New to OWB - need advice

[Calentarse]

Hello everyone. I am a prospective newbie to the outdoor wood burning world and have just started reading in this forum. I am looking for advice on where to start.

Here's my backstory:

I just sold a 1300 square-foot house with a 2013 blaze king freestanding stove. Our new house is 2200 ft.² and has absolutely no fireplace. We are considering an outdoor wood burner for many reasons: there is no existing chimney in this new house and because I am beginning to think that burning wood inside is really worsening my allergies. I am very passionate about using sustainable fuels to heat my home but Want to try to reduce any poor air quality that A woodstove may cause.

I have access to firewood that I can get for free pretty rapidly. This house has an existing propane forced air furnace as well as a propane water heater. The furnace is about 14 years old. I'd like the outdoor wood boiler to heat my water and my home. Where would you recommend I begin reading/researching to start this process? Any idea how much this venture will cost? In the winter it really does not get very cold here: usually the coldest temps we see are in the teens at night and in the 40s during the day, often times warmer than this. We are planning on keeping this house long term so we're just trying to make an informed decision. Thank you to anyone interested in giving me some information-would greatly appreciate it!

 

[leon]

Hello everyone. I am a prospective newbie to the outdoor wood burning world and have just started reading in this forum. I am looking for advice on where to start.

Here's my backstory:

I just sold a 1300 square-foot house with a 2013 blaze king freestanding stove. Our new house is 2200 ft.² and has absolutely no fireplace. We are considering an outdoor wood burner for many reasons: there is no existing chimney in this new house and because I am beginning to think that burning wood inside is really worsening my allergies. I am very passionate about using sustainable fuels to heat my home but Want to try to reduce any poor air quality that A woodstove may cause.

I have access to firewood that I can get for free pretty rapidly. This house has an existing propane forced air furnace as well as a propane water heater. The furnace is about 14 years old. I'd like the outdoor wood boiler to heat my water and my home. Where would you recommend I begin reading/researching to start this process? Any idea how much this venture will cost? In the winter it really does not get very cold here: usually the coldest temps we see are in the teens at night and in the 40s during the day, often times warmer than this. We are planning on keeping this house long term so we're just trying to make an informed decision. Thank you to anyone interested in giving me some information-would greatly appreciate it!

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About your quest,

The first things you better check on are your insurance carriers policy towards forest eaters and then check with the local zoning officer to see if forest eaters are even allowed in your local area.
Your looking at a very large sum of money "in the lower 5 figures" as a start up cost for a forest eater as you will need to have buried insulated PEX and then you have to decide whether you want a pressurized or non pressurized system and then you need a circulator and then you have to decide whether you want cast iron or steel radiators or slant fin baseboard(I hate my baseboard heat).
Your better off investing in a pellet stove or a coal stoker stove. The installation would be just through the wall with a clay thimble and then a steel chimney pipe above the roof line.
A pellet stove or or boiler will use twice as much in pellets versus a rice coal fed gravity fed or stoker stove.

Keystoker makes pellet stoves and coal stoker stoves.

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

Leon, doesn't know that there are a lot of outdoor boilers that are gassification boilers now with effiecincy ratings which are as good as indoor gassers. Leon is referring to old outdoor boilers that are non gassers which you don't want. Think 12-15 cords per winter plus lots of smoke. The outdoor boiler gassers don't smoke and are very efficient. Check out heatmaster g series or gs series. Also make sure you get thermopex, logstor or rehau for underground pipe. You are looking at 8-11k for a boiler , you are looking at around $1k for underground pipe and $800 for heat exchanger and plumbing stuff.

 

[maple1]

I love my baseboard heat.

Is an indoor add-on wood furnace a possibility? There is really no good reason an indoor unit has to worsen air quality, if it is done & operated properly. An OWB is a huge investment - not so sure it would be worth it for your heat load? That could lead to long periods of idling which might not help the air quality either - prevailing winds and all that. Just be sure to evaluate all that you can evaluate. You can also add coils on to some wood furnaces for your DHW.

 

[hondaracer2oo4]

Properly sizing your gasser owb is also essential. Long gone are the days of installing a 400 gallon non gasser owb that would idle for hours at a time. No reason why a heatmaster g100 wouldn't work well for you with little idle time, plus when they do idle you really don't even know it since it clamps down the intake and doesn't allow any air in to the firebox.

