Wood furnace vs wood stove

[woodhog73]

so help me to understand. I know CAT stoves get 12 to 24 hour heat cycles. My non cat modern tube stove (quad 3100) gets 6 to 8 hour heat cycles. I’m happy with that, works for me.

I hear all this about cat stoves and their long burn times. However my brother in law has a 5 cubic foot wood furnace that does not have a CAT in it. It’s not pretty and is in the basement. He loads like 15 splits of hardwood and gets 24 hours of heat. He does feed it twice a day in Jan and Feb when it’s very cold but generally can feed it once a day.

It’s basically a tube stove. Why does it get 24 hour heat cycles when smaller stoves need a CAT to do the same, if they are lucky. And yes it holds 5 cubic feet of wood. But it also heats 2,000 plus sq feet at 75 plus degrees with consistent heat and no real dips in house temps. And again no cat.

Why is that ?

 

[MAD MARK]

There is no replacement for displacement.

 

[woodhog73]

There is no replacement for displacement.

Funny because he laughs at my little wood stove with its 8 hour heat cycle. Funny too is that he burns all sorts of crap wood even green wood in the thing at times and goes off to work for 10 hours comes home to a house at 75 degrees

 

[bholler]

so help me to understand. I know CAT stoves get 12 to 24 hour heat cycles. My non cat modern tube stove (quad 3100) gets 6 to 8 hour heat cycles. I’m happy with that, works for me.

I hear all this about cat stoves and their long burn times. However my brother in law has a 5 cubic foot wood furnace that does not have a CAT in it. It’s not pretty and is in the basement. He loads like 15 splits of hardwood and gets 24 hours of heat. He does feed it twice a day in Jan and Feb when it’s very cold but generally can feed it once a day.

It’s basically a tube stove. Why does it get 24 hour heat cycles when smaller stoves need a CAT to do the same, if they are lucky. And yes it holds 5 cubic feet of wood. But it also heats 2,000 plus sq feet at 75 plus degrees with consistent heat and no real dips in house temps. And again no cat.

Why is that ?

It is using more wood to do it and the chimney is also probably extremly dirty because it is not burning hot enough to burn cleanly. Those are the types of chimneys we take 20 gallons of crap out of yearly

 

[woodhog73]

It is using more wood to do it and the chimney is also probably extremly dirty because it is not burning hot enough to burn cleanly. Those are the types of chimneys we take 20 gallons of crap out of yearly

He does burn a lot of wood. But I will say the chimney is clean. I know he only sweeps once a year. I know this because when I first started burning he was the one who told me to sweep at a minimum once a season. Far as I know he sweeps annually. But I’ve never looked in his chimney. The guy even throws buckthorn in the thing. But usually it’s dry wood either stacked a year ago or sitting in the basement just drying out from the heat. It’s probably 85 degrees in the basement.

I am jealous of the heat cycles though.

 

[bholler]

He does burn a lot of wood. But I will say the chimney is clean. I know he only sweeps once a year. I know this because when I first started burning he was the one who told me to sweep at a minimum once a season. Far as I know he sweeps annually. But I’ve never looked in his chimney. The guy even throws buckthorn in the thing. But usually it’s dry wood either stacked a year ago or sitting in the basement just drying out from the heat. It’s probably 85 degrees in the basement.

I am jealous of the heat cycles though.

Lots of people only clean once a year when they should be cleaning once a week.

 

[woodhog73]

My job is changing and Im going to be gone for up to 12 hours a day. So my brother in law is pushing me to put a large stove in the basement that can get long burn times. But he has floor registers to allow heat to rise i to the house. I don’t have that.

I on the other hand have started to think about replacing the quad with a CAT insert that is not a flush mount so I don’t have to rely on a blower. But they are so expensive. Easily twice what I paid for my tube stove

Plus it’s only going on 4 seasons old and I hate getting rid of stuff before it’s worn out. I really like my stove. But being gone 12 hours will be a challenge. It won’t heat for 12 hours.

