1850 farm house - wood stove or wood boiler?

jazzman · Jan 22, 2012

Greetings to all --

I am impressed with the knowledge in this forum, and thought I'd ask a bit of advice. This post is long, and so I apologize in advance. I wanted to be as thorough as possible, in order to get the best advice from those more knowledgeable than I.

My wife and I own a circa 1850 farm house in upstate New York, near New Paltz. It has two floors (total of 1200
sq. feet, evenly split between floors), and two chimneys, one of which is connected to an oil boiler rated at 100,000 btu, which uses #2 oil.

There are two 250 gallon oil tanks in the basement. The unused chimney has a coal stove attached to it. We have never used it.

The house currently has baseboard/radiators on both floors. This heats things pretty well, except for the kitchen area which has no baseboard. There are registers in each of the main rooms, theoretically allowing warm air to flow to the upper floor. The current heating system has two zones - upstairs and downstairs. During the day, we turn off the heat upstairs, and close the door to the stairway. It gets pretty chilly upstairs with no heat, but even when we leave the door open, it doesn't get much warmer, although to be fair the registers stay closed. About an hour before we go to bed, we turn on the heat upstairs.

There is at least some fiberglass insulation in the walls and in the attic. Attic is freezing in the winter, and burning in the summer. We have zero problems with ice dams, so I think the insulation in the attic is sufficient (no gutters, but that's another story). Windows are not original, but are old and drafty in some places. I'm sure that the envelope is not tight.

We're trying to reduce our oil dependency, and are considering either a wood stove and/or a wood boiler. As we do not live here full time at the moment, we can not cut the cord completely regarding oil, otherwise pipes would freeze.

Down the road - perhaps 10 or 15 years from now, we might retire to this house. I am almost 53, and in decent shape, but splitting wood is not for me. It seems easy to order dry hardwood in this area, as many folks here burn wood.

I received a quote for a wood stove (Lopi Endeavor), and with all the other requirements, i.e. installation, 20' liner, bluestone pad, pass throughs and blower, the figure is somewhere around $5,200. This does not include the masonry work required to make the chimney usable (both stacks need to be rebuilt from the roof line on up).

My main concern is that a single wood burning stove won't generate enough heat for the upstairs. There are open
doorways to the other rooms on the ground floor. However, the door to the upstairs opens in such a way that it closes off the foyer leading to the room where the stove would be.

Electrical power goes out during heavy winter storms. So a wood stove still gets us warm in this situation.

Radiant heating with a wood boiler would solve many problems, but would be more expensive. It would get heat
under the kitchen area where there is currently no baseboard. And it would get heat to all rooms upstairs. But
would not work in a power down situation. We don't currently own a generator.

I should mention that there is sheetrock on the ceiling on the ground floor. Don't know what else is in there, but probably no insulation.

Floor boards for the ground floor are visible from the basement. There is no insulation.

The basement is sort of a patchwork of existing electrical, plumbing and structural elements. The original log joists were shored up with jack posts before we bought the house, and at least one of the logs has been sistered with new lumber. Not sure how will this would play with tubes running through this area.

One solution would be to get a wood stove now, and if/when retiring, get a wood boiler to replace the oil boiler. But getting rid of oil completely means we have to have good neighbors who will if we want to travel, or drain water from pipes.

All feedback is welcomed.

Thanks and best wishes,

jazzman

Clarkbug · Jan 22, 2012

Jazzman,

Welcome to the forums! There is lots to read about on here, and Im sure many people will offer up their opinions on things.

My house is similar to yours in layout and size, and most likely age. Its not sealed well, has two zones, and is just generally cold in the winter. Those two oil tanks are a good sign of how much it will use, and our boiler was quite thirsty last year.

The one thing I see that would give me pause is that you mention that you dont think splitting wood is for you. Just know that aside from splitting the wood you will have to move it, stack it, clean up after it, etc. You may be able to find a great supplier, but wood is work, no way around it. Not saying you dont want to do it, but you may want to think about your fuel choice if you arent up to splitting.