 

[Fred61]

A wood boiler with too much heating capacity is more of a nightmare than one with inadequate output. I'll suggest another approach.
I'm approaching my late seventies in poor health so a couple years ago I decided to stop burning wood when my present supply of wood was exhausted. This heating season will be my last. It will be back to burning oil from here on in.

Thinking about my wife's future, I had a 5.76 kw peak capacity solar array installed last January. I was pleasantly surprised by the output even in the winter months (Feb. forward). It is meeting all my electricity needs plus all my hot water while I'm looking at a credit on my electric bill that's approaching $200.00 by the end of this month. I plan on using that credit to heat my space with my mini-split heat pumps during the shoulder season.

I will have $14000.00 invested in the array after my tax credit. About the price of a wood installation without the headaches and without cutting or buying wood.

I justified this move in a couple ways. I looked at it as pre-paying my wife's electric bill for the next 20 years and also looked at it as an investment. If I had an extra $14000.00 laying around I could buy a bank CD that yields 1.3% or I could invest in solar panels that essentially yields 10%

 

[Highbeam]

Wood boilers for single homes in mild climates (low heat loads) make very little sense when starting from scratch. They are ultra expensive and do nothing special that I can see. Heat your domestic water with electricity and heat the space with a wood or pellet stove. Do a good job installing the device tightly and you aren't supposed to get anything into your house. Use a good vacuum for cleaning.

 

[peakbagger]

If you have allergies with an indoor stove you may have them worse with an OWB. Unless you are in very rural lot without neighbors and have good prevailing winds there are many times when the OWB is putting out more heat than the house is using and when that happens, its turns into "smog hog" putting out significantly more pollution than a standard wood stove. Thats why they are effectively banned in some states

The only issue an OWB does improve is indoor humidity levels. Interior wood stoves can really dry things out and that can lead to allergies. Add some humidity to the house and the issues may go away.

 

[Highbeam]

Interior wood stoves can really dry things out and that can lead to allergies.

I've heard this before and don't understand. There is nothing about a woodstove, pellet stove, radiator, or furnace that is any different than any other heat source. None of these add moisture and none take it away. The only thing I've come up with is the people that failed to connect their stoves to a source of outside combustion air are effectively sucking the conditioned and humid inside air out through the stove and replacing it with cold and dry outside air that when warmed up will be quite dry.

 

[Calentarse]

This is all very fascinating. I really appreciate everyone's insight. After seeing the price some have quoted and the notion of idle time, I think I'll shy away from an OWB. I really like the solar idea and could also stomach the idea of a pellet stove due to the ease of venting. I'm just not ready to fight the draft battle and smoke smell of a blaze king anymore. Too much of a commitment up front and there's no guarantee that it won't stink.

 

[peakbagger]

I've heard this before and don't understand. There is nothing about a woodstove, pellet stove, radiator, or furnace that is any different than any other heat source. None of these add moisture and none take it away. The only thing I've come up with is the people that failed to connect their stoves to a source of outside combustion air are effectively sucking the conditioned and humid inside air out through the stove and replacing it with cold and dry outside air that when warmed up will be quite dry.

You nailed it. Few wood stove owners hook up exterior combustion air sources, frequently the air shutters/dampers are left open 24/7 and air is being pulled out of the home via the stack. During cold weather the air that replaces it will tend to be quite low humidity. Many EPA stoves have secondary air ports that cant be closed so that is a guaranteed air leak even it the primary damper is closed.

 

[heaterman]

Burning wood = Allergy and respiratory problems.
We were using an indoor wood furnace when the first three kids were under the age of 5. Littlest one had tonsils removed when he was 3.
All three had constant ear, nose, throat infections each winter. From birth.
Our twins were born in January and by the time they were 6 weeks old, both had suffered ear infections and one had pneumonia.
I finally put 2 and 2 together and ditched the wood in December one year. By the middle of January, all 3 kids were healthy. Reduced doctor bills easily paid for the gas we burned.
Kid number 4 came along and he never had the problems the other 3 did.

It's not the smoke, it's all the crap that comes in with the wood. Mold, spores of all different kinds, dust and debris, leftover pieces and bits of insects etc etc.