Need some home heating feedback: Wood boiler or fireplace insert?

[ponytug]

1 cord of firewood BTUs = 215 gallons LP BTUs. I'm probably using about 600 gallons of LP to heat my house. $3 per gallon, roughly.

I'm already burning a bunch of the wood in a very inefficient fireplace that, while great for ambiance, sucks at actually heating the house. The same firewood, plus some unknown additional quantity (guessing a cord or two), in an efficient heating appliance, would dramatically cut the need for propane.

Even if it ends up being 3 or 4 cords, that's fine. My math has a lot of rounding errors. For the sake of discussion, roll with it?

Not trying to make it complicated, but recent propane furnaces are 90-98% efficient, and wood stoves are considerably less efficient, typically 50%, though the very best can get to 80% efficient. Not many folks go for the very most efficient though as there are often design compromises around the size of log that can be burned and the duration of the burn.

Good luck,

Peter

 

[rbstern]

Not trying to make it complicated, but recent propane furnaces are 90-98% efficient, and wood stoves are considerably less efficient, typically 50%, though the very best can get to 80% efficient. Not many folks go for the very most efficient though as there are often design compromises around the size of log that can be burned and the duration of the burn.

Good luck,

Peter

The inserts I'm looking at claim 75% efficiency. IIRC, my propane furnaces are in the 80 to 85% range.

 

[Oaktree]

You'll also most likely have to run it by your insurance company, too.

I kind of went with a "don't ask, don't tell" philosophy on that. Last year the insurance company DID ask, and with my affirmative answer I think my rate went up $25/yr. What was odd was that they're OK with a woodstove in the house, but not so much with the one in my workshop. Not sure why...dunno if workshop stoves typically aren't installed to the standards of one in a residence, or if it's the likely presence of flammable liquids nearby. Either way I don't use it more than a half dozen times a year...it's not very efficient and takes several hours to get the shop to a comfortable temperature if it's below 20 or so outside.

Agree with the comments that if you take your time into account, you're not really saving with any "alternate" heat source. To me heating with wood is very much worth it...I enjoy the cutting & splitting, and it's a much more pleasant heat than what the FHA furnace gives. I plan to heat this way as long as I'm physically able to.

 

[Dftodd]

We had a fireplace insert in our last home and loved it. Neighbor was getting rid of theirs and offered it to me.

They had used it twice.

Install wasn't bad. I contracted with a local fab shop. Took them a cardboard templet and had them fab me up a trim piece to go around it. Sealed the trim peace using fireplace door gasket.

This way I could pull it out when I cleaned the chimney.

The one we had only stick out of the fireplace about 1ft and had a built in blower to put out the heat.

I ran an extension cord to it during a couple power outages we had in the winter to power the blower. Kept us nice and toasty.

 

[etpm]

We had our house built 17 years ago. We live close to Seattle and close to the water, less than 1/2 mile line of sight, though there is a big hill between us and the water. Nevertheless the close proximity to the water helps to moderate the weather temps.
Right now we pay about $3.80 per gallon of propane. Last year the price was about the same. Our house is about 2100 square feet. We like the house cool so we keep the temp at about 64 degrees. We spend about $1300.00 per year for propane. That propane heats our water and house and we have a gas cooktop.
We had a wood burning insert installed when we built the house. It was supposed to be able to heat 2200 square feet, and it does. In fact, it gets the house quite hot if we let it, over 75 degrees.
We usually only burn wood when it is really cold outside, when the temps drop below 30 degrees. Or when the power is out. Or when the furnace stops working, like it did last week when it was quite cold here. And when we just want the ambience of the fire. The insert has a window so we can see the fire. The cats love the heat too.
This year, at the coldest part of the year, we kept the house at 68 or above just burning wood. For 9 days we heated the house with wood and burned about 1/3 of a cord of alder.
Our house is pretty well insulated, the outside walls are built with 2x6 studs, the attic has about 2 feet of blown in insulation, and all the interior walls are insulated. This interior insulation allows us to close off rooms but we haven't done so this year except for the two bathrooms.
The upshot is that it is pretty easy to use an insert to heat 2100 square feet of well insulated living space. The insert has a fan that comes on when it reaches a certain temperature. I could have plumbed the insert into the forced air furnace ducting and then used the furnace fan to circulate the warm air. I should have done so, the heating guy should have told me to do so. At the time I was at the tail end of a several years of serious orthopedic surgeries and wasn't making the best decisions. So it didn't get done. I can still do it and I probably will.
Eric