Perhaps you want to look at pellet stoves and/or pellet boilers? The pellets could be purchased in bulk, and possibly a bulk storage bin that holds several tons could be put in if you wanted it to. Then you would be able to travel and have heat at the same time. You could use your existing hydronic system with this setup. While you cant just harvest wood for free this way, it doesnt sound like thats where you are headed anyway.

In the meantime, you could get a pellet stove that could be sidewall vented in some 4" pipe to a "dragon head" or something similar. This would let you have heat on your first floor right away when you are there, and then just leave the oil going when you are not. Still a few thousand dollar investment, but it could be some heat for you on the first or second level while you decide what you want to do.

Also, I would think you should look into a generator regardless of your heat choice. Its nice to be able to keep your circ pumps running to avoid a heating system freeze-up, and to keep the fridge/freezer going.

Again, just some opinions from me, and hopefully others will have some good thoughts for you as well.

Floydian · Jan 22, 2012

Howdy Jazzman, and welcome.

What do you play? My wife plays trombone in a local jazz quartet.

For a "quick fix" I'd say put in a wood stove, But.....

It sounds to me like your building envelope needs to be your priority.

If you plan on retiring in this home than a deep energy retrofit, though costly initially, could guarantee very low energy needs for the life of the building as well as a high degree of comfort. And give you something great to give to future generations.

A quality insulation install is probably one the the best returns on investment you could make.

I would encourage you to spend some time here:

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/

I type this as I'm nearing completion of my gassifier+storage+low temp infloor heating system. HAHA.

This system, of course would be completely overkill and unnecessary in a super insulated house.

Food for thought, or not. Either way, good luck,

Noah

mikefrommaine · Jan 22, 2012

Last three years I burned a Jotul F600 24/7 in the family room. And still burned 1200 gallons of oil (including DHW) The family room was always too hot and the other rooms too cold.

My wood boiler has been online 7 weeks and I have burned 3 cord or so and no oil. House is a much more comfortable 72 throughout. So I would say anyone who is able to handle the extra workload of burning a solid fuel as a primary heat source to go for a boiler.

My Jotul f600 has been cold since my boiler went online. Don't miss the mess in the house.

Duetech · Jan 22, 2012

My MI 1838 farm house has an oil furnace with an air/water heat exchanger in the plenum. We had an add on forced air wood furnace that more or less heated the house during the general part of winter but could not keep up with the heart of winter. We now have double pane windows but when we had the wood furnace we had single pane and most usually had ice on the inside of the bedroom windows. We recently replaced the single pane windows with the doubles but never had ice on the inside when using the boiler. Needless to say the boiler is capable of greater heat output. The bonus with the boiler in my case is less wood consumption and I piggy-back heating all my domestic hot water while heating my home. There are some great wood burning stoves out there but I am now of the opinion that I don't want to experience another wood stove scenario. For power outages I have a generator that buys time when needed. There is a conversion loss when using anti freeze designed for boiler usage but there should never be any frozen pipes. Following your lead it seems you have time before you lay down any cash on a boiler or stove almost enough to insulate so well you'll have to open windows when friends come over. :lol:

EatenByLimestone · Jan 22, 2012

I think I'd look at tightening up the envelope first. Insulation and caulk are going to be the best bang for the buck and if you retire to the place you'll never regret it. In fact, after the insulation work you might find you aren't in as much of a rush to get a wood stove or boiler.

Matt

tom in maine · Jan 22, 2012

As one who foolishly is always looking at old houses with a gleam in his eye,
I always wonder what I would do if I moved out of my superinsulated house that is always 70F into an old
barn.

I think you might consider installing one or two direct vented pellet stoves. This can be permanent or temporary.
There is some maintenance involved but it is relatively inexpensive (even compared to the woodstove) and you can
cut back or eliminated the oil.

