New construction- what is your ultimate setup?

[emesine]

Hello all,

I am looking into building a house next year. I want to heat with wood, because we are building in a hardwood forest in Indiana (mostly ash and sugar maple). Starting from scratch, what would be your "ultimate setup" to burn wood? We are building ~4500 sq feet, first floor and walk out basement.

I want to store wood in a building connected to my house if at all possible.... I don't relish the idea of walking out to a separate woodshed to heat my house when there is snow on the ground. Here is what I am thinking:

Store wood along with a gassifier (I am thinking garn vs. woodgun) in a large garage slot 12X26X10. Girdle (cut through the sapwood to kill) standing trees about a year before I plan on cutting them for firewood. By the time I cut them, the wood should be pretty well seasoned. Cut, split and stack the wood directly into my garage slot. Will that be enough to season adequately?

I have thrown around the idea of installing a fan above my cooling unit to catch the heat blowing out in the summer and blowing this heat into my garage stall to complete the seasoning process.

I am definitely open to other ideas!

Andrew

 

[Chris S]

My ultimate set up is the boiler is a detached building, with some wood storage with it as well as a backup boiler.
Pressurized storage in the basement of the house, radiant heat ( use that stored energy down to 110 degrees)

I had a boiler in my basement in the 90s between the spiders & occasional ants, dust & dirt, I would opt for a once or twice a day trip outside over being in the basement. The boilers are much better now, plus storage, plus snow melt on the path I'd be walking on.
I think a 1 cup brewer in the boiler room would help me with the morning burn as well.
Should I go on?

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

Hi Andrew; I know Wood Gun is a great boiler(you want the stainless one) & I hear nothing but love for the Garn So I don't think you can go wrong with either of these. I'm new to the forum, have burn't a lot of wood though & as others have said wood drying doesn't begin until you split it. Yes, 10 year old cut logs that are up off the ground might be an exception, I seldom get these though. I don't believe your waste heat will do much. The air circulation might help a little. The only shortcut I know to season wood is to kiln dry using an enclosed cast iron radiator etc. Should be ready to burn in 5 to 7 days. Other than that,cut,split stack,season. Good luck, Randy

 

[ikessky]

My ideal setup would be a boiler of some sort into a heat exchanger in the plenum of the NG furance and then radiant heat in the floor of the garage. I would definitely also go with something that has a secondary burn. Due to the layout of my current house, I'm kind of stuck with a forced air add on wood furnace. I'm going to put a duct run out to my garage to add a little heat to it and so I can bleed some off from the house when I need to. The add on tends to cook us out and I don't want to idle it down too much and create a bunch of creasote.

 

[emesine]

Thanks for all the input,

We have the luxury of designing the heating system from the ground up. I'm going to do radiant heat in the basement slab and in the first floor. My biggest problem is how to deal with the wood.

Randy, it looks like I am in for a sore back most of the time- How should I organize my wood shed? Basically, it looks like I need storage for TWO seasons of firewood. How do your organize your wood and get it to your boiler? If I am moving 10+ tons of wood per season, I only want to move it once (from woods to woodshed).

Just looking at my land I don't have a place at this point to put up a separate shed for wood storage, so it looks like I will have to incorporate the wood shed into the design of the house. I am planning on sealing it off to keep the critters out of the living space. Any ideas on layout of an attached woodshed?

Thanks!

 

[Como]

Hopefully we will be building a house in a few years time.

I would expect anything like a Garn to be overkill, it would be a feed it once a week scenario.

I would expect out biggest energy use would be cooking and hot water, so perhaps tying these things into each may be a solution. A small Froling, pellet so we would not have to worry about back up or storage.

The advantage of new high efficency construction.