 

[Skeletor]

I have an insert and a free standing stove. I heat 100% with wood and have for almost 20 years. My advise would be to buy the absolute biggest firebox you possibly can. I have a small foreplace
And it doesn’t take too long till it needs to be reloaded. It was my only source of heat for many years. I would have to get up around 2 am to feed it before I got up for work at 5 so I could keep the temp up.
now I only use the insert at the beginning and end of the heating season. I use the big blaze king in the cellar and feed it when I wake up and when I go to bed. My house is always 72 degrees. Only thing I do is take the cellar door off during the winter. I don’t have any vents or use any fans.

 

[MossRoad]

I kind of went with a "don't ask, don't tell" philosophy on that. Last year the insurance company DID ask, and with my affirmative answer I think my rate went up $25/yr. What was odd was that they're OK with a woodstove in the house, but not so much with the one in my workshop. Not sure why...dunno if workshop stoves typically aren't installed to the standards of one in a residence, or if it's the likely presence of flammable liquids nearby. Either way I don't use it more than a half dozen times a year...it's not very efficient and takes several hours to get the shop to a comfortable temperature if it's below 20 or so outside.

Agree with the comments that if you take your time into account, you're not really saving with any "alternate" heat source. To me heating with wood is very much worth it...I enjoy the cutting & splitting, and it's a much more pleasant heat than what the FHA furnace gives. I plan to heat this way as long as I'm physically able to.

All our insurance company required was a receipt from a certified installer for our wood stove..... and a bit more on the premium.

Also, don't forget that you'll have to either clean your chimney at least annually (more maybe) and you can either do that yourself (more $ for broom and pole kit) or pay someone to do it. So if your roof is steep or high or you're uncomfortable or incapable of safely doing that, it's one more thing to think about.

I'm fortunate in that we're in a single story house and the roof is not too steep. I think my pole sections and brush were well under $100. If worse comes to worse, I can pull the pipe between the stove and the chimney and clean the whole thing from the basement up. But that would be some dust in the face for sure!

 

[MossRoad]

Many years ago my in-laws had free access to hard maple blanks because my mother in-law worked for South Bend Toy Co. making croquet sets. They had a fireplace and burned them all winter long. Problems with fireplace is inefficient. So they bought a nice looking wood burning stove, had a sufficient pipe run up the chimney, had a steel plate made to cover the fireplace (it was and arched fireplace) and set the wood burning stove in front of the fireplace. It actually looked very nice and was very efficient. They heated their house with firewood that they'd scavenge from housing developments, farmers they knew, etc. Did that for close to 20 years.

They built a new house and had a corner of their living room set with a stone hearth and walls and moved the wood burner to the new house where it still is in use today.

They were able to remove the steel plate from the arched fireplace and all that was noticeable was the 4 anchor bolt holes. The caulking/sealant was removed, the holes filled and dyed to match and you'd never know it was there when they sold the house.

So all kinds of possibilities exist.

 

[LouNY]

I'm not a big fan of outside boilers but if I was building new or installing a new heating system I would go with an outside boiler. I would install it into a shed were I would be comfortable tending it with easy and closed in access to the wood shed so as to have no snow or rain on me while tending the fire.
One of my brothers installed his wood boiler in a shed along side his backup oil boiler it was a workable setup.
I'm not a fan of burning wood inside the house so much dirt and debri as well as insects are introduced into the house.
I wish I had installed a coal boiler along side a wood boiler years ago when I did my heating system.

 

[ericm979]

If you think a cord or two of firewood will save you a couple thousand bucks a year on propane, I have to ask how much are you paying for propane? Seems very, very high.

At my propane price ($2.75/gallon), 1 cord of Madrone hardwood is worth about $900 in propane, taking the efficiencies of my stove and furnace into account.

Of course there are multiple costs involved with processing firewood while the propane just shows up on a truck. If you account for all of them, and your time, then firewood's not such a good deal.