should I buy a boiler or a wadena outdoor furnace??? Help me decide

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cstrail

cstrail

New Member
Oct 7, 2007
43
Central Illinois
so I currently have a woodstock soapstone fireview stove in our living room that I heat with 100% of the time. Furnace is only for a backup. We love the stove and everything. We have been thinking of going to an outdoor boiler and heat exchanger to heat with so the mess would stay outside. I could put a boiler close to my woodpile and it would keep the mess outside and also the heat in the house would be more even since we could use the furnace blower. But I don't know know about spending that much on a boiler.... I came across these Wadena or Hopsco (same brand I believe) outdoor furnaces that would tie right into my existing ductwork and says they use 50% of the wood of a boiler. They look real nice but I can't find anything on them at all. Has anyone on here had any experience with them or know anyone who does?
 
I think you may end up very disappointed with these furnaces - in terms of the wood use (total efficiency).

I would take those claims with a grain of salt (I'd say outright lies.....if I wasn't being so nice!).

My guess is that a furnace such as that outdoors would end up using 2 to 3X as much wood as your Woodstock for the same heat.

It is also likely to really smoke up your house and neighborhood - unless you get the chimney way up high.

All of that seems like a lot of work and money for a backup. My suggestion might be to wait a little and keep an eye toward whether the government passes the Home Star thingy - which would then provide a big tax incentive toward an EPA furnace or boiler.
 
Thanks, I don't know what I am going to do for sure. Maybe nothing. Let me clarify one thing though, I use our fireview for 100% of our heat right now and our current gas furnace is only used for a backup. The system I end up going with (a boiler or outdoor furnace) would be the primary system and our gas furnace would remain the backup. I also started looking at a firechief indor add on wood furnace. Our local rural king farm store sells them for around $1200 bucks and I have a friend with one and he loves it. I do know one thing, we love our fireview stove a lot. The ONLY reason we are considering something else is to keep the mess from our living room and the ability to heat the whole house more evenly. Our house is T shaped so the west bedroom and north bedroom are alway pretty chilly ( 63 or 64) compared to the liviing room (75 to 80).

I didn't know anything about a tax incentive for EPA furnaces...I will keep an eye out for that.
 
I like you got tired of the mess in house and always some smoke every once and a while. When we lived at our other farm we heated with a lincoln wood stove and it worked great but then the above mentioned. So eight years ago we got the last renters out of a house on a another farm we have. It is a three story 4000 sq ft 1912 farm house. We completely redid it with new windows 48 total and lots or foam insulation and I said no more wood so we put two 95% furnances in the house and one in the new shop. Then a few years later propane kept going up and up and we kept lowering the temp in the house and shop. Then propane was going to $2.00 a gallon. So we looked a lots of different heating ways with wood and geo thermal. We sure didn't want the mess back in the house and when we redid the house the old chimney was removed. I said I have a endless supply of hedge that needs to be cut in the pasture and I don't have propane well. I knew I didn't want to stand outside and feed a OWB so we spend the big money and bought a 2000 Garn. We love it and know the house is 75 degrees in each room as I put coils in the duct work and my shop is very warm. It was a lot of money up front but should last as long as we plan on being in this house.
 
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