Should I switch from an outside wood boiler to an indoor wood stove?

[bigfrank97]

Boys, I'm looking for some sound advice from someone that has experience in the flame game. I currently heat with a Taylor T-750 outside water stove. I bought this stove new when I built my house in 2004. I like the unit and especially like the domestic hot water it produces. What I don't like is the amount of wood I am feeding this beast. I am burning around 8 to 9 cords of wood a season. I load it up in the morning and again at night. 8 to 9 cords a year seems like a lot of wood when I think back to the days when I was growing up and we had an older Hearthstone stove in the house. I remember loading it two or three times a day. Dad claims we would burn around 4 to 5 cords per season, but I don't remember.

Now, I am considering getting rid of the "Beast" and possibly buying a Hearthstone large enough to heat the house (3200 sq.ft.) Do you think this is a good move on my part. I feel that the indoor units are more efficient then my outdoor stove, and they probably are easier to maintain.

I'm sure I can sell the Taylor and basically buy the new stove and probably pay for the install. My Taylor is in excellent condition and I really got it for a steal from a local dealer that was going out of business. Do you think I would be using less wood per season?

There are some great advantages to having an outside water stove. I like keeping the mess outside, I can burn green wood, and the instant hot water is awesome. However, the early morning hikes outside in 20 inches of snow while fighting freezing temperatures gets old quickly!

What do you think? Am I crazy? I haven't really done a whole lot of research on indoor stoves, so I am also open to suggestions on good quality stoves that I might consider to purchase if I do make the switch.

I also have question on installation of an indoor unit that I will be posting at a later time.

 

[begreen]

Welcome to the site. You might also want to post some queries in the Boiler room on this site if you want to get some hot water alternatives. They can discuss the efficiencies of using a wood gasifier boiler. I'll move this post over to there, but will leave a link to the hearth forum too. If you decide to focus on an indoor woodstove, start a new thread specifically about the stove in the Hearth forum.

If you built the house nice and tight and well insulated, then a central woodstove should do the job, if... the floorplan is relatively open on the first floor, there is a good central location for the stove and there is a good convective path for the heat to get upstairs.

 

[Ratherbfishin]

Before I chose my wood stove I was sold on an indoor wood/coal add on to my oil furnace. I just didn't want to shell out the $$ for it but I know over time it would pay for it self. If you have base board hot water heat that would be an option as you would not have to venture outside to feed it. With your 3200 sqft home I would have to ask where you would plan on placing the stove,size,etc to determine if you would save wood.but Keep in mind you would be back to paying extra to heat yer water, and that adds up especially if you have kids etc..8 cords might still be saving $$

 

[Gooserider]

Welcome to the site, and you are asking a reasonable question - however I would be somewhat at fault if I didn't point out that statements like below (emphasis added) are PART of the reason you are burning 8-9 cords a season....

There are some great advantages to having an outside water stove. I like keeping the mess outside, I can burn green wood, and the instant hot water is awesome. However, the early morning hikes outside in 20 inches of snow while fighting freezing temperatures gets old quickly!

I probably won't be the only one to mention this either...

Burning green wood is seriously a waste, as the only way that green wood will burn is if it has been heated enough to dry it in your firebox - and all the heat used to dry the wood is LOST, and not making it into your house...

A quote from the "tidbits sticky" at the front of the boiler room on this will give you some numbers...

Suggested by SDRobertson, another comment by Heaterman, on just how bad you hurt your performance when you try to burn green wood in an OWB… (from post #11 in this thread

Looking at it another way…...let’s assume that you use the unseasoned wood in a typical outdoor wood burner that runs about 40% efficient itself (real world number not factory hype)

A: Starting with 100% of the heat stored in the wood or 10,500 btu’s deduct the 4000 wasted by evaporating the moisture and you have 6000 btu’s available for heat transfer to the water. An average efficiency number for any OWB is about 35-40% so multiplying that 6000 btu’s remaining by 40% leaves you with 2,400 btu’s available to heat your house. That equates to a LOT of wood burned over the course of the winter.

B: Now if you start with seasoned wood, say 20% moisture content, you’ll have about 8,000 btu’s in the firebox. If you burn it in a modern design gasifying boiler your combustion efficiency is an honest 80% which leaves you with 6,400 btus instead of 2,400 in the first scenario.

Can you envision hauling cutting splitting stacking and loading 3 times as much wood in scenario A vs scenario B? Not saying you should look a gift horse in the mouth and turn down the OWB your dad is giving you ...........just trying to prepare you for what you’re getting yourself into.

