Heating source questions

That is one of the things I am worried about bills, I don't want them !!
Our neighbor went through 1200.00 propane in 3 months last yr...
People in town that use gas.... OUCH !!! One lady here had a 600.00 bill in one month.... and that is not a rare thing around here.. when I first moved into a rental house the people who lived there said careful of the heat bills 500.00 a month.... eek !!!
Now that I bought this house I want it comfortable. I don't mind investing money into it.... I am just trying to ease his mind and get the best heat I can get..... No more frozen shampoo, no seeing my breath in our bedrooms, 50s in the living room ...
I

No I don't have any, I was thinking of getting them ..... but I have to check and see which ones would work.... we have a low ceiling, but

You should be able to use your existing duct work for a heat system. Have you priced an outdoor wood burning stove? I think you'll be surprised at how much they cost.
I don't know much about those stoves or how they are controlled. We have a Vermont Castings and it's been used to heat 2 different houses with no problem. Both houses almost 2x the size of yours.

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I have the ones I have looked at have been in the 1500.00 dollar range. I have seen others that are around 2500.00... but I am not sure if I would need that large of one. Then I would have to pay someone to have it installed.
If that is the best route for me to take.... considering that my DH will not get over the fear, and I want a warm comfortable house. Then I am willing to invest the money.
I moved away from the big city out to the country. I do love it, and don't want to give up my country home and land, because he can't deal with a indoor wood stove. I do not want any high bills... due to gas or propane costs. I do have a tank outside along with the lines set up in the house for the propane... but it just seems like the costs are high.

The best money we ever spent on our house was $400 to blow in 18 inches of cellulose in the attic. Noticeable difference in the comfort level and heating/cooling cost. Caulk and expanding foam are pretty cheap too. Make your house as weather-tight as you can no matter what kind of heater you end up getting. With a house that small, a wood stove should have had you sweating. Our house is around 1,000 sq ft, we used to have a wood stove down in the basement and just let the heat rise up thru the old gravity furnace vents and it kept the house plenty warm.

You are in Southwest Missouri with only a 800 square foot house and a stove which puts out over 100,000 BTU and it won't heat the house to more than 69 degrees. Something is wrong.

Can you feel drafts in the house? If not, I don't think the problem is insulation/windows--I think it is something wrong about the stove or it's installation.

You might ask at hearth.com about it.
http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/

Look into getting a Rocket stove built.

We use outdoor boilers and the cost savings are huge even buying the wood. I gotta say they weren't cheap to put in though and do require attention in all weather.

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That sounds very cheap compared to what most have posted on here, a good indoor wood stove costs about that.

We have wood but we also have natural gas, was propane until the lines were run to us. I'm not going without another heat source beside wood. Wood is great but we do like to leave the house in cold weather sometimes. Also on temperate days if you tighten up your house it will run you out from the heat. Of course an outdoor stove would solve that but I think you need to check pricing furthur. It also will need electricity to blow the heat.

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I paid nothing for my wood stoves I see them on Craigslist all the time for 100-200 bucks. My parents have a fairly expensive soap stone type wood stove. It does use a lot less wood and will keep radiating heat hours after the fire goes out unlike my free wood furnace. But my wood furnace does give off a lot more heat.

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Eskimos live in igloos built of snow blocks, and their only heat most of the time is their own body heat and some poor little fat-burning wick lamps.

People in small straw-bale houses can live with no extra heat most of the time than some kerosene-fuelled lanterns.

The secret is to keep the heat you've got.

First of all, keep the wind out. Seal up the gaps around windows and doors, seal up the chimney and run a chimney pipe all the way up it from your heating stove.

Second, insulate.
Roof first, because heat rises;
then windows, because they're thin, big area, and glass has just about zero insulation value,
and doors because they're usually a single thickness and big area.
Walls are important, but not easy after the house is built, and less important than the others.

Third, keep the heat where you are - not all over the place. Closing doors on unused rooms is good. You're doing that - fine.

Fourth, outside, keep the prevailing winter winds off the house. Plant a windbreak of a row of conifers between the prevailing winds and the house.

Last is to have more and different heat sources, but you shouldn't need that. Looks like you've got plenty if you can keep the heat inside where it belongs.

An emergency backup, like a propane or kerosene heater, is good.
However, remember you're sealing the draughts, so be careful about ventilation, and
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTORS.
Put the heaters out when you go to bed - blankets, quilts and doonas are cheaper than fuel, and under a heap of them body heat will keep you warm until morning.
You don't want to be a warm corpse.

