outside wood furnaces

[dixie_belle]

We are looking into getting an outside wood burning furnace to provide heat during the winter. There are so many different manufacturers and models. Does anyone have one and would be willing to share your impressions? They are quite costly and we think it will take 7 years for it to pay for itself thru lowering our utility bills. But if we were to have more severe winters, it would pay for itself sooner. I'm just curious to see if anyone has used one and if you thought it was a good thing or a waste of our money.

 

[dgrminis]

I don't have one so don't have any advice but I will be watching for updates as my husband is wanting to get one when we build a new house. Our current house has a wood burning stove inside and because our home is small we are able to heat the whole house with it... But It gets MUCH hotter in the living room where it is than the rest of the house which we do not like... We always leave our furnace to kick on at like 50 (might be 40 - cant remember now) that way the house is always above freezine in case we are gone and it gets cool but it saved us over 800 last year as we used to heat soley with the propane furnance....

Another option we have been told about - but that we haven't looked into yet is a steam heater -- I appologize if I don't explain it right but I guess they are a big outside unit like the outside wood heaters but you put the wood in them to heat the house and there is a water tank on it as well so it actually heats your house by steam so that the heat is a moist heat in the air instead... Not really sure about them other than some people we know bought a house with one and they love it...

 

[Marty]

The outside wood burning stoves would certainly lower your utility bills especially if you didn't have to pay for the wood. If you have access to a large amount of wood on your own land or know where you could get a good supply for free or cheap every winter, that might be the way to go. It hooks up into your regular duct work and distributes the heat evenly thoughout your home just like regular central heat would. You may not like the maintenence though as you do need to keep it tended to during the months in use. I'd get one in a heartbeat to keep monthly costs down if I had that kind of wood available on my land, but I don't want to have to keep running out looking for wood to buy.

Its common here and there for people to have the old type inside wood buring stoves sitting in the middle of their living room. I don't have one because they are the number 1 cause of fire around here if not maintained right and I don't have a large enough place to put one or access to a lot of wood. DGR is so correct about them saving $ and also how they seem to make the room really hot where you have it set up, but they work.

The way we heat now is propane. We purchased (or you can rent one) a large ugly gas tank to sit in our yard and fill it up once a year for about $700 and save about $300 a year on the electric bill. We converted our stove over to gas also.

 

[TheCaseFamily00]

My sister has one and really likes it. My parents are going to get one before winter.I would say as long as your willing to do the work it would definately be worth it

.

 

[LAminiatures]

I have one and love it. Yes they are a bit of work but great exercise. They will take a pretty log log as well. We still cut our wood in more manageable lengths. It needs to be fed twice per day and being a former woodstove owner it's great that the mess and spiders/ants that are sometimes in the wood stay outside.

Make sure you check with the town you live in as the town I live in past a law that the stove had to have a catalytic converter on it or we could not have the stove. The stoves are made with and without them.

One more final thing you will not miss the bill the oil man leaves in your door.

Good Luck!

 

[Bess Kelly]

Used an indoor wood stove for several years and had great success. Main issue is that you MUST keep your flue clean. A pot of water on top keeps humidity levels up and if you have a central system, just turn the air circulator on occassionally to distribute the heat more evenly.

My friend has an outside one she offered me but, I don't have the wood source available and have sold my wood splitter since I removed the indoor model for a propane type. With only myself to handle all of it, well that wood cutting chore is a real task!!

 

[anoki]

We have an outdoor furnace....had it installed about 5 years ago or so now I think. I can't remember the company that we bought, but it was a Canadian made one....and we got a bigger one than we needed, just in case Dad decided to heat his shed with it....

It's alright....we used to heat the house with 2 'indoor' wood stoves. I miss the 'hot spots' that we had with the wood stoves....so on a reaaallllyyyy cold night (or just too long outside in the snow) you could curl up near the stove and warm up! Plus the chimney went through the corner of my bedroom, so it was always TOASTY (now I sleep in fleece pjs, flannel sheets, about 5 heavy blankets and a duvet on top of it all in the winter).

The outdoor furnace does heat more evenly....and it even kept the basement warm enough on most days (unless it got to -15 C for a couple days in a row), that I could comfortably do my work there.

We do have access to more wood than we can use, having 3 woodlots on our farms. And Dad cuts our wood to 4 foot lengths as much as possible (depending on the diameter of the wood of course). Ours usually only needs to be tended to once a day, though now that we have the new shop with infloor heat being fed from the outdoor furnace, we might find a bit of a difference to that this winter. My Dad tells anyone interested in getting one, that unless you have access to your own firewood, it is not worth getting an outdoor furnace....at least not in this area....

~kathryn