 

[moresnow]

Your Quad will command a decent price this time of year. Consider a BK Princess perhaps. Seems that most of the guys with that are pleased. Should cover your out of the home time frame. Or find somebody to reload your current setup for ya. Good luck with that!

 

[Highbeam]

None of the actual legal furnaces I could find were capable of 24 hour burntimes. Is it just that he only loads once per day?

 

[wooduser]

If no one is home, why heat during the day?

Suppose you fire things up and let them burn as long as they will, and accept that the fire will die down or go out.

It usually takes a house a long time, 24 hours or longer to really get thoroughly cold.

When you get home, stoke things up and you'll be back in business in an hour or two.

Most people with central heating buy thermostats that will let the house cool off during the day and at night ----why must wood burners not want to do that?

 

[blacktail]

But I will say the chimney is clean.

But I’ve never looked in his chimney.

Funny too is that he burns all sorts of crap wood even green wood in the thing at times

He burns crap for wood, you've never looked in his chimney, but you know it's clean?

His furnace holds more wood than your stove. That alone will give it longer burns. If you smolder green wood in your stove it'll increase your "burn times" too.

 

[lsucet]

Most people with central heating buy thermostats that will let the house cool off during the day and at night ----why must wood burners not want to do that?

That depends. If is cold you can end up with a high bill of whatever you central furnace run of.

 

[bholler]

If no one is home, why heat during the day?

Suppose you fire things up and let them burn as long as they will, and accept that the fire will die down or go out.

It usually takes a house a long time, 24 hours or longer to really get thoroughly cold.

When you get home, stoke things up and you'll be back in business in an hour or two.

Most people with central heating buy thermostats that will let the house cool off during the day and at night ----why must wood burners not want to do that?

Because it takes a long time and allot of wood to bring the house back up to temp

 

[Microduck17]

I have an old pre EPA wood furnace in my basement that heats the house by natural convection thru the basement door and the laundry chute. I can fit 15-20 splits in it and can leave for 14 hours and come back to the house still reasonlably warm and a nice bed of coals in to quickly get things going again. With a big bed of coals in the bottom I can close the air all the way off and have it have enough coals to give off low level heat and relight for up to 3 days. Very useful during the fall and spring.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

 

[woodhog73]

None of the actual legal furnaces I could find were capable of 24 hour burntimes. Is it just that he only loads once per day?

Usually once a day but in January and Feb when it’s very cold sometimes 2 loads a day. But once in shoulder season for sure.

No I’ve never looked in his chimney. But I believe he checks it often. The house down the road had a chimney fire about 10 years ago and the roof lit on fire. He still talks about it so I believe him when he says the chimney is clean.

But I know it don’t seem that it would be. I have personally seen him out buckthorn in the furnace. Absolutely crazy i would never do that. So perhaps it is dirty who knows.

 

[woodhog73]

Your Quad will command a decent price this time of year. Consider a BK Princess perhaps. Seems that most of the guys with that are pleased. Should cover your out of the home time frame. Or find somebody to reload your current setup for ya. Good luck with that!

I’ve been thinking of it. I just hate to get rid of a relatively new stove. I take care of it, keep it clean, etc so I suppose I could get some of my money back on it.

My quad will be stone cold after 12 hours so once I start this new job I won’t even start the stove during the week. Cold starts are a pain in the ass if your doing them every day.

My brother in law says to forget the wood stove insert altogether and put a wood furnace in the basement. But I don’t want to do that I like having a stove in the living room. To enjoy it. Nothing to enjoy with a wood furnace in the basement. But the idea of being able to heat completely with wood is attractive because I don’t buy wood. Other than my time and gas and equipment the wood is free the trees I own. With my quad I will never be able to heat only with wood. Just too small and it’s a non cat

 

[MAD MARK]

Usually once a day but in January and Feb when it’s very cold sometimes 2 loads a day. But once in shoulder season.

Having 24 hour burn times as compared to 24 hour reload times is 2 different things.

I'm sure at 10-12 hours the heat output (burntime) is on the way down.