Ultimately, a wood or pellet boiler might be a better fit, but this can be simple start that is within most people's means.

kenny chaos · Jan 22, 2012

If ya got the money and the inkling, go for it.
My crib was built in 1823 and I just don't believe most
of these old beasts move the air around enough like more modern
open space designs. Remember, a woodstove is a SPACE HEATER!
Plus at your old age, wood is a hassle and will beat you down.
But if the inkling is strong enuff.....
Kenny-
(We support Jazz90.1)

mattym · Jan 22, 2012

I'm in an 1840's cape, further upstate (Northeast Adks)in NY. I was dumb enough to buy a house here without central heat. Right now we heat with a Clydesdale wood insert and a Jotul propane insert. I've always planned to add radiant, baseboards or forced air later, but the slow renovation of windows, insulation, and air barriers has really reduced the need. Right now the house stays 68 downstairs, 63 upstairs pretty easily. If you decide on a stove, consider one like the Avalon with a blower available. I believe it helps alot.

barkeatr · Jan 23, 2012

....I would say a boiler would provide more central heat, contain the mess better, but a lot depends on the logistics of getting wood in and out of the proposed boiler site . Energy upgrades are always a top priority, but..another way of looking at it is a few years of throwing lower cost heat at it will help pay for the insulation upgrades. It depends on the cost of wood, or the diffrential from oil, and your situation. It depends on your available cash and how many projects you want to take on at once. If you can only do the energy upgrade first, then you are going to still be heating with expensive fuel...but just maybe 30% less ( depending on the scope/quality of an energy upgrade). with all that said, since you are only there weekends maybe the energy upgrade approach is best since you cant throw cheap heat at it during the week.

I was in the simliar situation...do I spend 6,000 or more for solar insulative blinds for my passive solar house, or do i spend the money on a wood boiler and just throw low cost heat ( free in my case) at the problem. I could not afford both. If i chose the insulation I woudl still have 1500 dollar fuel bills (vs 2200) vs zero. Truth be told, i only get 1 day out of 12 that are sunny so passive solar is bad solution is tough here in upstate NY, at least in my little microclimate so investment in the solar aspect seemed moot. To me burnin wood is like indirect solar...since the trees were created by solar energy. Throwing free heat at it might be irresponsible...but on my 50 acres every time i drop a tree there is plenty of living matter ready to take advantage of the sunlight. Ok enough ramble rant from me, welcome to the hearth!

711mhw · Jan 23, 2012

Is "tinkering" with your coal stove while you work on sealing and insulating your house out of the question. That be an economical (bandaid) solution, even if you have to fix the one chimney, you'll prolly eventually need one working chimney anyway. In the long run keeping your heat IN your house is the smart thing to do, and really should be step one, no matter how you end up making heat. Welcome and good luck.

Tennman · Jan 23, 2012

We live in our 1840's - 1850's 4800 sf home. I happen to be rather eccentric regarding our historic home. Since we live in southern Tenn, where most of the time winters are fairly mild, many of our windows are old wavy glass without storm windows since we try to keep the place looking like it did at the turn of the 1890's. So the house is very inefficient but it's by choice. I have really enjoyed using wood to essentially replace 95% of our propane heat. We have all the wood we would ever need on our property, but sometimes lack the time to process, so I buy some split and when I can process our own. I see this blending of my labor and purchasing still very economical vs all other options. I would absolutely do this again. Lots of good boiler choices. I think the biggest decision is decide whether the boiler is in an outbuilding or in the house. In the basement is without question the most efficient, which many here prefer, but I would never have one in my home. There are so many operating, cleaning, and loading processes that generate smoke, dust, and mess. Many here love the convenience of having it in the house, but for me the freedom of not continuosly worrying about the mess I make in the out building makes the process liveable... FOR ME. I installed a gasser boiler without storage which has been fine for 3 years (after the first year of debugging) and probably will add storage this summer. Doing the project in stages worked ideal for me as a DIYer since it reduced the complexity of what I had to learn and debug. And it spread the installation cost. My wife and I actually enjoy the whole tending the boiler process. But we really love having a warm house that doesn't cost us an arm and a leg to keep warm. You've come to the right place. This is where the wood boiler geeks come to hang out. There's more to it than turning the thermostat and writing checks, but you just might become a wood boiler geek. Welcome

Noggah · Jan 23, 2012

Jazzman,

Welcome from another newbie. The people here are great.

