What and how do you heat your home and possibly shop during the cold winter months??

[jyoutz]

They seem to have a tendency to plug up as well or at least the guys on Firewood Hoarders Forum say they do. I don't know, neither of my biomass units require one.

That can happen when you burn really pitchy or green wood with it dampered down. Many newer stoves and furnaces now use an upper combustion chamber to do the same thing as catalytic devices, and these don’t plug up. Kind of an improved next generation design.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

I'm all electric heat here, both the house and the attached insulated garage. The "shop" building isn't heated, or insulated, or have a proper concrete floor. So I don't really call it a shop. More like a big storage building.

 

[deserteagle71]

They seem to have a tendency to plug up as well or at least the guys on Firewood Hoarders Forum say they do. I don't know, neither of my biomass units require one.

As others have stated, plugging up the catalytic converter is caused by not following the owner's manual instructions. DON'T use the stove as a burn barrel for your garbage, and get the stove hot before you flip the flow through the catalyst.

I used my Blaze King with catalytic converter for 24 years before firewood became impossible to find around here at a decent price with no problems with the catalyst. It is still sitting out in the barn and if the mindset of the bureaucrats ever changes and we are allowed to harvest those trees burned in forest fires, I'll reinstall the Blaze King and go back to firewood. Much prefer burning firewood to pellet stoves with their noisy fans.

 

[arto98607]

Large woodstove in the shop, geothermal system in the house with fireplace insert as a backup during rare electrical outage.

 

[5030]

As others have stated, plugging up the catalytic converter is caused by not following the owner's manual instructions. DON'T use the stove as a burn barrel for your garbage, and get the stove hot before you flip the flow through the catalyst.

I used my Blaze King with catalytic converter for 24 years before firewood became impossible to find around here at a decent price with no problems with the catalyst. It is still sitting out in the barn and if the mindset of the bureaucrats ever changes and we are allowed to harvest those trees burned in forest fires, I'll reinstall the Blaze King and go back to firewood. Much prefer burning firewood to pellet stoves with their noisy fans.

Interesting comment in as much as the room air distribution blower on either of my stoves makes very little 'noise' other than you can hear the air movement, but then I keep all the mechanical components serviced properly and lubricated plus my fans are insulated with silicone gaskets which isolate them and dampens any vibration. Certainly aren't any more 'noisy' that the central furnace blower.

My issue with a biomass stove is the room air they heat cannot be filtered prior to heating, unlike a central furnace with it's pre filter so the room are fans pull in airborne dust and require cleaning regularly.

 

[ericm979]

Even for the non catalytic EPA stoves you need to RTFM and operate it accordingly. It took me a while to get used to mine. But when you run it right and feed it dry wood it burns really clean. It smokes for a few minutes on startup or reload but after that there's no visible smoke coming out of the chimney. I like that I'm not polluting the neighborhood, even if my neighbors are a ways away and might not even care. I care.

If I were to do it again I'd consider a catalyst stove or one of the new hybrid types that combine a catalyst and reburn technology. The plain reburn types like mine can't be turned down as low, so a load of wood does not last as long. The catalysts aren't that difficult or expensive to replace.

We burn 2-2.5 cord of wood each winter. We leave the thermostat for the propane furnace on but if we keep the stove fed, the furnace does not run much. All the wood is from my land, from trees that fell, died and needed to be taken down, needed removal for fire safety, or were taken down by PG&E. I've yet to fell a tree specifically for firewood. Turning the wood into firewood for myself is a lot more satisfying than what I used to do which was cutting it up and giving it away.

 

[Cycledude]

I use homemade solar heat and Lpgas to heat 30x36 heated section of my work shop and my separate small house works excellent . Didn’t refill LP tank last year so this summer when they filled at the new much higher price I paid $185.00 , the house has a wood furnace in the basement which has been my primary heat for many years, wood heat is nice but there’s nothing cheap about it, I’m getting older and planning to cut back a little on the wood heat and burn a little more LP.

 

[kf4uda]

We just built a new house and will be heating it with LPG. We have a gas furnace as well as a non-vented gas fireplace. We invested heavily in insulation with 2x6 spray foam exterior walls and also encapsulated the attic. Hopefully that investment will pay off. I believe it has so far running the AC.

 

[deserteagle71]

Interesting comment in as much as the room air distribution blower on either of my stoves makes very little 'noise' other than you can hear the air movement, but then I keep all the mechanical components serviced properly and lubricated plus my fans are insulated with silicone gaskets which isolate them and dampens any vibration. Certainly aren't any more 'noisy' that the central furnace blower.

Didn't mean to imply that the fans on my pellet stove are excessively noisy. Its just me - older I get the more sensitive I am to any noise. When I am kicked back in my easy chair in the evening, reading, I can clearly hear the battery-operated clock ticking away on the wall 20 feet away. Most folks can't even hear it. But then I don't have the TV on, or any other noise. It is QUIET. So yes, if the pellet stove fan comes on I hear it loud and clear. If my central furnace comes on (I run it only to test it, propane is ~ $4 a gallon around here) it sounds like a jet plane taking off to me.

That's why I prefer the silence of a wood-burning stove. Silence.

 

[ovrszd]

We just built a new house and will be heating it with LPG. We have a gas furnace as well as a non-vented gas fireplace. We invested heavily in insulation with 2x6 spray foam exterior walls and also encapsulated the attic. Hopefully that investment will pay off. I believe it has so far running the AC.

Cheapest part of new building construction is insulation.