Hearth.com phenomenon.

[CrappieKeith]

Keith there is just something about gathering the family around the furnace in the basement in the evening that just ain't quite the same. :coolsmirk:

I guess asthetics has some value....been awhile since I shared a glass of wine with momma on that bear rug.

 

[Highbeam]

I thought you fired momma so that you could fish! LOL

Honestly, I would love to get the burn times that you speak of from your furnace when I am not home. When I am home I really appreciate the radiant heat and looks, smell, results of a fire in a stove. Trouble is that I would want to come home from that long day at work and light a fire in the stove.

 

[wendell]

I was gonna get a Pacific Energy but figured all it'd burn was pine. . After being on here it's disappointing to go to a stove shop and deal with idiots who know nothing and really don't care to know anything.

or, to go to a store with questions and realize you know WAY more than the salesman and what he thinks he knows is wrong. Am I glad we have MSGuy. He is a great help!!

 

[CrappieKeith]

I thought you fired momma so that you could fish! LOL

Honestly, I would love to get the burn times that you speak of from your furnace when I am not home. When I am home I really appreciate the radiant heat and looks, smell, results of a fire in a stove. Trouble is that I would want to come home from that long day at work and light a fire in the stove.

I did fire here. I was just figureatively speaking....living in north central Mn we get those Alberta Clippers and it can get to 40 below 0. My furnace can run on gravity so if we loose power I still got heat .
I do see a lot of guys with oil suffering from the oil jelling or propane going back to liquid from the frigid temps.
So in my mind I need a dependable source of heat that no matter what I got heat.If I break a hip or something I'd be screwed but other than that I got all the heat I want for next to nothing.
So when I'm helping a guy figure out what he should be doing for his family's need I typically think about functionality over asthetics 1st.

I can see in areas of the US where it does not get that cold where a stove would work great to take the chill out of a home.
I can also wrap my mind around a pretty fire.....but when I see so many people asking me right upfront...how much wood can I stuff in it when they are looking for something else than what they had that did not heat the entire home I get to the idea that suggesting stoves may not always be in the best interest of the consumer that even is on this forum.Yet I never hear of well you should get a furnace.It's always get a bigger stove.

That's fine...I mean it's not like there's not enough business to go around or anything.
Heck, half of the American public went to some sort of alternative fuel last year. That's like 150 million people.

Just so you know I've said to some that come here looking for something to go buy a stove.as it appeared to me that it was better for them...ie no ducting or small homes.
We have tossed around the idea that we should spend $$$$ here to be a sponsor.
Being it is Hearth.com I'm wondering how many folks here would even be interested.
It just appears that there would be lack of support if you will.
I mean there are so many "get a stove" guys here that for me to shout "get a furnace would fall on deaf ears.
I also do not want to offend the next guy that's trying to move stoves in a stove forum.

Well so much for my 2 cents. I will and have enjoyed my time here.
I've been involved with Craig for near 12 years now and I've always thought Mr. Issod has had a good head about things.
We used to spend a good chunk of $$ with him and I believe he was responsible for building 1 of the versions of websites we have had over the years.

Anyway if a guy needs a good wood/coal furnace or a multifuel wood/gas or oil or electric...come on over for a visit.
So much for a plug ....peace....

 

[jadm]

I wish my clientèle was as tuned in to moisture meters, stove thermometers, IR guns, wood stacking techniques, etc and maybe some are. I just never hear about it. Thank you hearth.com for making me a more rounded hearth pro. I learn a ton here, and i get to see the side of this business that no other hearth pro gets to see if they don't participate here. I think thats an advantage.

First insert I bought I was clueless and have since paid for it by buying another insert when first one failed to heat our space on days below 40*.

I had no clue about this web site and only fell onto it while researching a replacement insert.

My second shopping experience was totally different from my first all because of what I learned here.

I don't think customers know about moisture meters, IR therms. and certainly are clueless about seasoned wood if they haven't ever burned before. I know I didn't until I read about them here. At that point there was no reason to discuss it with my dealer. When I would ask specific questions about my insert she was clueless. She was very good about admitting her ignorance and contacting Jotul for answers but I basically got what I needed here.

Too bad you can't do follow ups and find out how many of your customers do know about moisture meters etc...

 

[firefighterjake]

I thought you fired momma so that you could fish! LOL

Honestly, I would love to get the burn times that you speak of from your furnace when I am not home. When I am home I really appreciate the radiant heat and looks, smell, results of a fire in a stove. Trouble is that I would want to come home from that long day at work and light a fire in the stove.

I did fire here. I was just figureatively speaking....living in north central Mn we get those Alberta Clippers and it can get to 40 below 0. My furnace can run on gravity so if we loose power I still got heat .
I do see a lot of guys with oil suffering from the oil jelling or propane going back to liquid from the frigid temps.
So in my mind I need a dependable source of heat that no matter what I got heat.If I break a hip or something I'd be screwed but other than that I got all the heat I want for next to nothing.
So when I'm helping a guy figure out what he should be doing for his family's need I typically think about functionality over asthetics 1st.

