28-4000, USS 1300, or other to heat Pole Barn

[scottbeckerle]

Hey everyone, I've got a 40'x60'x10' tall with R21 on walls and ceiling (open rafters) that I've been wanting to add some form of heat source in. With Black Friday coming up and Rural King having a 20% off coupon made me start looking into a wood furnace, the US Stove 1300 or 1500 for instance. The prices for these are $799 and $1039 after the 20% coupon which seems like a good deal but after coming here and reading I wonder if I really want a US Stove after all. They seem to be not wildly regarded as a quality product, but might be sufficient use for a Pole Barn I'm going to heat up occasionally to work in and maybe hold above freezing for a week or so during the coldest portion of winter.

What has also happened looking around on this site led me to discovering the Englander 28-4000 Add On Furnace. Now it seems to be regraded as pretty good quality item and has some features like the glass door I like, but I am unsure if it will have enough heat output to heat up my barn to 70. I live in Southern, IN so the winters are not the coldest here but it can get to 10 degrees or so outside. Since I'm new to the whole wood furnace world, would anyone recommend the Englander for my situation or would the US Stove option be good enough since I wont really be warming it consistently like a house so quality and efficiency might not be a huge concern for me. If the US Stove is good enough, then I feel like the 1300 (115,000btu) is big enough, but if someone thinks not then please advise. Id hate to spend money on something that wont really heat my barn up from a cold state to 70 for some poker playing and barn tinkering. Of course other recommendations are open, I'm just trying to stay on the low side of cost.

Thanks you all for any of the help.

 

[Highbeam]

How much more would a Drolet heatmax or heatpro cost you?

 

[TCaldwell]

I’d be concerned if the output is enough to warm it up in a reasonable time, my gues is not reliably

 

[3fordasho]

I have a 40x60' Quonset style building that has been completely spray foamed. I like to keep it just above freezing all winter long and this might take one load per night in my Drolet tundra during the coldest part of the year. Now to get that ~36-40F up to 70F would take a long time with just the wood furnace so I fire up the 120K btu hanging LP unit heater for about 15 minutes and once up to temp the wood furnace can maintain pretty well.
A wood stove would not make much of a dent in this building, think wood furnace and the bigger the better. IMHO.

Now there is a couple ways to run these EPA wood furnaces, Raging fire with damper open and lots of heat going up the flue (more heat, short burns, in-efficient), or damper closed and secondary burn (think efficient and long burns). I tend to run mine damper closed where they shine, but bringing up to temp a cold pole barn is not one of them. EPA wood stoves are the same way, only no or less effective blower to distribute the heat.

 

[scottbeckerle]

I honestly haven't even priced much locally. This was sort of a spur of the moment thing due to the Black Friday Sale coming up. I've always been considered a wood furnace, but not exactly knowing anything about them I was hesitant until I knew a little more about how they function. I've read a lot of stuff on this forum and I was starting to become concerned that they won't necessarily heat up my size of a barn in any timely manner, if ever. Going from 40-70 is a big jump in temp with that large of a space & concrete slab. Now hearing Time say hes can just turn on his LP unit heater and have it up to temp in 15 min makes me lean towards just doing a unit heater for now and my in the future add a furnace later. Being new to all of this stuff, I do have the questions if the Wood Furnace says up to 125,000 BTU and the Unit Heater has the same 125,000 BTU rating, are they not the same? Maybe I an getting confused and tricked by the way some of these companies state their BTU outputs on the furnaces. Now if a wood furnace is going to take 2hrs to heat up my barn, that isn't really necessarily a problem for me because I can always start heating up in the morning when I wake up but if its going to struggle and take 4 or maybe never even reach 70 when its 0-10 degrees outside, that's a problem.

 

[3fordasho]

The difference is the gas unit heater is putting out the full rated BTU a few minutes into the burn right up to the gas valve shutting off. The wood furnace slowly ramps up and might put out max output for a hour or two and then taper off. Now is the max rated output of the wood furnace with air inlet wide open so you're blowing though a load of wood and sending a lot of heat up the flue, or when the furnace is in its efficient mode, damper closed, good secondary burn going on ? I don't know. A gas furnace is rated to a known standard, I'm not so sure about the wood furnace, I think the wood furnace ratings are subject to a lot more BS marketing fluff.

I've never tried running the wood furnace wide open (air inlet wide open) to see if it would rival the ability of the gas unit heater to raise temps.
The 800F+ flue temps I would see in this scenario keep me from trying it. When the furnace is running with air inlet closed, good secondary action, efficient mode I will see flue temps around 350-400F but I suspect with a btu output only about 50% of the max rating. Now that 50% output will last a much longer time because your are not sending excess heat up the flue, and secondary burn is utilizing the energy available in the wood better. (less smoke).