In my humble opinion your first money would be best spent on efficiency upgrades. New hi efficiency windows and insulation. In the mean time check out the possibility of using the coal stove. Coal may not be ECO-GQ, but is a very viable and cheap source of heat.

Over the next 10-15 years, which you pointed out as a window, figure out what would work best for your situation. If your buying wood this will greatly slow down your return. A wood boiler is a large commitment, feeding it and cleaning up after it. On top of the large up front cost. As well as, if you are physically up to processing the wood.

Pellets are good too, if you have a ample supply in your area. Buying wood vs. buying pellets cost analysis. Pellets are cleaner, but require that you have a dry area to store them. If they get wet they are useless as fuel. Pellets can be direct vented and wouldn't require you to have your chimney rebuilt. A pellet boiler can run longer without being fed, but still require a fair amount of maintenance.

I am using an outside gasser with a propane on demand boiler as back up. My house has no chimney at all. I love my set up, but have been working toward the final set up for four years. I am still learning and fine tuning. There are always unforeseen situations. Even with lots of planning and research.

Welcome to the entrance of the rabbit hole. Good Luck and keep us posted.

jazzman · Jan 23, 2012

Thanks very much to all who have replied - I really appreciate it.

Like everything in life, there are pros/cons to any choice one will make with regard to heating.

Noah - I am known as a tenor saxophonist (but my first love was alto).

Clarkbug - thanks for the advice re: wood pellet appliances. I assume there is some type of auto feed mechanism to continuously supply the boiler from pellet storage . Do you know if it can work like our current oil boiler, in that when the power goes out, when it comes back on line, the pellet boiler would again start to deliver heat? Or is manual intervention required? If we live there full time, a generator is a must.

I realize that the answer to the question I'm about to ask is dependent on make/model, but for those of you that use wood boilers - if you fill the fire box, how long does the fuel last before needing to be refilled?

And what about the cost of pellets? Is it like oil, subject to global markets? Or has it remained fairly constant since its introduction?

Forgot to mention in my original post that both chimneys are on the outside of the house.

Thanks again to everyone --

jazzman

Como · Jan 24, 2012

Pellets.

Have a word locally about cost and price variance. As they are seen as a competitor to oil there seems some price linkage.

Wood

Well cord wood has to be cut, split and moved. If you have enough trees locally it can be 'free'. Time and gas and equipment.
Chipped wood is popular elsewhere but not so much in the US. Sort of like pellets for ability to automated the process but you need access to a chipper and also storage can be an issue if you get very cold.

Stove vs Boiler

I get asked how often I will need to feed the boilers and well it depends. How cold is it outside, how hot is it inside. Assume you are looking at daily unless you use chips/pellets. Then it depends how big your storage is.

Stove tend to be much more work than Boilers and you have the mess inside. Boilers tend to cost more.

I would agree that insulation/infiltration sounds like the first thing. Mitigate first, within reason, cuts costs every year as well as reducing the size of your system.

For us double glazed storm windows and several feet of insulation made the world of difference.

Clarkbug · Jan 24, 2012

Jazzman, I am essentially in the same plight as you, needing to get my house weather tight. It will make a world of difference, but in the meantime I couldnt keep paying the oil man, especially not as much as it is these days. Now that I am at least wasting cheaper heat, the race is on to insulate, weather seal, draft stop, etc. Hopefully that fight goes well for me this summer.