 

[rowerwet]

you might still want gas or oil for a backup for winter vacations, mabey something that doesn't require electricity for big storms like a gas floor furnace. Put a large overhang on the sides of the garage and use that area to season wood, put the wood boiler in the garage with space to store a few days wood next to it. have the garage attached by a breezeway, cool bug free shade in the summer, with storm windows so no wind/snow in the winter. should keep the bugs out of the house without having to put on a coat to stoke the fire. have the overhang face south/ west for solar drying to go faster

 

[Singed Eyebrows]

Hi Andrew; I burn't a lot of wood as mentioned, I heated my house with an Energy Mate boiler for 10 years. That said, I was never organized & moved wood constantly. I was a lot younger then. There are many people on here with organized wood sheds & hopefully they will chime in. My wood for my new gasser is going in the basement. I believe it was Eric that said he had 8 cords in his. My basement will have 2 sections, one for wood ready to burn & one to season. My home garage will also hold wood. I need to cut a hole in the basement wall so I can drop wood right where the stacks are going. Right now I'm taking wood through a crowded basement & this is a real time waste. Wood stored in the basement needs to be taken down in winter or early spring or as Eric said it can turn into a science experiment with the bugs. My suggestion would be to build a garage/woodshed which is what many Hearth members garages have become. If you build it big enough you might even get your car in it. You do want to be abe to get at the dry wood that has seasoned, so you need to get around it. Otherwise you might have 5 cords of wet wood blocking your seasoned wood. Randy

 

[flyingcow]

My garage----errrr I mean wood storage building is 24x36, this has my boiler in it. I'm using half of that for wood storage and boiler room. Basically 12x36 area, my boiler room takes up about a 7x12 ft section of this. The other half/side of garage is storage of junk. I've got an area that I can store about 10 cord. I'm figuring I'm going to burn 6 cord year round. Basically I'll have 2-5 cord piles. Might even put a 2 cord section on other side of garage, just got to move other junk. Trying to set it up, as you mentioned, so I'm handling the wood as little as possible. I don't know what your wood consumption would be, but you thought about 12x26x10 might work. I'm guessing it would be a full area.

 

[sweetheat]

my ultimate set up is reality now. 28X42 slab with radiant heat, Tarm solo 40 with 806 gallons of storage. basic big flywheel. I stopped burning 2 weeks ago. Top of storage is still 92 degrees. I've burned 2.75 cords of hardwood from 10/30/08 til 4/14/09 my slab zone is set at 64 degrees works with 100 degree water from storage, I've kept this temp all winter. wood handling can be easy, you could build 2 cord cage trailers, drive them to the supplier, fill by their conveyor belt, drive back park trailer, season outside, move to covered shed in the fall or cover with tarp, use next year when dry. Don't store wet wood in your basement, it will mildew and dry slowly plus bugs. dry in sun and wind then bring it in. sweetheat

 

[Gooserider]

I would do an indoor gassifier either in the basement or an attached garage / woodshed, with storage. All heat would be in-floor radiant. I would also design to maximize the south-facing roof and load it with a mix of PV and solar hot water panels, with the idea of having at least enough electric power to run the heating system for a few days in the event of a power failure, and enough solar heat to not have to burn just for DHW (and possibly put a dent in the burning requirement the rest of the season)

I want the boiler where I can get to it without going outside other than for wood.

I want the wood outside where it will season (and I would NOT count on "standing deads" to season - ever) but where I can get to it fairly easily (no snow-melt, but must have room for snow-blower)

For backup I'd probably use a tankless gas heating unit.

Possibly mini-split AC units

Gooserider

 

[CowboyAndy]

Hello all,

I am looking into building a house next year. I want to heat with wood, because we are building in a hardwood forest in Indiana (mostly ash and sugar maple). Starting from scratch, what would be your "ultimate setup" to burn wood? We are building ~4500 sq feet, first floor and walk out basement.

I want to store wood in a building connected to my house if at all possible.... I don't relish the idea of walking out to a separate woodshed to heat my house when there is snow on the ground. Here is what I am thinking:

Store wood along with a gassifier (I am thinking garn vs. woodgun) in a large garage slot 12X26X10. Girdle (cut through the sapwood to kill) standing trees about a year before I plan on cutting them for firewood. By the time I cut them, the wood should be pretty well seasoned. Cut, split and stack the wood directly into my garage slot. Will that be enough to season adequately?