I can see in areas of the US where it does not get that cold where a stove would work great to take the chill out of a home.
I can also wrap my mind around a pretty fire.....but when I see so many people asking me right upfront...how much wood can I stuff in it when they are looking for something else than what they had that did not heat the entire home I get to the idea that suggesting stoves may not always be in the best interest of the consumer that even is on this forum.Yet I never hear of well you should get a furnace.It's always get a bigger stove.

That's fine...I mean it's not like there's not enough business to go around or anything.
Heck, half of the American public went to some sort of alternative fuel last year. That's like 150 million people.

Just so you know I've said to some that come here looking for something to go buy a stove.as it appeared to me that it was better for them...ie no ducting or small homes.
We have tossed around the idea that we should spend $$$$ here to be a sponsor.
Being it is Hearth.com I'm wondering how many folks here would even be interested.
It just appears that there would be lack of support if you will.
I mean there are so many "get a stove" guys here that for me to shout "get a furnace would fall on deaf ears.
I also do not want to offend the next guy that's trying to move stoves in a stove forum.

Well so much for my 2 cents. I will and have enjoyed my time here.
I've been involved with Craig for near 12 years now and I've always thought Mr. Issod has had a good head about things.
We used to spend a good chunk of $$ with him and I believe he was responsible for building 1 of the versions of websites we have had over the years.

Anyway if a guy needs a good wood/coal furnace or a multifuel wood/gas or oil or electric...come on over for a visit.
So much for a plug ....peace....

You make some good points . . . growing up Dad had an add-on wood furnace which worked incredibly well. Loaded up the fire, set the thermostat and it was smooth sailing until it was time to re-load. He did go through 12 cords of wood each year though . . . of course this was also old tech and a late-1960s vintage house so I suspect the insulation and windows were not really the best.

If someone has an existing oil or gas furnace with ductwork I think you're absolutely right . . . considering a wood furnace makes sense . . . especially if the proposed install location is the basement . . . just like a person with existing baseboard heat might want to consider a wood boiler.

For me I ruled out the furnace due to space limitations and no existing ductwork and the wood boiler for space limitations and concerns over the heat storage issues . . . instead I went a bit simpler with a woodstove, thinking it would just help heat my house (no expectations of it heating the entire house.) I was rather happy to find out this past winter that the stove did quite well . . . even with several days where the temp dipped well below zero.

In my own case, with a 1,700 sq. ft. house the woodstove worked well for me and more than met my needs . . . but what works for me may not work for others and you're absolutely right when you say just suggesting that a person that a person get a bigger woodstove when their present stove isn't heating the home adequately may not be the best solution . . . or at best may only be one of many solutions. I mean, let's face it . . . even the largest woodstove out there can only heat X amount of space . . . and when you factor in some house designs (open vs. closed, compact vs. sprawling) and home components (i.e. windows, insulation, etc.) sometimes getting a larger woodstove will not make much of a difference . . . but for some people the reverse is true . . . going a size larger can change things for them.

 

[SolarAndWood]

I'm replacing the old oil fired furnace at the camp with a wood furnace. The building is an old rambling cape built a hundred years ago and added onto a couple of times with mostly just crawl space for a basement. The ability to throw wood in the furnace when we get there and heat all of the air fairly quickly and evenly in the building makes a lot of sense. There will certainly always be a fire to look at and warm by in the living room though. Is there a product that does both and looks like it belongs in a living room?

 

[Slow1]

For my part I didn't even know such a thing as a wood furnace was a viable alternative until recently.

We replaced our entire heating system about 3 years ago - that would have been the time to consider such a move, but none of the HVAC companies we talked with went anywhere but the normal oil/gas/electric/heatpump/geothermal routes. We even brought up the possibility of a wood stove at the time and basically tabled it as a "can always add it later" and considered it more of a cosmetic option than a serious way to heat the house. Obviously we didn't talk to the right folks or we would perhaps have made quite a few different decisions (such as putting a chimney inside the house during the construction or at least making a good place for it!). So once done we ended up with an excellent oil based heating system that can heat our house very well and with less oil than before the addition despite adding about 50% to the living area. Sort of makes it harder to make the cost argument on wood burning when we burn less oil, but that's another discussion...

I think those selling wood furnaces have a bit of an uphill battle in getting the word out. Not just so that people know about them and consider them, but also so that people don't see a wood furnace as some sort of a cobbled together experimental newfangled thing. My first mental image was not at all close to what they really are and I expect I'm not alone. I have looked at the technology a bit since being on this forum and now see that indeed they are a mature technology, but it certainly isn't something that came to mind when I was looking at options.

There are a lot of people who claim their reason for burning is cost savings and/or removal from the oil/gas dependency. If those are the primary reasons for burning it seems that the wood furnace should be on their list for serious consideration for any new install. Even if the wood processing makes it into the top reasons to burn the furnace can fulfill that need. I have not looked into issues such as emissions, efficiency etc so I have no idea how well they rate there, but I would have to guess there is no reason a well designed unit couldn't do well if fed the proper fuel just like a good stove.