There are several different makers of pellet feeders out there, and unfortunately I dont know enough about them to tell you if they have an auto or a manual restart. The only pellet items that I have personally heard of are the Harmon PB and the Varmebarnonen Pellstore. There may in fact be many, many more, but these are the only two that I have ever stumbled across, and Im not necessarily endorsing either of them. Just something to take a look at.

zelachowski · Jan 24, 2012

Welcome to the group. There are many smart people here to help guide you. We live in an 1840 cape in NH. When we moved in to this place we were burning 7 cords of wood. That was with half the attic insulated and interior storm windows. We have spray foamed the attic and 4" of urethane in the walls 2" of the same in the basement floors. The kitchen and bath part are still not insulated. We are heating 50 % more space than when we moved in(attic is now living space), it's 5-10 degress warmer on average our wood use has dropped to 4 cords. We are using the same woodstove, a Woodstock Classic. My vote would be with air sealing and insulating as place to start.

barkeatr · Jan 24, 2012

below quote illustrates my point exactly, while energy upgrades are the default first step, personal situation, funds, and other, may change this . As far as the money situation, you have to crunch the numbers. In my case, if i had choosen energy upgrades over a wood boiler (they both cost the same in my case) , i would be approximatly 21,600 (2400 x 9 years) in the hole as I write this. That doesnt count the recent cost of fuel either..which would prollly be running in the annual 3500 dollar range these days. My wood boiler reduced my fuel costs to 350 a year ( chain saw gas and maintainance, misc toys), energy upgrades would have reduced my fuel cost to $2400 a year. Could i have afforded a boiler in susequent years after the energy upgrades....well, the cash i had at the time has not come around again in such volumes so the answer is prolly not...especially if I had had to still come up with freakin 2400 a year for oil. Could i use some of the 21,000 saved from the wood boiler towards energy upgrades making them essentially free, you bet. With almost free wood, my situation is not simliar to the poster, but even with paying for wood or pellets, the difference in feul cost can create surprising scenarios when multiplied by just a few years. Crunch the numbers.

Tennman said:
We live in our 1840's - 1850's 4800 sf home. I happen to be rather eccentric regarding our historic home. Since we live in southern Tenn, where most of the time winters are fairly mild, many of our windows are old wavy glass without storm windows since we try to keep the place looking like it did at the turn of the 1890's. So the house is very inefficient but it's by choice. I have really enjoyed using wood to essentially replace 95% of our propane heat. We have all the wood we would ever need on our property, but sometimes lack the time to process, so I buy some split and when I can process our own. I see this blending of my labor and purchasing still very economical vs all other options. I would absolutely do this again. Lots of good boiler choices. I think the biggest decision is decide whether the boiler is in an outbuilding or in the house. In the basement is without question the most efficient, which many here prefer, but I would never have one in my home. There are so many operating, cleaning, and loading processes that generate smoke, dust, and mess. Many here love the convenience of having it in the house, but for me the freedom of not continuosly worrying about the mess I make in the out building makes the process liveable... FOR ME. I installed a gasser boiler without storage which has been fine for 3 years (after the first year of debugging) and probably will add storage this summer. Doing the project in stages worked ideal for me as a DIYer since it reduced the complexity of what I had to learn and debug. And it spread the installation cost. My wife and I actually enjoy the whole tending the boiler process. But we really love having a warm house that doesn't cost us an arm and a leg to keep warm. You've come to the right place. This is where the wood boiler geeks come to hang out. There's more to it than turning the thermostat and writing checks, but you just might become a wood boiler geek. Welcome

battyice · Jan 25, 2012

jazzman said:
The unused chimney has a coal stove attached to it. We have never used it.

What make/model is the coal stove? Anthracite coal burns very clean and is usually a more economical source of btu's than pellets. You already own the stove, so is the first place I would start to try and save some $$. I heat my house with anthracite for about 60% less than if I burned fuel oil.

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