Hot air wood Furnace

[atgreene]

We don't use the term face cord around here, it is illegal as it confuses the issue. A cord is a cord so to speak. 12 cord is a lot for any house, but my parents also use 5-6 in the Queen Atlantic wood stove that heats all their hot water year round, that is a lot of wood. Then of course, add in the sugarhouse that uses 4-8 cord, my house that uses 4-6, my brother that uses 10-12 and my sister that uses 4 or so.

Man, handling wood does get old after a while.

Make sure whatever you do it's efficient.

 

[RayMunising]

12 cord = 36 face cord - that is a lot of wood. More typical usage in cold climates is 12 - 24 face cord depending upon size of house, quality of wood, climate etc.

Ken

No kidding that's a lot of wood! I wouldn't want to cut, stack and load that much wood into a wood burner every year even if you don't have to split it. Of course you can't believe everything you read on the internet but 8 cord was the low end of what I was reading people were burning in the OWB. 12 cord was on the high end. House only. I even asked one of the posters if they were talking face or full cords because that seemed like an awful lot of wood to deal with. I was informed no one EVER talks in terms of face cords and I should wash my mouth out with soap for saying the word "face" in the same sentence as the word "cord".

When I said I burn 3 cord a year I meant 3 full cord ... 3 stacks 4 x 4 x 8.

Your 12 to 24 face cords = 4 - 8 full cords. Not an unreasonable amount though 8 cords a year is more than I'd like to deal with.

Doesn't matter anyhow cause I couldn't put one in if I wanted to. There is now an ordinance against OWB. Though the closest neighbor I'll have is 1/4 mile away if an OWB is so bad to live next to I wouldn't want to install one near me anyway!

 

[SpringHollow]

Around here, wood is sold by the face cord with a face cord being 16" deep.

I tried to get my boiler to smoke really bad so i loaded it with pine and turned the power off to it for 5 hours (no fan - left smoldering). Then i turned the electric back on and this is what i got.

It is an amazingly small amount of smoke for what i did to it but i definitely consider that VERY smokey for my boiler. But I have boilers i see on the way to work that have never burned that clean and their smoke is dark gray to black. If the towns just said that the boiler has to conform to EPA regulations just like indoor wood stoves, then they would be reasonable regulations. In my town, i could not install one now. Normally, no smoke comes out of the boiler when the fan is running, a slight very light gray wisp of steam/smoke when it is not. My neighbors indoor wood stoves smoke more than my boiler.

Just like everything else, there are good ones and bad ones. How you run it makes a difference too but this one is pretty hard to abuse too much. I suppose if i started burning tires in it, etc. there might be some problems. Cardboard causes smoke - i think it burns so easily that not enough oxygen can get it for a complete burn.

Ken

 

[hunterridgefarm]

I have the 1537G from US Stove. I bought it last year but we moved into our new house in mid March so I did not have the time to hook into the duct system. We were able to get everything hooked up the week before Thanksgiving this year and it works great. I have 2, 8" pipe out of the top of the wood furnace tied into my duct system with a damper. I also put a "T" section on the pipe comming out of the top of the furnace incase it gets to hot upstairs I can open the "T" and let most of the heat flow into the basement. We also have the fans in the back of the wood furnace enclosed and duct work ran to one of the returns upstairs. My house is 2000 sq ft upstairs and 2000 sq ft of unfinished basement. I am still learning how to regulate the furnace as to how much wood to put in and where to set the stove damper. But I can easily maintain 73* upstairs. But if I'm not carefull it can get 76-77 degrees upstairs very easily. I end up opening the door to the garage and heating it to cool the house down.

I can put 3 good size logs in around 10:00-10:30pm and have coals the next morning at 5:30 with the temp being 70 degrees in the house. I have not loaded it to the max or any where close, since I don't want the house that hot at night. So far this wood furnace works great. Because of the way it is enclosed it does not put off a lot of heat around it. I can put my hand anywhere on the top and sides and it is warm. The only place on the stove that gets hot is the door and near the flue in the back.

My in-laws have a wood stove, my parents had a fireplace insert, both heated well but was hard to regulate and heat the house evenly. The wood furnace does great. It does not blow with the force of the heat pump but you can feel the flow of air.

I can take some pics and post my set-up if anyone is interested.

David

Heres the pics.

 

[smfcpacfp]

Certainly are a lot of kibbitsers on this forum. Occasionally someone will actually answers the question asked, rather than a question they think they know the answer to.

I have a Woodchuck 4000 forced air wood furnace. I have used it for 20 years, or so. I have a pretty big log house so it is pretty poorly insulated. The furnace works quite well. I have had to replace the forced air blower at least twice and the firebrick a couple of times and the catalyst every few years (at $240 pop). Because of the catalyst it smokes very little, and has very little creosoate build up. I also have a high efficiency propane furnace. In combination they do a good job, but the wood stove just doesn't cut it on its own, when it gets very cold.

 

[RayMunising]

Heres the pics.

Nice setup!

 

[RayMunising]

Certainly are a lot of kibbitsers on this forum.

kibbitz: To give advice when it is not wanted.

But we offer our unwanted advice with the best of intentions.

 

[smfcpacfp]

kibbitz: To give advice when it is not wanted.

But we offer our unwanted advice with the best of intentions.

True, but...

 

[RayMunising]

Certainly are a lot of kibbitsers on this forum. Occasionally someone will actually answers the question asked, rather than a question they think they know the answer to.

I apologize to the original poster in the event I offered advice that was unwanted, attempted to but failed to answer the question asked or answered a question that I only thought I knew the answer to.

 

[Dunham Farm]

My My. The way I look at things is to take in all the info and look at all of it and use what will work for me. Of what I've read here there is a lot. Outside boilers are good where needed, as for the smoke, of what I have seen here in western Maine it's the untrained greenhorns that causes the over smoking in these osb and stoves. Growing up with wood stoves and furnaces there's more to it than just putting a piece of wood in the stove.

Thanks to all here. Remember, all info is good info, it's how you use it.
Thanks Brian