As BeGreen said, you might or might not be able to make a Hearthstone work inside your house, a lot depends on the details that you haven't mentioned so it's hard to say from here, but 3200ft² is pretty big and will be pushing what any stove is likely to be able to do unless you have a really ideal setup for it...

OTOH, seeing as how this is the boiler room, let me suggest the alternative, although it might be a bit more money (I will also say that Hearthstones are expensive, and I think you may be optimistic about what you can get for a used OWB these days)... How about doing a gasification boiler + storage combination? This WILL save you wood according to several of our users that have already done the switch from traditional OWB's like your Taylor to a gasser, and say that they burn 30-50% less SEASONED wood... This will give you the same kind of heat and the same DHW, while cutting your wood consumption by a huge amount... If you have the space in the house, you can do the boiler in the basement, which at least keeps the mess out of the living room while letting you tend the fire in your bunny slippers if you feel so inclined...

If this sounds good, read some of the existing threads, and feel free to ask any questions..

Gooserider

 

[daleeper]

Keep in mind that some of that 8-9 cord went to heat water. Your gas/electric bill will go up to heat that water.

I know that a wood stove inside will burn less wood than your owb, but distributing the heat evenly could be an issue. How are you distributing that heat now? With ducts, radiators, radiant heat in the floor?

Do you have a chimney in the house now for a wood stove?

If I owned an owb and had it running, I would continue to use it, and work on making it more efficient and convenient. Start with burning dry wood. Think about how storage might be integrated where you could fire it once a day with a hotter fire. Make some possible firebox modifications to capture more of the heat and reduce the idle part of the cycle. Make sure that the idle cycle settings are working properly.

I guess another thing to think about is your Taylor is getting old enough to start needing extra maintenance, and has as much market value now as it ever will. Might be a good time to plan its replacement anyway.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

A 3,200 sq. ft. box is a lot of area to heat. You definitely need something big.

 

[wellbuilt home]

Hi BF , I heat 3000 sf with a equinox and it heats the house very well if the temps are 20° or above . In the teens the house stays around 67+- If I'm 0° or below the stove gets filled 5 times a day and its hard reach 67° . Ive burned about 5 cord this year and its my only source of heat .
I think 9 wet cord of wood is the same as 7 dry cord, maybe . I have friends that have out side boilers and they burn a cord a week + more if its cold .
It hard to get ahead of 10/15 cord a year . Large splits take years to season 3 or more . Regular size splits can dry in a year .
John

 

[begreen]

Yup, I was thinking an Equinox as well if the desire is for soapstone. What is the age of the house John? How well insulated?

 

[jpelizza]

Im heating 2900 sq feet and first season heating with econoburn 150. i put it in my garage. i've burned about 6.5 cord so far but thats missing the early part of season. also due to late decision of putting in my wood very unseasoned. i figure with good seasoned wood i'll be between 5-7 cord next year. i think everyone would do well c compairing wood usage to heating degree days. my area is about 6600. upstate new york a little south of albany. on days of 25 + out i load only twice. if its closer to zero probably three times. only source of heat is wood boiler and it does dhw too. i have radiant floors so water temp is anywhere from 110-145 depending on temp outside. i have a tekmar from my origianal propane boiler to be my mixing valve based on outside temp. i keep econoburn temp at 165 during day and 170 if its cold during night. i do like not going outside to load stove, i can go in garage in my jamies no problem. can't wait till season wood for next year as i know i'm losing sign. btus in the wet wood. hope this helps

joe

 

[4acrefarm]

I agree with everything gooserider said. How about adding storage as an interim step towards gasification? It might keep you inside more and you culd burn wide open and maybe increase efiencecy a little.

 

[RobC]

I'd 2nd 4acre and Goose. Never knew about storage until I found this site. Depending how well your underground pipes are insulated and other factors, if you could put storage in home, near heating load I think you would increase efficiency a fair amount.
Full load burns, potential to modify & restrict insides of OWB because of the hotter burns capturing more heat.
I got rid of my OWB, went to indoor wood stove and it was killing me to hear the oil kick on for DWH. Plus, heat distribution through out house really suffers.
Now have Tarm with storage and am really happy.
Rob

 

[joecool85]

8-9 cords a season doesn't sound that bad to me. Although I'm judging in pine/fir/willow not the "normal" firewood like ash, maple and oak. Also here in Maine we frequent the 0F mark on the thermometer.