So how to get more heat out of the wood furnace and run it so it's efficient and clean burning? Bigger firebox, bigger heat exchanger. Look at a 4.5-6cuft box vs the <4cuft of the tundra, caddy, 28-4000. Of course there is a down side to this as well, the bigger box will take more wood every time to get it into it's efficient mode. This can be a problem with the heat load is low, ie its 45f outside and now your overheating the shop in shoulder season.

For me the best compromise is the combination of a gas unit heater and wood heat. In my case I use the shop quite a bit and still fail to burn though a 120gallon propane tank every season.

Propane/NG to quickly bring the temp up, wood to maintain.

I honestly haven't even priced much locally. This was sort of a spur of the moment thing due to the Black Friday Sale coming up. I've always been considered a wood furnace, but not exactly knowing anything about them I was hesitant until I knew a little more about how they function. I've read a lot of stuff on this forum and I was starting to become concerned that they won't necessarily heat up my size of a barn in any timely manner, if ever. Going from 40-70 is a big jump in temp with that large of a space & concrete slab. Now hearing Time say hes can just turn on his LP unit heater and have it up to temp in 15 min makes me lean towards just doing a unit heater for now and my in the future add a furnace later. Being new to all of this stuff, I do have the questions if the Wood Furnace says up to 125,000 BTU and the Unit Heater has the same 125,000 BTU rating, are they not the same? Maybe I an getting confused and tricked by the way some of these companies state their BTU outputs on the furnaces. Now if a wood furnace is going to take 2hrs to heat up my barn, that isn't really necessarily a problem for me because I can always start heating up in the morning when I wake up but if its going to struggle and take 4 or maybe never even reach 70 when its 0-10 degrees outside, that's a problem.

 

[scottbeckerle]

Tim, I appreciate all of that great info. I knew I just needed to hear from someone that has experience with both heater types, but around here not many people are using a wood furnace in the barn. Also since you have a building similar in size to my own helps also. The 500 gallon tank to my house is right behind my barn so I think for the time being I'm going to look into a Unit Heater since I know that will work the way I want. Possibly in the future I'll add a wood furnace if I burn through propane fast but for now that seems to be the best option.

 

[jwfirebird]

I have a 30x40 not kept warm, insulation on about 25%, got a 150k kerosene torpedo heater and It will make that comfortable to work in my tshirt in half an hour to an hour depending how cold it is. but they are loud normally I will turn it on and go have a coffee or something then cut it off. they are pretty directional too, they have different types of furnaces gas or electric that you could keep it 50s or something and it would be much easier to warm from that.

 

[Highbeam]

Shop people love those hanging heaters. They are cheap, simple, powerful, safe, and take up no floor space.

Another trick is a regular house furnace which can often be bought cheap used. With those you get a manly blower, can use air filter and ducting. Some guys even use heat pumps for summer cooling.

I like sitting in the shop and burning stuff in the stove. My slab has radiant pex tubes in it for hot water heat but they are unused.

 

[Threerun]

I have a 28-4000 in my 38x30x12 stick built shop, which is currently only partially insulated. Have yet to do the ceiling, 1/2 walls are insulated. If it's 10-20 deg outside I can raise the temps to 50deg when running the unit full tilt. That's burning ponderosa pine pine too.

I'm fairly confident the 28-4000 will be great for this size shop once insulated, but that's r-21 walls (stick built shop) and I'm blowing in at least 12" insulation once the ceiling is done (which will be about R-43).

Last year we had a stretch of 10 days that saw temps from zero to -30F. I tried running the unit full tilt and no way was it raising the temps above 10 degrees, lol. Gotta get that puppy insulated when I get some $$..

I think you'd be okay with the 28-4000, and it really does a good job as a dump heater. This is my second unit- had one when I lived in WV- and it was a basement install and we dumped it to two registers under our cathedral great room, and it did an awesome job heating a large air space. The only downside is that it is really, really wood hungry, even damped down. Damped down too much it is just dirty as heck. That's why I prefer to run it very hot- get it going and keep it going. But I've got piles, and piles of ponderosa pine- I just toss a handful in every hour and let 'er rip!

