Outdoor Wood-Burners, any experiences??

JSUnlimited · Sep 25, 2005

The Mrs. and I are very seriously looking into the Central Boiler brand, model #CL4436. We have a two-story 2500 sq ft. home with 2 1/2 baths. We have a gas forced air "high efficiency" Trane furnace and a power vent gas water heater. The home was built 2 1/2 to 3 years ago. Normally we keep the thermostat set on 68, and with all of the hot water used, our average natural gas bill was just around $200-$250. My wife always pays extra, so I can't say exactly month per month what the bills were, although one month there was a check sent for $400.

My plans are to heat the home and supplement the water heater. Eventually I would like to heat the future 24 x 32 garage (not built yet) and maybe plumb in a over-head heater in the attached garage (24 x 24). I have a good supply of wood (my land) ranging from oak to cherry and there is some maple as well. It seems that installation is straight forward and it also seems this system would pay for itself in a couple of years.

Sorry this is lengthy, any feedback is definately welcome!

Egon · Sep 25, 2005

Only comment I can make is to ensure the design is sized and compatible with the present system and try and set up the circulating fluid so you do not have to worry about freezing.

Also take into consideration the time and costs involved in getting the firewood and maintaing a fire. Firewood is not free.

Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

PBinWA · Sep 25, 2005

Our house had one of these and I removed it when we bought the house.

The previous owners had let the water lines freeze and had some minor water damage as a result. They had done a very mickey mouse install and it was easier to just remove the whole thing than try to fix it.

From the looks of the system, it is best that you take a serious look at how this thing is plumbed and be prepared to take the appropriate measures for dealing with frozen and ruptured pipes.

I think you pretty much have to keep them going all winter in order to keep the pipes from freezing.

Just my experience. I'm sure a good installer could address a lot of this with proper insulation and good pipe and materials.

thcri · Sep 25, 2005

Make sure you have a decent dump zone. Wood burners can't shut down fast enough when there is no call for heat. You have to have a place to get rid of the heat. Heat a garage or a basement with the extra heat.

murph

Cliff_Johns · Sep 25, 2005

Seems like to solve the freezing problems you could heat some kind of low viscosity oil and use a heat exchanger to heat water inside the house. Having water lines running outside just seems like a problem waiting to bite you in your very cold behind some biter morning at 4:00 am.

Cliff

tawilson · Sep 25, 2005

I'm having one built for me, and I plan on using glycol to protect the system.

ernemats · Sep 25, 2005

I have had an outside woodburner for about 15 years and I love it. I have had no problems with it. I am considering replacing my Taylor 450 outside wood burner with the Central Boiler 4436 like you are looking at. The reason is that we have a gas well on our property and can get free gas. I would be getting the 4436 with the gas burner add on so I can use the wood and if I feel lazy or go away the gas option would take over. If you plan on heating your garage as well as the house you might need to go to a larger unit than the 4436.

tawilson · Sep 26, 2005

If I had free gas, I wouldn't be messing with wood.

ernemats · Sep 26, 2005

I enjoy cutting firewood and have a lot of it available on my property.

MossRoad · Sep 26, 2005

<font color="blue">Firewood is not free. </font>

There was a similar saying about the Linux operating system...

Linux is free if you don't value your time.

Nothing is free. However, the benefits of the excersize and fresh air when gathering the firewood could make the paybacks significant... I'm looking forward to it if we ever build on our property.