Propane to outdoor wood furnace

[Shipper50]

My girlfriend lives on a small older farm and heats her house with propane and my question is, could she install an outdoor wood furnace and get the heat to the duct work on her existing furnace and bypass the propane?

It costs a ton to heat her house in the winter and I was thinking if she could heat with wood, it would cut costs in the long run


Thanks
Shipper

 

[jeff_t]

Are you talking outdoor furnace or boiler? I haven't heard much about outside furnaces lately. Do they still make em?

 

[Shipper50]

Are you talking outdoor furnace or boiler? I haven't heard much about outside furnaces lately. Do they still make em?

Not sure which as she has vents already from the furnace, but I was thinking of getting the heat to the duct work and not have the expense of running the pex for the floor?

Shipper

 

[jeff_t]

Yep, you can put a heat exchanger in the furnace plenum. Works similar to a car radiator and uses the existing furnace blower to move air.
Keep in mind that a lot of outdoor wood boilers are very inefficient, wood sucking monsters. There's also a lot of junk out there, so do as much research as you can before making such a large investment. You are at the right place.

 

[hkobus]

There are a number of add on wood furnaces on the market, around here you see mainly the Newmac but others must be available. If installing this in a basement with some wood storage is an issue, then a gasifier or other higher efficiency boiler and a coil in the duct(airhandler or water to air HX) can help but may be more costly.

 

[Gooserider]

I've seen discussion of a few people that have done outdoor installs of forced hot air furnaces, but it seems like a problematic setup - the big challenge is the ducting to and from the house, which needs to be big, well insulated, and so on... Moving air is FAR harder than moving hot water, so the furnace needs to be located close to the house, which also causes problems in regards to stack heights, codes and so forth...

My own take is that if you can't get a wood burning furnace fairly close to here existing propane unit, you are probably going to be better off going with a boiler and water / air HX in the plenum setup - preferably using a gasifier in an outbuilding rather than any of the current crop of OWB's....

Gooserider

 

[ewdudley]

In case any of us haven't seen this one:

http://servicesatunique.com/images/anon-jay-van-furnace.jpg

 

[Shipper50]

My girlfriend talked to her friends husband who is a commercial heat and air guy and he suggested a heat pump over wood. He said it would be cheaper in the long run and as we all know much less work. So its up to her now to make that decision. Thanks for the responses.....

Shipper