ChoppyChoppy
Tree Freak
Mu brother heats his place with coal using a Hot Blast. Seems to work fine.
He used wood for several years, firebox was too small to hold a fire very long.
Looking for a Wood furnace...Again
- Thread starter grapepbj
- Start date
Help Support Arborist Forum:
Mu brother heats his place with coal using a Hot Blast. Seems to work fine.
He used wood for several years, firebox was too small to hold a fire very long.
windthrown
361 Junkie
OWBs open a whole can of EPA worms. As do 'wood furnaces'. The EPA has the latest database here for approved wood stoves, boilers and furnaces.
https://www.epa.gov/compliance/epa-certified-wood-heater-database
The Englander 30 NC has been replaced by the 32nc. This is why I wonder if the furnace version 28-4000 is available?
So far I don't see many choices for furnaces. And I wonder what the new regulations do for burn time. Seems to me that the englander 23-3500 had way better burn times than the 28-4000 does since you can fully control the air inlet. The more air you force through the fire box the cleaner the burn and the faster the burn.
Out of curiosity what do you average for burn time on a stuffed box? Ive always liked the simplicity of that model.
Whats burn time considered? It depends on the wood. I burn mostly ash and that likes to turn to coals. Maybe a couple hours of solid heat mostly choked off and then a few hours of coals that you can reload on but that makes more coals. Throw a big log on the coals and that seems to make the best of the situation. You can reload it easily in the morning. Seems like the stove is the stove but the way the air is delivered to the house makes a bigger difference than the burn time and needs to be modified for each application. Once you figure out the best way to deliver the heat to the house then you can heat off minimal wood and coals for hours.
That being said my old non epa daka furnace would eat a fire box in less than a hour and leave almost no coals even with the air almost closed off.
Mine has been, er modified to increase the fire box size, and did away with the shaker grates. It get much better burn time now... for some reason it never heated well coal, and wood is plentiful atm.
ChoppyChoppy
Tree Freak
My brother lives on a bit over 100 acres, much of it wooded.
The house is a 2 story farmhouse, around 80-90hrs old.
Burning wood was a struggle to keep the house at 65-70*. The stove needed to be reloaded every 4-5hrs and on the real cold days, the oil boiler was running too.
With coal, it holds hotter fire much longer.
He was burning a mix of wood and coal, not sure if he still is.
For him coal is much less time and work and is worth the cost.
windthrown
361 Junkie
The NC-32 looks the same as the 30-NC stoves. I bought a 30-NC years ago. Works great. Still EPA III and Washington state certified.
Chippy Chopper
ArboristSite Member
Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but I've been impressed by my Crown Royal.
No affiliation, just a happy customer.
No affiliation, just a happy customer.
I was at tractor supply today and noticed they didn't have any wood stoves or furnaces out on display...hmm
The Drolet Heat Commander is now available and officially EPA certified to the latest requirement. Here is a posting direct from a SBI/Drolet rep from another forum:
Just to end the speculation from all of you nice folks... The Heat Commander is EPA-certified. EPA indeed did not want us to advertize the product until the official paperwork had been sent to us, even though the certification report had been completed and filed. We were okay with that and took the furnace off our web site right away when asked to. Anyway, we did receive official certification, so the unit is back online. It should appear on the EPA directory in a matter of days now. Hope that answers your questions! We are very pleased with this unit. The build quality is as good as it gets. It is more sophisticated than our previous models though, in that the unit is more "intelligent" (if I may say). It will self-adjust to correct operator errors and prevent the unit from smoking (for instance, if loading door is closed too quickly). It is impressive how clean it burns. Aside from that, it is a true central heater that will increase combustion and plenum temperature (and hence kick blower on) based on thermostatic demand. This was not easy to achieve because smoke mainly occurs during these "transitions" between high and low burn. But we got there. It took us more time than we would have liked but there was no point in botching the job. The good side of this is that the unit has been burning in our lab for a very long time. It is rugged. Beautiful fire through the glass door. Long burn times and good effficiency on all burn rates. Extremely good value for something with that level of technology, especially for less than $3,000. Have a great fall everyone.
The price doesn't sound aweful but IMO if I'm cutting the fuel with a chainsaw and splitting with a splitter I'd like to keep the heating equipment simple too.
I agree but with a few simple mods to my Tundra I was able to "load and go" - really nice at 5am when I need to get to work and don't have time to get a manual control stove up to temperature and settled on a fresh load.
To each their own. I bought the cheap furnace with a glass door because I love the supplemental heat. If I were to heat full time with wood that would be different. Im a nights and weekend guy. I do think its unfortunate that the cheaper wood burning furnaces have been removed by the epa. After all I burn wood to save money not the environment. I could easily burn clean propane and spend 3 times the price to heat my house. Im doing my part with a 2016 epa certified furnace that emits 0 smoke after a reload/start up.
JCREAD
ArboristSite Lurker
Hi Tim. I talked with the sales rep at Newhorizoncorp in W. Virginia yesterday and he told me you bought another Attack boiler. I am looking at the next size down from what you have and hope to be ordering it along with the 490 gallon storage tank they sell the first week of May. I have been studying all of your videos and I think along with a little help from my boilerman I am ready to take the plunge. Now that you have had the Attack for a couple of years now, are you still satisfied with the results you get?
Yes no complaints on my end. Both boiler set ups working very consistently and other than a couple intermittently leaky PexAlPex compression fittings on my first setup the system(s) have been great. Cleaning the Attack became quick and easy once I removed the mechanism that moves the turbulators up and down, a modification that I've seen done on EKO and some other euro design boilers. Moving the turbulators up and down only cleans off gross build up and leaves the fine ash that inhibits heat transfer. I've been cleaning once a week and could probably stretch that a bit, the whole process takes about 10 minutes and that includes brushing the exhanger tubes, vacuuming out the lower chambers front and rear, and removing excess ash from the main firebox. I do remove the inducer fan once a season and blow off the fly ash. No regrets on my Attack boiler purchase.
I installed a SF1000E 3 months ago and I'm very happy so far. I'm burning half the wood or less and keeping the house warmer. It doesn't have the automatic start features that the ones that cost twice as much or the one that cost four times as much. It replaced the homemade wood furnace set-up that I used for about 25 years. Anyting new would have been a big improvement I'm sure. I read bad reviews also, in my experience you can have the best product in the world and one or two out of 10 won't be happy. With my old set up on a windy day if the fire got low or smoldering it would fill the house full of smoke. The draft inducer solved that problem, but I may install an ad - 1 draft inducer on my flu next year. Again I'm quite happy with mine, didn't care what half a dozen people out of the whole country had to say about it.
PS I have a story and a half with a full basement that's uninsulated, maybe half in the ground, 2800sf + and I can heat it all. as with any of these new stoves or any stove for that matter dry wood is a must. Right now I'm using one output duct to heat the house the other is going into the basement and I don't have the cold air return hooked up yet. If I don't care to keep the basement as warm as the rest of the house and I hook up the cold air return upstairs I would think I can probably get by with maybe a quarter of the wood I was burning. I know the other brands are more efficient, it was what I could afford and I won't outlive a 30-year warranty. Satisfied in the foothills of North Carolina.
Similar threads