So back to the question of why aren't they talked about as much? I expect it may be that not a lot of people are in the position of retrofitting their homes to put one in. Those who may have the right home to do so probably don't hear about them until they have already invested in placing a chimney and/or hearth for a stove and thus have started down the road toward a stove and don't want to walk away from that initial investment. Since a good number of the people posting here (like myself) are simply users we are going to post and discuss about things we know about - since we don't run the furnaces there isn't much for us to say about them. I've not yet noticed the "I'm considering a wood furnace, which one should I get" post - that would be interesting... and those folks who do have furnaces may not be here reading about stoves all day so they may miss that post which could be sad too.

 

[BrotherBart]

Big problem for me has been the dearth of clean burning wood furnaces and high wood consumption. Got the ducts and a flue in the basement but don't want to go back to scraping creosote out of the chimney once a month.

 

[CrappieKeith]

There are some good responses here guys...thanks for the time it took to post your responses.
SolaramdWood....nothing that is asthetically pleasing.
You can take a look at our Husky.It's about as good as it gets in either wood/oil or gas.

 

[Slow1]

So Keith - how clean and/or efficient do these modern wood furnaces burn? Have any numbers you can toss around?

 

[Arc_Dad]

After reading this thread, I've learned that I've got a good dealers around here. Both were complimentary of each, burn wood themselves and weren't pushing brands. Thanks for the info.

 

[CrappieKeith]

So Keith - how clean and/or efficient do these modern wood furnaces burn? Have any numbers you can toss around?

With a bachorach tester and burning bio bricks we saw about 90% which seems just unreal...but I'm thinking that the low moisture in those bricks caused such a high %.
I know that we run flue gas temps at 400 degrees. So depending on the moisture of the wood logs you'll have roughly a 1500 degree fire.
That number changes too depending on is the furnace calling for heat or has it been satisfied.
So from what I've been able to figure out a real world % would be in the range of 55%-75% depending where in the cycle the furnace is.

If we used the new Lower Heat value method of testing adding the caloric value for the lack of moisture we would see another 10-12% more in the percentage. I got this info for the techs at Innertech and Omni testing.This is the testing that stoves go through.

Since the EPA 40/60 rule subpart AAA has always said that furnaces are exempt there are no approved tests for furnace unlike our brother the stove.
We have heard that CSa is running a test around for discussion that may be approved like within 6 months which then at that point it is assumed that the EPA will grab onto that test that we can then spend the 30,000$ to have all of our furnaces tested.
Oh... the 30K is on the low end.

 

[laynes69]

There are many woodfurnaces on the market, but most are built the same. A firebrick lined firebox, and a baffle. The fancier ones have a secondary heat exchanger, but still no real source for secondary combustion. Most furnaces eat alot of wood, and chimney maintence is a must when burning them. What drew me to my 1950 (Caddy) was the way the furnace was setup. I wanted something that burned like an EPA woodstove, but heated the whole home. No furnace is setup like a caddy. The firebox is a 3.5 cu ft. firebox. 7 gauge, 1/4 insulated blanket with firebrick over that. A firebrick floor with a small ash grate and firebrick lined sides. There are 2 stainless steel channels that feed preheated air through 4 stainless steel burntubes below the insulated 4 layer stainless steel baffle. There is a large airwash for the door. The damper is a fully automatic servo thats fed by a digital thermostat. The heated air is then fed though 2 outer tubes (Secondar heat exchanger) then meets in the middle to go out the flue. They also contain a 4 speed direct drive blower, and a 2 speed limit control for the fan. A zinc coated painted steel cabinet for corrision control, etc. They are the only EPA Certified indoor wood furnace out there. Thats why I choose to upgrade. I would like to see all woodfurnaces go in this direction in the future. The owners I have talked with seen a definent wood usage reduction, and little to no creasote in the chimney. They really are an impressive furnace! They sold out here at the local RKO, which the manager thought they quit making them. I gave them the name and number of the company making the caddy, which they are now trying to get them for distribution around here once again. He said the big thing about these furnace was after 20 minutes there was nothing from the chimneys. One of the things that can scare people off is price, but it shouldn't stop someone from making a move if they have the funds to do so. I'm glad I did.

 

[laynes69]

Another thing I forgot to add, is it can be expensive if ducting has to be modified. Clearances are an issue just like a stove when dealing with a woodfurnace. If you install a furnace rated for 3000 square feet in a 1500 square foot home, it will run you out and won't be comfortable. Where furnaces are a plus are in large homes, or homes that are broken up. We have a 150+ year old victorian with 11 rooms, and 10 foot ceilings. With a furnace and proper ductwork, the whole house stays an even temp. I guess you have to weigh the pros and cons when dealing a central heater. They are not for everyone, but alot of people can benefit from one if they choose the right one for their home. I look at my furnace as a fancy woodstove.