Hot-air wood-furnace with own attached room, wood storage, hot water tank

[jdemaris]

Somebody asked about building a room around a central-heating wood- furnace to help dry wood - in another forum. I did it a few years ago and it works great. Here is some info. I added fireproof ceilings and siding to the outside since the photos were taken - although both aren't needed for safey - more for cosmetics and insurance purposed.

I've been heating 100% with firewood for over 30 years and have tried different systems. Two years ago I built this new, well-insulated room attached to my house and gargage/barn with a hot-air wood-furnace in the middle of it. The room holds 4-5 full cords of wood, all stacked around the furnace. If anything, it works better then planned. Attached barn holds another 6-7 full cords. Also have an 80 gallon water-storage preheat tank hooked to coils in the furnace. Circulates by thermosiphon and makes more hot water than we ever use - with no electricity or pumps involved. Pretank feeds into an LP heater that only comes on in the non-heating season.

The room has one door attached to the house, one to the barn, and one to the back property. Many ways to bring wood in. Also have a battery-backup and inverter system under the clothes drying rack in the photos. This way, when power is out, the blower in the furnace keeps on working. Hot air pipes go underground and come up in several rooms in the house. Heat pipes are 10" flexible insulated pipe put inside hard plastic culver-conduit for burial.

Chimney is a Canadian version - better insulated and more fireproof than US built versions. CF Sentinel with a lot of fireproof insulation in it. One really nice feature is - I clean the chimeny without even going outside. Just pop it off the back of the furnace, and run the brush up from the bottom. A thorough cleaning takes less than half an hour.

Having the room attached to the house is a pleasure. The room also works great for drying our wet winter clothes, boots, etc. On a drying rack and also laid right on top of the furnace bonnet. I do not , however rely on this to dry green wood. I cut and stack outside all summer. Then before the fall rain and snow comes, I fill the room. Once the fire is going full-time though, wet wood brought into the room drys very fast. This is the best system I've used yet. Only drawback is the electricity to run the furnace blower. I wish I could of built it to run by convection only - but that would require a furnace in the basement and centrally located. Not possible here. The original part of my house was built 1820, then several additions stuck on as years went by. In my case the electricity is a moot point since I have solar-electric anyway. Subsequently, the furnace room has two backups - its own small battery bank and 3000 watt inverter, and also my main battery bank and twin inverters that run the entire house and barn. This redundancy is not needed, but I had the stuff anyway. The batteries in the furnace room are pulled out every summer and used at a remote camp I have in the Adirondack mountains.

Furnace is a Meyers Woodchuck. Simple and heavy-duty. Chimney is 10" Canadian Sentinel CF.
Conforms to ULC S-629 Canadian Standard that requires the chimney to withstand three 30 minute chimney fires at 2100°F. Listing #195-7110, 7113, 7156
Can be run full time at 1200 degrees F.

 

[JustWood]

Nice setup.I have the 526 Woodchuck and love it! I also added on to the house . A room for the furnace ,wood and wet/dirty work clothes and boots. Also keeps the wood related mess out of the house. I have a generator for back up and also looking into a battery bank set up like yours.