Outdoor forced air experience?

rogdan said:

Could you give any details of their set up? like distance the furnace is from the home and what state they are in?
Thanks

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They live in missouri. The furnace is just a few feet from there house and sits on the northside of the house. There house is a slab house so the duct work comes out of the stove and up the side of the house into the attic area. Thats where duct work and everything is.

What is your wood supply situation, and wood burning experience in general? How much dry wooid can you supply in a year? How much do you have on hand now? How much are you expecting to burn?

laynes69 said:

While bringing in wood and having ash could cause some allergies, with a proper chimney and some simple housekeeping, it shouldn't be a problem. Just use common sense and don't bring in a cord of wood into the house, or be careless with the ashes. With 2000 sqft of well insulated area, even a Tundra which is not that expensive would easily heat your home. The radiant heat alone from the furnace would heat your basement. I've seen a few outdoor forced air furnaces around here, and the amount of wood they burn is ridiculous.

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+1 what he said ^^^. I heat the same size home as you from the basement with a Yukon wood/oil furnace. ~1200ft first floor to 71-72*, ~800ft second 68* ish, ~1200 basement that stays 68* or so just from radiant heat. Couple points here...
1. A proper chimney with plenty of height goes a long way to keeping smoke out of the house!
2.Truly seasoned DRY wood. I'd bet those other wood burners homes that you have to stay away from have marginal dry wood.
3.Batch burning...in other words, load 'er up and don't open the door again until the wood is down to coals.
4. Use a good HEPA style furnace filter.
5. My house was originally heated with a coal furnace and has a "furnace room" with a coal storage room off that. If you are concerned with allergies, build a room around the furnace that can be closed off when you are loading or cleaning ashes out. One step further would be to put a vent fan (vented to the outdoors) in there to clear it out before opening the door back up afterwards. The just leave the door open to get heat to the basement. Works well for me.
6. A modern clean burn furnace like the Tundra mentioned above, with dry wood will probably heat your place on 4-5 cords per winter. You can buy those for $1500-$1600 on sale too.

If you are leaning toward a boiler, again... batch burning. You would need to put a large insulated water storage tank in your basement to store the hot water because you load the boiler and run 'er wide open until it burns out. Probably once per day or so. Boilers mainly smoke when they idle, if you have dry wood anyways (see a theme here) Even non gassification boilers can burn pretty clean if they are batch burnt. Start up cost are gonna be a lot higher with any boiler system.

In the end though, your chances of being disappointed with an outdoor forced air furnace are pretty high in my opinion.

I'd shop that insurance company some more...it is usually not hard to find someone that will let you have a wood burner in the house for "secondary" heat for an extra $50 per year or so.
EDIT: After rereading your reply, you are correct, ins co's won't let you have "primary" wood heat, but most will consider wood secondary since you have a propane furnace, then your are good to go. They don't need to know that the propane furnace never runs . The main thing they are concerned about is that you have an automated heat system that will keep the pipes from freezing etc. if everybody is gone for extended periods

My insurance verified no primary solid heat unit within the home


But what if the propane remained as primary and the wood unit was secondary? Which would more accurately reflect/define the typical indoor add-on situation.

rogdan said:

I was looking into the Yukon online too, how would you compare it to the Tundra? What kind of burn time with wood and smoke blow back?
I got some good news on homeowners front, it looks like indoor units are back in the picture but I will need a pro install for the unit and venting. Now I need to find one willing and able to do it right and hope that the work doesn't bust the budget.

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Burn time depends on which Yukon model you are looking at. My Husky will do at least 8 hours no problem, more when it is not so cold. My old Big Jack struggled to do 5-6 hours when it was cold. Smoke blow back is not problem as long as you have a proper chimney and it is clean.
I have no personal experience with the Tundra but guys really seem to like 'em. Lotta bang for the buck there. I am installing one for my sister as soon as the weather breaks a lil bit.

rogdan said:

Hello,

I am a new member to this forum and am considering one of the forced air out door systems. I am leaning toward the Fire Chief/Shelter unit but also considering the Hopsco among others.
There is little information out there on these systems so and looking for feedback from uses of these type of furnaces.
I am heating my home with forced air propane currently about 2000 sq ft well insulated and will be adding on my 1200 sq ft as of yet uninsulated basement in USDA zone 5a.
I am not considering indoor units to appease the insurance co. and allergy sufferers including myself. I will locate the furnace close to the home and run a class A chimney the full two stories to eliminate as much of the smoke issue outdoors as well one reason for not considering a short stacked boiler

Thanks

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wow u need to go to http://outdoorwoodfurnaceinfo.com/forum/ the site for poor people tiring to do the rite thing ...with out all the math.......just saying

rogdan said:

Hello,

I am a new member to this forum and am considering one of the forced air out door systems. I am leaning toward the Fire Chief/Shelter unit but also considering the Hopsco among others.
There is little information out there on these systems so and looking for feedback from uses of these type of furnaces.
I am heating my home with forced air propane currently about 2000 sq ft well insulated and will be adding on my 1200 sq ft as of yet uninsulated basement in USDA zone 5a.
I am not considering indoor units to appease the insurance co. and allergy sufferers including myself. I will locate the furnace close to the home and run a class A chimney the full two stories to eliminate as much of the smoke issue outdoors as well one reason for not considering a short stacked boiler

Thanks

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A neighbour had a similar system worked okay, then one night the heat exchanger burned through and the circulator fan sucked all the wood smoke into the house,one hell of a mess.

rogdan - You can insulate your basement too, from the inside - I did mine some 20 + years ago. Vertical 1x4's, 2 ft oc, then 1" high R foam on those. What a difference, not having that cold concrete exposed.

I don't know about the price, but it's cheap when compared to what it saves in todays energy costs - You used to be able to see ice crystals on the concrete, even with a stove down there, on the far end. When you get installing it, you also see gaps between the sill & top of the wall that are open to outside air. Back when the original part of my house was built, 1962, fuel oil was what, tens cents a gal.? Just let her run -

The fact that your kids can't go into houses with wood stoves doesn't bode well, in my opinion.

velvetfoot said:

The fact that your kids can't go into houses with wood stoves doesn't bode well, in my opinion.

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Especially for anything forced air................. Water is simply cleaner for heat transfer, all the way around.

TS