Outdoor Wood Furnace

We have a Central Boiler and love it. We have propane and it costs a fortune when prices are high. Sometimes we pay $4/gallon. The outdoor woodburner was a great investment...........but you have to be prepared to gather and cut wood. Our wood source is free but it has to be split and stacked every year for the next season. DH spends spare time in summer getting wood ready for the winter. As someone else mentioned it only smokes for a few minutese when it is firing but we burn mostly hardwoods. The numbers work for some situations and don't for others. We also have indoor Vermont Castings and Fireplaces in case of power outages.

I use a Taylor to heat a 3000sf 1890 house, heat a 2000sf shop, heat for a 3000bf lumber dry kiln, heat hot water for a dog grooming business.

Wood Hog: Add more radiation to the home and lower the water temp. Allot of installations use a minimum of radiation so to counter that, the water temp must be raised. The hotter the water temp, the more inefficient the wood use becomes.

A woodfired water heater can also be home built. They are quite easy in design.
jim

Go ahead and cut, split and and stack a winter's worth of wood. If you didn't mind the labor, go ahead and get the stove. If you'd rather not do it again, sell the wood and consider that you came out ahead.

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Didn't read through the thread (outdoors mostly today).
Take a look into rocket heaters (Google). YouTube also has a lot of vids on people that make their own.

I built one. I wanted something that would take larger wood so I could reduce my firewood processing. It is fantastic for that, but it uses a lot of wood... double the amount that my forced air wood furnace in the basement used. PLUS, the blower motor on the forced air furnace that I still use for blowing the heat around the house from the outdoor wood furnace costs about $40 a month to run in the winter. THAT is a major drag.

Factory made outdoor wood furnace cost between $3500, and $5500.

If I could have a "do over", Id keep the house smaller, have an efficient wood stove in the basement, and just use convection to heat the house.

I'm tired of my outdoor wood furnace. Im tired of the wood consumption, and Im tired of the electricity usage.

Ive considered building the body of the furnace into the side of the house so any heat that bleeds off it goes right into the house, just leaving the filling door outside the wall of the house, but the insurance company would have a hissy fit Im sure.

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