Is an inside furnace for me?

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Ozark Woodburner

Member
Feb 8, 2010
106
North Arkansas
Me and my wife bought our first house last summer, a brick home over a half basement, total size is 1600+sq. ft. The house came set up with a wood stove in basement and a central propane heat system. I have been using the stove and getting good heat to the bedrooms, but the side of the house that isn't over the basement is pretty cool and hard to heat. I've tried fans in all different configurations and it has helped a little. However the stove is old and needs replaceing soon, and I'm leaning towards getting an inside furnace to use with my existing central heat ductwork. My wife absolutely will not allow a wood stove on the living floor where it would be more effecient. I also thought about an outside unit, but I really want to stick with an inside unit, when I'm gone my wife will not throw wood into it if it is outside in the cold. We will have to keep the furnace or stove in the basement. Also the basement is unfinished but we want to keep it that way.

So, am I looking in the right direction? Our winters are fairly mild, usually a few nights around 0* average low temp is above freezing with a few weeks around 20-25 degrees. I am looking at the Yukon Big Jack furnace to be honest. I also looked at the US Stove furnaces.

Whats important is having one that I can still use as for radiant heat in the event of power outage. This is absolutely essential for me.
Also, would like to get something with a decent burn time. I am gone to work for 9.5 hours a day and sometimes am gone for 12 hours at a time. I'd like something that can have little heat going when I get home instead of burnt down to a few coals like my stove.

Thanks for any advice.
 
IF you dont mind cutting or buying wood then definitely put an add-on wood furnace into your existing ductwork. If you can hook on to this ductwork in your basement area and have a way to easily get wood down there go for it. The house I moved into last March used a fairly high efficient propane boiler and it cost the previous owner $1800 a month when it was cold outside. That was not a typo! Just this month I got my system fully functional with wood boiler and dhw and my electric and heating bill was $42 for Feb. heating 5000 sq feet. Of course I must take into account the time it takes to cut wood, gas, and so forth but I enjoy doing it and its good exercise. My father has heat pump with add on wood furnace ducted in to the duct work n the basement and it works like a dream as well. Not sure what you can do for your dhw with a conventional furnace but just simply adding a tank that sits in your heated space before it goes into your water heater will help quite a bit
 
It sounds like you are looking for flexibility and convenience. The best option (but not the cheapest) for that would be to put in a small gasification boiler (like the Eko or Biomass 25) with about 500 gallons of storage. You could tie the hydronic system into your forced air with a plenum heat exchanger, add a hydronic zone (radiator or radiant) to the cold area of the house, and hook it in to provide DHW. The advantage of a gasifier in your climate is that it burns so clean you can use it more of the year. With storage you can actually even get year round DHW with it by burning once a week and putting the heat in storage even in the summer. With a boiler and storage sized correctly you would be able to burn once a day in your coldest weather and skip days in milder temps.
 
Ozark Woodburner said:
Me and my wife bought our first house last summer, a brick home over a half basement, total size is 1600+sq. ft. The house came set up with a wood stove in basement and a central propane heat system. I have been using the stove and getting good heat to the bedrooms, but the side of the house that isn't over the basement is pretty cool and hard to heat. I've tried fans in all different configurations and it has helped a little. However the stove is old and needs replaceing soon, and I'm leaning towards getting an inside furnace to use with my existing central heat ductwork. My wife absolutely will not allow a wood stove on the living floor where it would be more effecient. I also thought about an outside unit, but I really want to stick with an inside unit, when I'm gone my wife will not throw wood into it if it is outside in the cold. We will have to keep the furnace or stove in the basement. Also the basement is unfinished but we want to keep it that way.

So, am I looking in the right direction? Our winters are fairly mild, usually a few nights around 0* average low temp is above freezing with a few weeks around 20-25 degrees. I am looking at the Yukon Big Jack furnace to be honest. I also looked at the US Stove furnaces.

Whats important is having one that I can still use as for radiant heat in the event of power outage. This is absolutely essential for me.
Also, would like to get something with a decent burn time. I am gone to work for 9.5 hours a day and sometimes am gone for 12 hours at a time. I'd like something that can have little heat going when I get home instead of burnt down to a few coals like my stove.

Thanks for any advice.
Click to expand...
have had an indoor furnace since i built my house in 79
they work great & more than heat the house have only had 2 both canadian made newmac's
only suggestion i would have is to get one without grates as they tend to go out when wood is done burning & ashes are in clean out pan
both if mine have been grateless, meaning you put 2" of sand in bottom of the firebox & burn on top of sand
about once every 2 weeks i shovel out a pail of ashes, thrown more wood in & away we go
normal day there is a bed of coals when i get home or get up & i just throw more wood in & it fires up
bob
 
I will have to call and check price on those inside boilers. I suspect they will much higher than the Yukon I was looking at. I think it was less than $2000. But I do understand I am not compaering "like" furnace.

Wood supply will not be a problem.
 
We upgraded from a Usstove 1500 furnace to a Caddy EPA furnace. It was a night and day difference. We don't have to worry about overnight burns anymore. Less wood, cleaner burns. Some others out there are the Blaze King Catalytic furnace, Kuuma Fire, Caddy and the Energy King 385ek. It may cost more up front, but would be worth it in the end. They all qualify for the tax credit also. I wouldn't go back to a standard furnace.
 
I'm using a Yukon Big Jack furnace, 3200 sq. counting the basement. I haven't burned a drop of propane in the last three years. I go though around 8 cord a year.

It'll put out enough heat to keep a window or two open all winter.
 
laynes69 said:
We upgraded from a Usstove 1500 furnace to a Caddy EPA furnace. It was a night and day difference. We don't have to worry about overnight burns anymore. Less wood, cleaner burns. Some others out there are the Blaze King Catalytic furnace, Kuuma Fire, Caddy and the Energy King 385ek. It may cost more up front, but would be worth it in the end. They all qualify for the tax credit also. I wouldn't go back to a standard furnace.
Click to expand...

Either way you go, it is definitely worth the extra money to get a unit that has secondary burn. They burn more efficient, use less wood, and reduce emissions. The extra cost pays for itself pretty quick...
 
I'm confused a little about this Yukon Jack furnace. It says this on the website-

Is the Jack efficient? You bet. The right amount of the air from the combustion fan is directed to the fire. Twenty percent of the air (called secondary air) is directed above the fire to ignite the unburned gases and smoke created by the main fire. The result is high efficiency wood burning.
Click to expand...

Then below that on the same page it says this on features-

Secondary Heat Exchanger (SuperJack Only)
Click to expand...

So is the Jack (Big Jack) furnace not a secondary furnace?

Are these decent I noticed the furnace list for less than $1700, not extras though for that price.
 
If I read it correctly the Super Jack is the only one with secondary burn, but my gosh, I think that thing would run me out of the house with our mild winters after reading the reviews and the BTU rating.
 
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