Question for you woodburners.

[Dapper Dan]

This might be long winded.

First off my current setup.
I live in an old 100 year old brick schoolhouse, converted.
Also have an addition that is up in the air above a fairly large 2 stall garage. Cathedral ceiling, large living room, fair sized bedroom and closet, upstairs.
Downstairs (seven steps) in the old school house part are a bathroom, kitchen, dining room and two bedrooms, all small.

When we moved there, many years ago, the house had a oil burner in the basement and very poor ducting to the upstairs. I had to add a Arrow airtight wood stove to the upstairs to keep from freezing up there in the winter.

Few years back I had a high efficiency propane furnace put in and all new duct-work. Problem solved......sorta.

We still try to run the upstairs wood stove, to save on LP, when it gets real cold here but, you have to shut off the two furnace registers upstairs or it will run you out with both the furnace and woodstove going. Doing this, of course, shuts off circulation and we get no heat downstairs. (Cold air return is downstairs) Turning the LP furnace way down and turning the fan on continous, when running the upstairs wood stove, helps a little but still too cold downstairs.

I looked at a outside wood burner last weekend. Looks like near $6000 installed. As bad as the price scares me, the thought of cutting enough wood to keep that monster fed bothers me worse. (I'll be 61 soon)

Did I read here that some are running a pickup load a week in these furnaces? (Or did I dream that?)

I'm thinking the best solution may be to add another small airtight downstairs in the dining room and run the furnace fan continous (when cold)

What do you all think?

 

[mga]

basic: heat always rises, cold always falls.

i think putting a wood stove on the first floor would be more beneficial for you.

i may not have a clear vision of your house layout, but ceiling fans upstairs will help push the warm air back down and keep the rooms reasonably comfortable and not too hot. i run mine 24/7 on low speed reverse.

an installed furnace always has cold air returns to recirculate the air and to remove the cold air from the rooms. this is why they are always on or near the floor.

using a wood burning stove is different because there are no returns. it just draws the air near it. but, the difference is supposed to be it produces more heat and, in theory, should warm the air faster than it can cool. factors such as insulation, window or door leakage, etc etc play an adverse roll and should be corrected.

what i'm saying is i feel the wood burner on your main floor is your best bet.

 

[Dapper Dan]

"what i'm saying is i feel the wood burner on your main floor is your best bet."

Kinda confirms my thinking.

Have not done any research on what type of stove to add to the dining room but it will have to be small due to space limitations.
I have read that the airtights are cresoate producers due to slow burns but have never had any problems with the one upstairs. I usually only burn down, dry wood in it though. Heven't had to cut a live tree in years. Plenty of deadfall, blow downs around here.

What is a good brand-type to look at?

 

[mga]

i use a converted fireplace to heat my home.

true, air tights do produce more chimney problems. my fires burn hot, so i really just have to sweep ash out of mine.

as for cutting wood, lol...i know what you mean. i'm 56 and i can't climb them trees like i used to. i cut the simple ones now that i can just drop or cut the ones that are down already.

 

[czeigler]

Both of my cousins each just installed an OWB.

They are both Central Boilers, 1 of them was installed to hot water baseboard which cost a tad over $8000 and the other one installed to Duct work, that was a little over $9000.

They went with the Central Boilers because it was the only one around here...(Central PA)... that came with a 25 year warranty.

Not sure how much wood they are using yet as they just got them hooked up 1 and 6 months ago respectively. They only have them heating their houses at this time and they both seem to like it.

My cousin that bought his for the hot water baseboard was going through 240 Gallons of fuel oil a month. At $3 / gallon it added up really quick. He bought his OWB, front load washer and dryer and a dishwasher (all on one loan) and his payment is still lower than he was paying for his fuel oil!

Now granted he is 22 years young and all our wood is free. So he should be able to make up his savings pretty quick!

 

[wdchuck]

You could run a woodburning furnace in parallel or series with your current LP furnace, there by utilizing the ductwork, and the larger fan for distribution.

There are a few threads on it here, and some nice pics of the setups.

 

[beerman6]

Did I read here that some are running a pickup load a week in these furnaces? (Or did I dream that?)

You werent dreaming

 

[wdchuck]

Yep, there's guys putting in about a face cord per fill up, but that's really packing it, kind of scary though, that you can actually fit that much wood in at one time.

 

[djohn]

Dan, my wife and I would like to build a new house in the near future. We live where my parents and I moved when I started highschool and we have been burning wood there ever since. When we build we would really like to not have the wood mess in the house mostly for ash and potential downdraft reasons as well as the more even heat we would get with a better distributed system.

Right now we use a Rohn air tight wood/coal stove and mostly burn hedge. The stove is as I said, 25+ years old. When we build I had been strongly considering a Central Boiler OWB but wood usage is a concern of mine. We don't have an unlimited supply...well we could clean out all the trees on the property and probably have many years of wood but then we would have no more large trees. Anyhow, the gasification unit would be the only one I think I would consider. Right now I am going back to the plan of having a stove inside and possibly just trying to have a good tight room for a wood storage/stove room and a good filtration system hooking it up to the ductwork.

 

[JBinKC]

Personally, I would scrap the OWB idea especially when it is known they are being targeted by many local and state governments for poor emissions and would rather opt for a solution that meets current EPA standards.

A large enough stove on the first floor, gasification boiler or a masonry heater would likely be my first choices to look into.

 

[HUSKYMAN]

I am not convinced a small OWB would be any more work than two stoves in the house. With an OWb all the wood is always near the boiler, no hauling it upstairs and downstairs every day.

Also with a smaller boiler only heating the house the wood consumption wont be as bad as those of us heating barns also.

I use about a face cord a week right nowbut heating a house only you should be able to get by using about five cords a winter. Whats two wood stoves going to use, three or four?

 

[aandabooks]

Guy at work put in an OWB and he's running through a pick-up load every 5-7 days. 6' Ranger 4x4 moderately loaded above the bedrails. Keeps the uninsulated house at 72 F.

Matt

 

[Dok]

Put a new wood stove on the first floor and I bet you will rarely have to light the upstairs stove and you will forget how to even turn on the furnace. Heat rises, getting it upstairs is the easy part. Ceiling fans work great for moving the air around.

I was surprised at the difference between the efficiency of a pre-EPA stove (pre 1990 or so) and a new stove. We went from 7 cords a year down to 3 in our last house.

Dok

 

[wdchuck]

Hot air rises.
Cold air falls.


Heat goes to cold regardless of direction or material.

There is a difference, it matters to be accurate.

 

[beerman6]

Guy at work put in an OWB and he's running through a pick-up load every 5-7 days. 6' Ranger 4x4 moderately loaded above the bedrails. Keeps the uninsulated house at 72 F.

Matt

Sounds about right.

Hopefully this summer we will have better insulation installed(and twice as much wood ready)