This is part of your problem. It doesn't matter how long ago the wood was cut. Its the time since its been split that matters. We picked up some wood that was 3-4 years old, but only split a few months earlier. It was still over 25-30% moisture. It should be under 20% moisture to burn properly. Will a single piece of the wood burn down to ash, or do you have to have several pieces to burn it all up? A single piece of dry wood will burn completely. Wet wood will not most of the time.

The other problem is building too small of a fire. Get a temperature gage that you put on the flue. If it isn't reading over 250degF, you're fire is too cold, and you'll not get secondary combustion. No secondary combustion and wet wood means you're only getting 1/4 of the heat you should be getting.

I suggest you find some wood that you know is properly dried, and try burning that for a couple of days.

Michael

We have propane for our backup heat(which it is exspensive to heat our house with propane) but our main source of heat is a pellet stove. It sets in our living room which is pretty centrally located & vents out the wall to the outside, no chimney needed. The pellet stove heats our whole house.
Our house is 2300 sqaure feet & it does have good insulation & energy efficient windows so I'm sure that helps alot.

There are alot of different kinds of pellet type stoves so if you start checking into them make sure you check into quite a few, It's like the old saying "you get what you Pay for".

1. Outdoor wood furnaces are much less efficient than indoor wood stoves or furnaces, because they lose a lot of heat to the outdoors directly, and you need to pump the water and air around. You will use more wood for sure. Also they can be very smokey in the right conditions. But, they keep the dirt & fire outside, so have their pluses for that. Me, I'd hate to have to dress up to put another log on the fire, would rather have the more efficient furnace inside with me. Be sitting down when you find out the price of an outside stove.

2. Nothing wrong with propane heat, bet 90% of the rural houses in my area have it, works fine.

3. Radiators are a way to move heat, just as air vents are a way to move heat. Neither the air vents nor the radiators heat by themselves. Unless you meant some sort of electrical heating??? I'm not sure I understand?

Back to the beginning - your problem is the leaky, under insulated house, so you will get the same cold results from any of the heating methods. You best bet is to insulate.

--->Paul

Have you considered approaching this from another angle? Getting your dh over his fear. Read up on desensitizing him to his fears. Does he have other issues with fears or phobias? Getting him over the fear can be done, but it takes some work and he has to want to do it.

The stove you have is fine for heating your house, but it can't be done on a couple sticks of wood a day. Get that fire built up, burning well, fill it full and let it burn nice and hot until the house is warm, then control it with the damper. If you heat that stove up well once a day, you are not going to have creasote building the way you will with a slow, smoldering fire.

Has your chimney been checked out since you had the fire. Since you have a masonry chimney, it is essential that you do that before you burn again. This may be part of the reason your dh is fearful - and I wouldn't blame him. Get that chimney checked, and if necessary, add a flue liner. In fact, I'd go so far as to just say get the flue liner! With a flue liner in place and a spark arrester screen and cap on top, you should pretty much eliminate the chance of damage from a chimney fire. That may be all it takes to get you dh back to being comfortable with your woodstove (or not, depending on other issues).

Plastic over the windows and window quilts will block a lot of the cold air, and let you keep the warm air inside. Get a CO detector if you don't have one. It is a safety measure that makes too much sense not to do it. Also, having a good fire extinguisher on hand may help your dh emotionally feel safer, and is just common sense. These things all cost a lot less than an outdoor furnace.

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I have an old Wood King woodstove that I heat my house with, this is an old stove that is in no way airtight and I can heat my 1200s.f. house with no problem...I use about 2-3 pieces of wood at a time and have no problem keeping it about 75 in cold weather. Now, my wood is well seasoned and dry, I use pieces up to 8" in diameter and 20+" long and as old as this stove is I still have a hot bed of coals in the morning. This morning it is 30 outside and 82 inside after putting 3 pieces on about hour and a half ago, I could not heat this house using the size of wood you are using, simply will not put out enough heat. My house has decent windows and insulation, nothing great, you already know that you need to update that....sounds to me you need a bit more wood in your stove to start with.

Does your husband realize that he's actually making more creosote by burning smaller fires? Look online for some brochures that talk about creosote build up, and show him how stoves should be run, ie, very hot, to prevent creosote. You've got a good stove, it just needs to be run better.

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