new heat source advice

[beenthere]

samtmc
How much wood do you have in the que now? Two to three years supply?

Might have an effect on your decision to continue burning, or not.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Just to send the discussion off in a completely different direction, I was told that these are popular in Alaska, sell for about $1000, run on kerosene/diesel/heating oil and are very economical.

Toyotomi U.S.A. - Laser Vented Heaters

 

[schmism]

propane furnace with a wood burning stove (a good one like a vermont casting) to supplement heat during the coldest spells.

you didnt say were you were but for a less than harsh climate you can go air to air heat pump.

 

[samtmc]

I live in MN, and yes we are looking into a air source heat pump for the milder weather it makes sense for the cost, except for coldest of weather they are supposed to be pretty efficiant.I did end up ordering the "Fire chief" and it was shipped to me in one day. It appears to be very well built and weighs a ton (about 600lbs). I am hoping to install it in the garage (I have a split level home) and plum in the duct work to the furnace room and into the plentum of my oil burner ( I was told by the dealer that the "radient" heat off of the chief plentume should heat my garage. by doing this it will eliminate loading all of the wood into a basement window,it will remove two 90 deg elbows in my Flue (this was a cause of many of my problems) and keep the mess outside and last but not least keep any smoke from reloading outside and not in my home.I am hopefull that the "chief" is alot more effieciant than my old "monarch" from every review/rating/people I talked to it should cut my wood consumption by close to half.(I am keeping my fingers crossed)
I have about 18 cord cut so far (about 11 of it is fully dried) I hope to get a couple more cut this weekend for next winter.
Thanks all

 

[dooleysm]

I hope it works out well for you, it sounds like you've made a nice upgrade.

When I'm outside cutting wood on a nice fall day (I have a woodburner in my barn that I use occassionally on weekends) I kick myself for not installing a woodstove when we built our house 5 years ago. When it's 25 degrees and spitting ice and snow I pat myself on the back for installing our geothermal system.

 

[tommu56]

I drive by 3 out door wood boilers on the way to work and if i was their neighbors i'd be up in arms with the smoke from the 2 the 3rd dosen't smoke at all maybe its not even lit.

I have asthma and I start coughing and gauging and get tight when I drive past the smokey ones. It sets me off bad so consider the health effects on what you buy.


tom

 

[bjr]

The cost driven thing (Absolutely No Money) was what I dealt with when I put heat in my basement. I finally found a old Whitfield pellet stove for a couple hundred dollars and thought, "Okay". Well to shorten the story, 'bout $400 more, later I got the flue piping and a few sacks of pellets. I found out watch out for whatever kind of flue piping you may need as that'll bit you big time. Just my experience with to try to stay warm it the great PNW. bjr

 

[dmccarty]

I am with ya Tom.

There is a group of out door burners on my drive to work. When those things are fired up in the morning it is like driving in fog. Very nasty. I do not know how they live with it.

Then there is the latest out door burner that was put in last year. The guy built a single car sized barn for the stove. I think he has doors at each end so he can easily move wood into the barn. It is a very nice setup.

I have never seen his stove smoke very much. I can see just a bare amount of smoke not much more than we get from our inside wood stove. If you did not look for the smoke you would not see it at all.

This guy is doing something right with his stove and/or the stove is really good at not smoking.

Later,
Dan

 

[beenthere]

When the outdoor wood burners were hitting the market, many salesmen touted them as being able to burn large pieces of green wood. So many people right now are, and have been, throwing wet wood in them, and they smoke a lot. Sure, the green wood will burn. But the heat from burning is used up to convert the moisture to steam.
The other problem with the large outdoor burners, is they are filled once or twice a day with a full charge of wood. That is another source of smoke from a smouldering fire.
Not long, and they will find themselves banned from use. Which is unfortunate, but likely to happen.
There are expensive outdoor wood burners that have elaborate internal combustion design, that cut down on smoke. However, they are needing cleaning about once a week to maintain their efficiency. These are the only type that apparently can be installed in the Northeast states.
Now, the sales people are saying to only burn dry, well-seasoned wood. Might be a bit late for that advice.
Burning wood that has been split for less than a year and air drying is likely not dry, well-seasoned wood. There lies many problems that will belie the wood burning game.

My opinion, anyway.

 

[SpringHollow]

The brand/design (and operator as mentioned earlier) of a wood boiler makes a huge difference. My Wood Doctor smokes less than my neighbors' wood burning stoves/fireplaces and i do not have the new fancy model. Then there are the bad boilers i see every day on my way to work that are belching out dark gray or black smoke.

I do get a little more smoke on days like today when i was home burning evergreen branches that had been trimmed off the tree about two months ago. But those would have been burned outside anyways with more smoke and this way i get heat from them. And a little more smoke was still less than most of the wood stoves around me.

As far as what can be installed, banning depends upon the town. Many towns do it because they have heard other towns did it. I was talking to one town board member and he said if this other town did it, there must be a good reason. And some towns have complaints from neighbors of the bad boilers which i can definitely understand. The town next to us did it smarter - if within a certain distance of a neighbor's house, your stack has to be higher than their house by 3'. Their code enforcement person said the same thing i said above - it is only the bad boilers or operators that are a problem. It is probably too difficult/variable to use emissions data.

Ken