I have thrown around the idea of installing a fan above my cooling unit to catch the heat blowing out in the summer and blowing this heat into my garage stall to complete the seasoning process.

I am definitely open to other ideas!

Andrew

I would say nay on the standing gridled trees to season. You have to look at the process that wood seasons. when it is (somewhat) healthy the only place for moisture to escape is through exposed flesh. you would have an entire tree trying to shed its moisture through that 1 cut (exposed flesh). I have maple logs that are 2-3" and 20" long sitting in the sun and wind since last july that are not seasoned yet.

We are going to be building a house in 2 more years so Ive been giving thought as to the setup of the heating system, and what i have come up with is a 3 wall exposed shed to hold 10 cords and an OWB. the house is going to be a simple ranch, and the woodshed will create an L shape with the house, all the way at one end. the boiler will be on the far end of the shed, with openings on one side to actually load the wood in. it will be positioned so the wind goes right through it crossways. the roof will be transparant. the walls will just be 2x4, 16 o.c. no sheathing from april to november. during the winter months a sheathing like what they use for double wides in transit will be put up to stop snow. there will be a door leading into the woodshed from the house.

we will have in floor radiant if the budget allows us. if not then it will be baseboard hw. it will also provide dhw during winter months. 500 gallon storage. backup will be a propane furnace, and propane will provide dhw in the summer as well as cooking needs.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Basically, it looks like I need storage for TWO seasons of firewood. How do your organize your wood and get it to your boiler? If I am moving 10+ tons of wood per season, I only want to move it once (from woods to woodshed).

I put new trusses on top of my flat roof last year that extend 12 feet off the back of my garage. It is open on three sides for ventilation. A door in the back of the garage leads to the boiler 6 feet away. I am going to use metal siding during the winter months to keep the snow out. My storage is going in the basement as I am trying to preserve as much of my garage as possible. This face of the roof turned out to be perfect solar south with no shading. I optimized the slope of the roof for solar pv. Hope to get all my kwhs from the sun and btus from the forest by the end of the year.

I designed my shed for a year of storage with some safety factor. The following years will stay in block form adjacent to the shed. They will get split and stacked in the shed the spring before they get burned.

I am toying with the idea of building a terrace on the uphill side of my shed about 6' above the floor of the shed. The idea is to drop the blocks on the terrace and then split directly into the shed. Gravity can be your friend when moving that much material.

 

[Gooserider]

Thanks for all the input,

We have the luxury of designing the heating system from the ground up. I'm going to do radiant heat in the basement slab and in the first floor. My biggest problem is how to deal with the wood.

Randy, it looks like I am in for a sore back most of the time- How should I organize my wood shed? Basically, it looks like I need storage for TWO seasons of firewood. How do your organize your wood and get it to your boiler? If I am moving 10+ tons of wood per season, I only want to move it once (from woods to woodshed).

Just looking at my land I don't have a place at this point to put up a separate shed for wood storage, so it looks like I will have to incorporate the wood shed into the design of the house. I am planning on sealing it off to keep the critters out of the living space. Any ideas on layout of an attached woodshed?

Thanks!

I currently have two sheds, one holds about 1.5 cords, the other about 6, (The older one was built before I had really gotten into burning, and hadn't appreciated how much wood it took) - I think the key is to divide the shed into "bays" so that you can logically fill the shed and use the wood mostly on a "first in - first out" basis... I like to have a few feet of separation between the shed and the house for reasons of insect control and better drying, but it isn't essential. However if I were building a shed against the house, I'd feel better if the house wall were concrete or other bug and rot proof material.

