Indoor forced air wood/oil furnace

[Wendy]

Is anyone familiar with these?? We are seriously thinking of installing one & were wondering if anyone has one or has any knowledge of them. We prefer the combo in case we are gone & can't fire up. A rare occasion, but it does happen. We filled up our oil tank to the tune of $800 & will likely need 2 more fill-ups to get through winter. This would pay for itself in a short time. It also has the bonus of heating our water during the winter months. So in an extended power outage we would still have hot water. We have county water so still have water when power is out. We have access to as much wood as we want from the gal that owns the surrounding property. We bought our property from her & keep an eye on her land for her. She lives out of state. She had her property logged last year & there are enough tops to keep us in wood for a long time. She told us to feel free to cut the wood & use it or sell it.

http://www.charmaster.com/wood_oil.html

[davel745]

I am considering these guys

http://www.yukon-eagle.com/

[flewism]

I've never owned one, as we use a wood stove and a insert for primary heat, and gas as a backup.
Does your oil furnace need replacing? You can add a wood only furnace as a add-on, the wood would be primary and the oil would come on as a backup.
This would probably be cheaper.
Over at the Arboristsite.com there is a guy that goes by the forum name of "Crappie Keith" on the firewood and wood heating forum. He is Keith from
Yukon-Eagle. There is also alot of information from owners and users of wood or wood/??? furnaces including numerous DIY installs.

[uncle Will in In.]

We had a Yukon for several years. It worked perfectly. You could fill the firebox with wood, and set the thermostat which had a setting for both the wood and oil. When the oil kicked on, the oil flame went across the top of the wood, and set the wood on fire. Never had to light a fire. The wood thermostat was always set a little higher than the oil thermostat. Two controls on one box.
When the wood fire brought the temp above the oil setting, the oil shut off and the wood kept working.
The biggest problem was the wood thermostat would also shut the draft off on the wood fire. The fire would die down and put cool smoke up the chimney from the basement. This caused creosote to collect in the chimney. Enough to plug it. To prevent the cool smoke we didn't over fill the firebox, and set the wood thermostat higher than needed. This kept the wood burning at a good rate until the wood was mostly gone. When the house cooled down enough to kick the oil back on, it was time to put wood in the firebox and start over.
The heat exchanger only had three tunnels for the hot air and smoke to pass through before entering the chimney. This wasn't as effecient for oil as most oil furnace heat exchangers. this required a weekly cleaning of ashes that collected there.
It had good features like cheap fuel, and automatic lighting. Running a hot fire until the wood was gone before adding more wood helped the creosote problem.

[Wendy]

Thanks! There is an installer listed on the Yukon page that is actually the place we got our oil furnace from. I will check with him about an add on.

[Molly Mckee]

We had one when we lived in WI, heated a 3600 sq ft, poorly insulated farm house. My DH and a friend in the heating business built several. They were basically an add on to the oil furnace. They put them in several friends houses as well and they work really well.

[Wendy]

I will have to check with our insurance to make sure it will not be a problem.