 

[bigfrank97]

Thanks for all of the feedback. I am really interested on the inside "Storage" idea. Maybe someone can shoot me a link to read some more about it. My address is [email protected]. My house is a timber-frame construction with structural insulated panels (SIP). 10 inch panel on the roof for an R-value of 38 and 6 in panels on all exterior walls for an R-value of 25. (All R-values are according to the manufactures research, but if you own an OWB you know how that can go!). My house is very tight.

I can tell you that I save around $50.00 a month by not running the hot water tank. It is a very inefficient 80 gallon electric unit. 3 kids and a wife that insists on taking a whirlpool 5 nights a week was killing me before I put in the Taylor. Therefore, I run my OWB all summer long.

I'm a little confused on the inside water storage so correct me if I am wrong. I am currently running my Taylor to a Plenum on my furnace and using the blower to push the heat through the house via duct work. The storage tanks would then be tied into my current system and heated by another unit. The term for the other unit used to heat the water in the storage tanks is...gasification. Can someone explain or give me a link that explains gasification. It sounds like something you get after you visit the local Tex-Mex dive here in town.

 

[Gooserider]

Thanks for all of the feedback. I am really interested on the inside "Storage" idea. Maybe someone can shoot me a link to read some more about it. My address is [email protected]. My house is a timber-frame construction with structural insulated panels (SIP). 10 inch panel on the roof for an R-value of 38 and 6 in panels on all exterior walls for an R-value of 25. (All R-values are according to the manufactures research, but if you own an OWB you know how that can go!). My house is very tight.

Sounds like a nice house, and you should be doing a LOT better on wood consumption than you are, even with a lot of DHW load.

I can tell you that I save around $50.00 a month by not running the hot water tank. It is a very inefficient 80 gallon electric unit. 3 kids and a wife that insists on taking a whirlpool 5 nights a week was killing me before I put in the Taylor. Therefore, I run my OWB all summer long.

The summer time use is where you will really gain with a gasifier and storage setup - Your Taylor probably spends most of it's summer in idle mode, where it is slowly burning wood, but not actually giving you any useful heat.... A storage setup would fix that...

I'm a little confused on the inside water storage so correct me if I am wrong. I am currently running my Taylor to a Plenum on my furnace and using the blower to push the heat through the house via duct work. The storage tanks would then be tied into my current system and heated by another unit. The term for the other unit used to heat the water in the storage tanks is...gasification. Can someone explain or give me a link that explains gasification. It sounds like something you get after you visit the local Tex-Mex dive here in town.

OK, a little bit of theory - I'm going to avoid mentioning any manufacturers because I don't want to look like I'm playing favorites, but we do have some excellent commercial sponsors that pay for the banner adds you see at the top and bottom of most screens, and between them, just about all the major manufacturers are represented. Give them a visit, and help the webmaster make some money ;-)

While your definition is tasty, the gasification we talk about here is of a different sort, and is a type of wood boiler that works on a very different theory than your OWB...

In an OWB, you essentially have a box with a fire in it, sitting inside a bigger box full of water. The fire warms the box of water and you pipe the heat away. Because the fire is cooled by the water, it never gets up to the full temperatures of 1100°F or so needed for secondary combustion to burn the smoke and creosote produced by the breakdown of wood, These combustion byproducts represent about 1/3 of the potential "fuel value" of your wood, and instead of burning they end up building up in your stack and firebox as creosote, or going up the stack as smoke... Even worse, because the standard method of running an OWB is to stuff that big firebox full of wood and walk away, any time the load isn't calling for heat, the OWB goes into "idle mode" where it smolders, which eats wood, and makes lots of smoke and creosote, but doesn't give you any useful heat.... The smoke may also be annoying any neighbors, and in many places is causing the politicians to try to "deal with the problem" by bans and restrictions, that often impact even the clean burning systems.

With a gasification boiler (or "gasser") the approach is different - the most common gasser design has two chambers, an upper chamber that holds the wood, and a lower combustion chamber. The upper chamber is loaded, and a fire started, with controlled airflow that "cooks" (or gasifies) the wood and makes it break down into flammable gasses. These gases are forced down through the coal bed which heats them into a jet where they are mixed with additional air and burned in the lower chamber in a blowtorch like flame at around 2,000°F - this consumes all the combustible gasses, so you get ALL the heat out of the wood, and virtually no smoke. The heat from the combustion chamber is transferred to the water jacket and is then used for heat.