My larger shed is open on both long sides, and has a partition in the center that divides the long sides into two 8' wide bays that I stack in side to side rows, so I end up with 5 rows in each bay, each row being 8' long, and the height of the shed tall. I then just remember which stacks I put in first and burn them, then work my way into the newer wood. (I burn about 4 cords / year at present) The next year I will fill the shed back up, and repeat...
I do try to be further ahead than my sheds will hold, so I tend to have some additional uncovered stacks that are seasoning while I wait to burn the shed contents - then I'll move them into the shed for final seasoning, and rebuild the outside stacks once the sheds are full...

With my current consumption, if I were building against the wall, I'd probably try to be about 4 rows deep, with at least 4 bays, sized so that I'd burn no more than two bays worth per year. If I had a lot of available wall space, I'd go for more bays, with fewer rows per bay.

Gooserider

 

[runningmike]

Anybody use tension fabric structures or 'temporary' structure for wood storage? I tarped-it this past winter, my first heating with wood, and while the tarps more-or-less kept my wood dry, burrowing through at the back of the wood pile (~~12 cord) as spring approached and I still had upwardsof 4' of snow build-up was a pain in the keister.

 

[Gooserider]

Anybody use tension fabric structures or 'temporary' structure for wood storage? I tarped-it this past winter, my first heating with wood, and while the tarps more-or-less kept my wood dry, burrowing through at the back of the wood pile (~~12 cord) as spring approached and I still had upwardsof 4' of snow build-up was a pain in the keister.

Not quite sure what you mean by "tension fabric structures" but many folks have reported using the various styles of "temporary garage" units as woodsheds with good success... Seems like the best results are with the style that has open or removable sides - take the sides off in the summer for optimal airflow through the piles, put them back on in the winter to keep the snow off.... Most also seem to feel a need to put in some additional side supports to hold up the wood piles.

I have one that I use for storing stuff other than wood, but if I were putting up another woodshed I'd consider it, they seem to be a pretty good approach, fast and easy to put up, cost competive with any sort of wooden structure, and so on...

Gooserider

 

[emesine]

Thanks everyone for your input. I am going to keep the wood gun in an attached garage (sealed from the rest of the house!!). I will keep a season's worth of wood inside the garage, with another winter's worth of wood seasoning outside. I will move my wood into the garage every year, and cut another winter's wood to be stored outside. That way I have seasoned wood, and it will be in a convenient place for me to load the boiler.

Andrew

 

[Hansson]

If I was buldning a new house I had put the money on insulation and skip the heating system.At least keep it very simple.
A Passive House

(broken link removed)

 

[emesine]

Can you give me more information? We live in Indiana, and I have 4 children, so heating and hot water needs are going to be high We are planning on a full walk-out basement (bedrooms) and first floor (living area), which should make our insulation excellent. What else should I do to minimize energy expenditure?

Andrew

 

[Gooserider]

Can you give me more information? We live in Indiana, and I have 4 children, so heating and hot water needs are going to be high We are planning on a full walk-out basement (bedrooms) and first floor (living area), which should make our insulation excellent. What else should I do to minimize energy expenditure?

Andrew

There are all sorts of design approaches out there ranging from the fairly routine to the quite exotic... In a more or less standard stick-built house, the key thing is to work on maximizing insulation levels, and even more importantly, air sealing and eliminating "thermal bridges"... It would probably best to use a spray-foam type insulation in the walls, and foam-board or other high R-value material for your outside sheathing or use the 2x6 wall design using staggered 2x4 studding (eliminate studs as heat bridges)

If you want to go more unusal, you could look at a Monolithic Dome - among many other advantages, they claim incredibly high R-values and thermal efficiency... IMHO domes are also cool in that you get a lot of living space for a given size footprint...

In any case there is all the stuff about orienting the house properly, and designing it to maximize solar gain in the winter and minimize it in the summer (i.e. lots of south facing windows w/ overhangs, minimal glazing on other sides, and so on.

