hauling it to landfill.) One caveat though: you have to pick it up in a timely fashion or they will haul it off. You could also check with power company contractors for same. I've done it for quite a few years. Daveh1 <font color="red"> </font> /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Varmintmist]

I heat with a outdoor Central Boiler also. In the three years I have run it it has pretty well paid for the additional cost for the boiler over a regular furnace. It is dual fuel with oil backup. The benefit in that is #2 home heating oil and #2 off road deisel are the same thing so it is tractor fuel. I have burnt a lot more oil in the tractor than in the furnace. Yet the furnace stays on oil backup so that I can leave for a weekend if I want to. As to filling it, twice a day FULL below 10 degrees, twice a day top off below 40, once a day or less at above that. When it is real cold you have to fill it at 9PM and 730AM because it will use everything you put in there. Other than that I hit it before I go to work and when I put the dog to bed, we have to go out to pee anyway. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

One of the things I dont like about it is if the power goes out then I cant transfer heat into the house unless I run the generator. That is one of the benifits of a indoor woodburner. The lack of dirt, bugs and dust is a wonderful thing.

That said, I have my own wood and am still burning tops from logging and stuff I cut to clear for the house and will be for a while. Running it like a woodlot the wood has to be moved and cut anyway so I might as well burn it for heat.

I would NOT reccomend someone who had to haul wood going full wood heat and unless you are set so you can get a tractor trailer load once a year, not a outdoor boiler. If you are going to put in a couple cord for backup or to warm your tootsies, then haul away IMHO.

The only thing about pea coal/ corn/ wood pellet stoves (again IMHO) is that you are still dependant on delivery and the price will vary as demand goes up. Lastt year wood pellets were about 90 bucks, this year they are twice that or more a ton. The local hardware store sold pellets all fall. They cant get them now, they have just enough to run their pellet burner in the store. Corn needs to be clean before you run it in a corn burner. That means that you need to either buy clean bagged corn or buy a cleaner and shell corn from a feed store. Coal is fine, as long as you can get pea coal, and are in a area that delivery is not going to kill you.

Sure there is work involved but I got my place so I could be outside. If I wanted to live in a yard I would live in town and I hate TV and if the Steelers win or lose, I still have to go to work. I cut all year round, not heavily, Maybe skid a few in on a Sat morning for a couple weeks, then cut them up and dump them in a pile.

Bottom line there is no such thing as free heat, it all costs one way or the other. Even if you own your own gas well, you pay to have it serviced every year and bailed every 5.

In my case, wood makes sense.