 

[scottbeckerle]

Everyone one that know around here uses those unit heaters with a few that have house a house furnace in the shop as well. Sure they all work well but I just hate the fact I'll have to use propane (me being cheap and paying someone) I have access to unlimited wood split and loaded a few hundred feet down the road for free and with my love of burning stuff I just can't kick the desire to use a wood burner. Ive done some heat loss calcs on my barn and once I get my ceiling spray foamed I'll have a heat loss of 68,000 BTU. Now I understand that a wood burner wont get it up to heat fast but sounds like 68,000 BTU is something a wood burner/furnace should be able to produce You all might prove me wrong though. Now I do already have a 165,000 and 85,000 forced air heaters that just sit here that if I needed to heat up the barn quick could be utilized for that. I don't really use my barn for any form of serious work, more of a place to get away and tinker on things and do maintenance on vehicles. I keep wondering if I could start a fire first thing in the morning when I know I'm going out there and by the time I have breakfast and get ready, it might be pushing warm air and knock the chill out. This is all theory of course since only thing I'm familiar with is turning a furnace on and having instant heat. I appreciate the replys.

 

[maple1]

Any amount of wood you can efficiently burn will be that much equivalent LP or whatever else fuel that you won't have to buy. So if not buying as much fuel is a priority (sounds like it from the above) and you have lots of wood - then just get the furnace, and whatever wood you do burn will be that much less $$ you'll have to spend on LP. Even if it doesn't give the massive amount of instant heat you might want at times - for that, yes also install a LP heater and use it only when you have to or want to. I am doubtful a wood unit will give you all the heat you want all the time - unless you also want to keep feeding it 3 or 4 times a day x however many days. But it should take a chill off in an hour or so.

 

[blades]

well right now I would doubt that you can even buy the 1300 or the 1500 because neither has passed the new regs from the EPA and we are past the sales cut off point for the older units.so that would put you in the Tundra, Clayton, Ashley group of furnaces or the Englander . Personally from having a 1300 Hot Blast from USS- no, as a wood unit. it is a coal furnace that you can burn wood in and that is how it is being sold now as a coal burner. same for the 1500. Which is slightly better but that ain't saying much. I do not care for USS having been a customer previously. If you need a part they are way over priced and slower than molasses left outside in a typical Wisconsin winter. As was said the Englander likely will maintain the temps but it wont get it there by itself in a reasonable amount of time. The down side to the EPA stove/ furnace is the 4-5 hours of coals burning down before you can effectively reload. You can get the air warm but that dang concrete floor is what freezes your toes. I have a rented 2000 sq foot shop insulated metal building 6" floor ,I can tell you that floor is a huge heat-sink. I have 2 200,000 btu furnaces in here, ya, I can get the air warm quick but it will be about 3 in the afternoon before that floor is reasonable. Local codes prevent any furnace at ground level . I sure am not going to put a 400+ pound wood stove/furnace 15 ft in the air and keep it loaded. Likely the best way to heat a shop is the pex in the floor hydronic, a package boiler system is not that bad price wise, with wood you need btu storage to make anything effective and the newer boilers making the regs are expensive. The old school water jacket style units just are never going to pass the new regs because of what they are.( even those were/are pricey) Even the highly rated hot air furnace from MN only has an effective 4 hour heat cycle and then you are in the coaling stage which is about 25% of rated output. There were several effective stove designs that reclaimed a good portion of heat going up the flue prior to the first set of reg from the EPA- which of course due to associated costs of testing withdrew from the market. There is at least one wood hot water system that uses exhaust heat ex-changer system to get the job done - do not know cost of same. It does make the new regs. it is also a catalytic type unit. I do not know what other items might be in the works hydronic wise stateside - but there will be items showing up similar to what is available across the big pond for a number of years. some of those are available here now. Dealers are few and far between.

 

[scottbeckerle]