I would also try to incorporate as much solar energy gathering potential into the design as possible (lots of south facing roof, pitched at close to your latitude) This could be used either to get rid of a lot of your heating bill, or do "net metering" type things w/ solar electric to lower your electric bill (this will get more appealing if / when all the technology that is supposed to be available "real soon now" actually gets the cost per installed watt of PV solar down to a more reasonable level... Don't know when it will get here, but it would be good to be ready to take advantage of it when it does...

Sometimes it may be hard to tell the solid info from the hype, but it is claimed that a really well designed and built house can end up with minimal energy needs at little more cost than that of a "standard" house. (Note that while the current "energy star" design stuff isn't a bad place to start, many of those standards are far from "best available", but rather were set in an effort to increase energy efficiency while not putting an excessive burden on those using current construction methods and materials...

If building a new home, I think a great deal of research is in order if you want to get the best possible energy savings.

Gooserider

 

[rowerwet]

based on a house a friend of mine has:
I would build a gambrel (hip or barn roofed house)
have a cathedral ceiling in the living room with the wall and ceiling being glass facing south.
putting the bedrooms upstairs "reuses" the heat from the first floor, shutting the doors during the day keeps most of the second floor from being heated and loosing the heat to the outside. My friends house is up in Lake Placid, NY the average elevation us 1800 ft and it is winter up there for 7 or so months a year. The walls are 2X6" and the roof is 2X10" it was built back in the 70's without the spray on foam insulation, definitely worth it, and the outside is fake log cabin. It is heated by a barrel stove (like the kits sold in norther or harbor freight) it also has electric baseboard heat that has only been used twice (it was -50 F degrees the last time they needed it)
the glass gives quite a bit of passive solar, some times too much (just open a window). I would like to build almost the exact house if I ever get to build one, only I would add solar heat with storage for those cloudy days, added to the wood boiler as the main heat.
Is heating going to be as much of an issue as air conditioning? from the times I have been in Indiana I felt like I was going to melt most of the time. Of course up here in Maine if it gets over 80 we all think we're gonna melt.
With four kids you would save money using the solar panels and storage to heat your water, especialy if you have girls, you may also look into a tankless hot water heater that could take over when the storage or home heating demands don't give hot enough water. Burning through the sumer seems like a big waste of wood to just heat water.

 

[emesine]

Thanks for the info.

We are putting in a large window facing south in the hearth room. This should help some with passive heating. On the other hand, we are on fairly windy knob....

As for air conditioning, the lot is wooded, so that should help us a bit. I am also building into the ground (basement for bedrooms, plus a first floor.) I should probably arrange to gather the heat from the airconditioning unit to heat my hot water in the summer. We are probably not going to have a lot of summer sunlight, so solar water heating is probably out.

Andrew

 

[Hakusan]

SIP wall construction.
Insulated metal roof.
Insulated basement.
Hydronic radiant or baseboard heat.
Tarm boiler with water storage--to heat space and water
A centrally located masonry heater with bake oven
Micro-hydro plant or Wind/PV system
Wood fired steam engine or turbine for a back-up generator
A winning lottery ticket (perhaps that should go first)

 

[rowerwet]

definitly do the radiant heat, have pex poured into the basement floor for downstairs heat, put those rooms on automatic thermostats so you can wake up to a warm room, not heat where it isn't needed during the day, warm up the room for bedtime, and then cool the room overnight (makes for better sleep to have thick blankets and a cool room). Having a thermostat in each bedroom (different zones) will save down the road (you may need to lock them so they aren't played with). Make sure the basement floor slab is insullated underneath or you will be heating the ground. One guy here recently had a contractor convince him that leaving an uninsulated area in the middle of the slab would have the ground act as heat storage, like that would work! Also, there are two major types of insulation used underneath slabs, one is a foam mat and the other is a bubble wrap like product, acording to what I have read the bubble wrap is junk. do your homework.
also have radiant heat in the floor upstairs, it is more expensive than baseboards or radiators but your warm feet and family will thank you.
good luck!
if you can post pictures.
josh