Problem is, that a gasifier is at its best when it is burning flat out, with no idling, but this makes far more heat than your house needs at any given moment. So in addition to the house, we hook the boiler up to a thermal storage tank, usually around 1,000 gallons or so of water, which we dump all the surplus heat into. When the storage tank is "full" we let the fire in the boiler burn out, as we can get all the heat we need for a while from the storage tank. Eventually the tank cools down, at which point we go build another fire in the boiler to charge the tank back up again.

With an OWB, you basically have to keep a fire burning in it 24/7 just on the off chance that your load will call for heat. With a gasser, you build a fire and heat the storage, then let the fire go out until it's needed again. Thus you burn very clean and hot when needed, and use ALL the heat produced... Our users report that while they still need to build one or two fires a day in peak cold weather, they can go as long as a week to 10 days between fires in the summer when the only demand is DHW.

Hope this helps -

Gooserider

 

[bigfrank97]

Thanks Goose and others for all of your advice. I did a forum search on gasification boilers and really found some great info. I think I have a firm understanding of how the process works, and I am very interested in pursuing the purchase of one. I am going to research some more and make some phone calls later today in an attempt to find a local dealer that I can visit this weekend.

 

[70marlin]

Keep unit, add Hearth stone tribute in front room if possible, build large lean- too or pole barn to store wood under. Get your wood suppy one year in advance so it can season correctly. You should have more heat that you'll ever use. Also make some sort of shelter for you’re out side unit so you’re out of the weather feeding the beast.

 

[firefighterjake]

My opinion . . . if I had a house that size and liked the idea of being able to regulate the temps with a thermostat, but didn't want to spend as much time cutting so much wood I would go with a gassification boiler in a heart beat . . . especially since you already have the plumbing piped and ready to go. I think you would be happier going with one of these boilers for the consistent temps rather than going with a larger woodstove which would most likely leave you with a wide range of temps (i.e. hotter nearer the stove, cooler away from the stove) . . . plus with a storage system you could continue to get domestic hot water. The only downfall . . . they are expensive units.

 

[smokinj]

Boys, I'm looking for some sound advice from someone that has experience in the flame game. I currently heat with a Taylor T-750 outside water stove. I bought this stove new when I built my house in 2004. I like the unit and especially like the domestic hot water it produces. What I don't like is the amount of wood I am feeding this beast. I am burning around 8 to 9 cords of wood a season. I load it up in the morning and again at night. 8 to 9 cords a year seems like a lot of wood when I think back to the days when I was growing up and we had an older Hearthstone stove in the house. I remember loading it two or three times a day. Dad claims we would burn around 4 to 5 cords per season, but I don't remember.

Now, I am considering getting rid of the "Beast" and possibly buying a Hearthstone large enough to heat the house (3200 sq.ft.) Do you think this is a good move on my part. I feel that the indoor units are more efficient then my outdoor stove, and they probably are easier to maintain.

I'm sure I can sell the Taylor and basically buy the new stove and probably pay for the install. My Taylor is in excellent condition and I really got it for a steal from a local dealer that was going out of business. Do you think I would be using less wood per season?

There are some great advantages to having an outside water stove. I like keeping the mess outside, I can burn green wood, and the instant hot water is awesome. However, the early morning hikes outside in 20 inches of snow while fighting freezing temperatures gets old quickly!

What do you think? Am I crazy? I haven't really done a whole lot of research on indoor stoves, so I am also open to suggestions on good quality stoves that I might consider to purchase if I do make the switch.

I also have question on installation of an indoor unit that I will be posting at a later time.

I would consider a wood stove for the shoulder months and run that beast just in the very cold months and get your wood as seasons as possiable I run through 10 cords every year heat 2700 sq ft. and dhw I been considering putting in a stove for this very reason. Be fun to run the best of both worlds..

 

[Reggie Dunlap]

If you don't want to spend a lot of money right now I would keep your boiler and add as much storage as possible. As for resale your boiler's not worth much and you could use the $3,000 you were going to spend on the stove to add the storage. Then, in a few years, you're in a position to upgrade to an indoor gasification boiler with the storage already completed. The gasification boiler will be way ahead of the OWB in efficiency.

I would also start burning dry hardwood and I think you'll see your wood consumption go way down.

 

[joecool85]

If you don't want to spend a lot of money right now I would keep your boiler and add as much storage as possible. As for resale your boiler's not worth much and you could use the $3,000 you were going to spend on the stove to add the storage. Then, in a few years, you're in a position to upgrade to an indoor gasification boiler with the storage already completed. The gasification boiler will be way ahead of the OWB in efficiency.

I would also start burning dry hardwood and I think you'll see your wood consumption go way down.

I agree completely, couldn't have said it better myself.