well right now I would doubt that you can even buy the 1300 or the 1500 because neither has passed the new regs from the EPA and we are past the sales cut off point for the older units.so that would put you in the Tundra, Clayton, Ashley group of furnaces or the Englander . Personally from having a 1300 Hot Blast from USS- no, as a wood unit. it is a coal furnace that you can burn wood in and that is how it is being sold now as a coal burner. same for the 1500. Which is slightly better but that ain't saying much. I do not care for USS having been a customer previously. If you need a part they are way over priced and slower than molasses left outside in a typical Wisconsin winter. As was said the Englander likely will maintain the temps but it wont get it there by itself in a reasonable amount of time. The down side to the EPA stove/ furnace is the 4-5 hours of coals burning down before you can effectively reload. You can get the air warm but that dang concrete floor is what freezes your toes. I have a rented 2000 sq foot shop insulated metal building 6" floor ,I can tell you that floor is a huge heat-sink. I have 2 200,000 btu furnaces in here, ya, I can get the air warm quick but it will be about 3 in the afternoon before that floor is reasonable. Local codes prevent any furnace at ground level . I sure am not going to put a 400+ pound wood stove/furnace 15 ft in the air and keep it loaded. Likely the best way to heat a shop is the pex in the floor hydronic, a package boiler system is not that bad price wise, with wood you need btu storage to make anything effective and the newer boilers making the regs are expensive. The old school water jacket style units just are never going to pass the new regs because of what they are.( even those were/are pricey) Even the highly rated hot air furnace from MN only has an effective 4 hour heat cycle and then you are in the coaling stage which is about 25% of rated output. There were several effective stove designs that reclaimed a good portion of heat going up the flue prior to the first set of reg from the EPA- which of course due to associated costs of testing withdrew from the market. There is at least one wood hot water system that uses exhaust heat ex-changer system to get the job done - do not know cost of same. It does make the new regs. it is also a catalytic type unit. I do not know what other items might be in the works hydronic wise stateside - but there will be items showing up similar to what is available across the big pond for a number of years. some of those are available here now. Dealers are few and far between.

You seem to be on the same page as everyone else that has owned a USS which is why Im not even considering them anymore. As far as the concrete pad I do wish I would have had the it installed with PEX, but for whatever reason that wasn't even a consideration at the time. Radiant floor heat on a boiler would be pretty slick. The one thing I suppose I have going for me is my winters are much less severe then what you all will have to combat up North. Heck its going to be almost 60 in a couple of days. Its pretty rare to get much lower then 30's during the day around here in Southern Indiana.

I'm not familiar with MN. I assumes its a company that I'm not familiar with.

 

[blades]

MN = Minnesota the state, because i can't - just came to Kuma furnaces (hot air) boiler ad above Garn , Froling is another

 

[JRHAWK9]

Even the highly rated hot air furnace from MN only has an effective 4 hour heat cycle and then you are in the coaling stage which is about 25% of rated output.

If you are referring to the Kuuma, this is definitely NOT what I'm seeing with mine. If this was the case, there would be no way it would heat our house in colder temps. If I get time and I'm bored one day, I'll sit down and monitor my plenum temps over a course of a 10 hour burn and plot them vs time. My heat output is very consistent....for a warm air furnace.

I'll copy/paste what I sent to another member when we were having a discussion and I was monitoring temps.

How I have things setup now, with the computer on absolute minimum burn (which is all it's been set at so far this winter, even when we have had low teens at night), I see mainly 111°-113° plenum temps for the majority of the burn. As I sit here right now, I loaded a smallish 6 hour (32lb) load about 30 minutes ago and I'm now seeing 113° plenum temps with the computer on pilot. When I re-loaded on maybe about a gallon of coals I was seeing 106°-108° plenum temps when I re-loaded. Draft is at 0.055" W.C.

As far as internal pipe temps go, I'm sampling them about 15" from the collar. On this re-load on a normal bed of coals with the computer on low, it climbs to about 360ish at the most. Right now, as I look at it sitting on my desk while I type it's 313° with the computer on pilot with 113° plenum temps. It's now actually dropping..........307°. Continuing to watch, it dropped to a low of 291° then the computer opened up the primary air to "1" and then it climbed back up to 351°. Now it's going back down again, so the computer must have put it back on pilot. Once settled in and the computer stays on pilot, I will see very low temps for all of the burn cycle, high 200's/low 300's. Still have 113° plenum temps. Just looked again now and it's back down to 284°.....lol Plenum temps still 113°.

OK, almost 2 hours after re-load; flue temps currently bottomed out at 268° and then rose to 338° and then started dropping again. Plenum temps went from 111° to 113°.

There will always be a coaling stage with wood burning furnaces, but it's nowhere near that bad. I do have a variable speed controller on my blower, which does help with keeping supply temps consistent.

 

[blades]

Not implying that heat is no longer available just not the max btu as rated , which is mostly the total of a complete burn cycle on wood units vs a conventional gas,oil, electric, furnace- which once lit is at max btu until fuel source is stopped.. Now the latest generation of modulated units might be different in this respect on conventional units. Don't have one so I can't be specific on those.
Kuumas page says something about this area. Been awhile since i have read it so I can't quote it. Wood Coals still put off heat, more if fed with forced combustion air- I do not know all the ins and outs of Kuuma units. I do know that with our conventional stoves when pushed hard the coal build up is always the sticker to be reduced before a reload. My favorite way was to lump all the coals together in front of the dog house and put a couple compressed wood bricks on top of them - worked fairly well for me in the NC30. Others used material that would not leave much in the way of residual coals.