Woodstove for interior Alaska cabin
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You're taking this too extreme with this NASA mathematics routine of yours. So many people live in Alaska off grid as we speak and did not sit around calculating with mathematical precision specific BTUs to live there and bring in MIT Cal Tech engineers...Did you calculate the difference in Watt per square meter (or whatever surface area units imperialists prefer) for solar energy impinging perpendicular on a surface for Washington state and Alaska??
This is an off grid cabin, not the NASA Mars space rover. I'm not building some bio-dome on Mars. lol 😂
I don't know if you know this or not but, I'm not building this cabin, I will be hiring professional contractors/builders. The solar system will be installed by professional electricians. I'm not building anything.
Below, she's doing fine without your precision mathematical BTUs. Ask her is she had MIT Cal Tech engineers design a mathematical scientific engineered off grid cabin for her where every square centimeter is calculated by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory lol 😂
I do appreciate your concern and the science/math data approach you have though, and yes, I do believe in the saying "Trust the math, trust the science."
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AILDWarrior
Member
@Log Home, I think it's really apparent that you haven't spent an appreciable amount of time living near the area you are proposing. We can theorize all day long and generate good ideas with an infinite imaginative budget, but experiencing the real deal is an entirely different story.
I strongly encourage you to live in Fairbanks or a nearby location for a full year and rent an apartment or cabin just to garner an appreciation for the environment you are planning to live in. I'm not saying any of this with negative sentiment. Alaska is the place where dreams come to die for many people. Most vastly underestimate the cost of living, others struggle with idealized notions of "homesteading", and countless people overestimate the useful solar hours they think they can achieve.
@begreen has already mentioned several times that this is a wood stove forum. So to stay on that topic, I would still absolutely recommend that you burn local split and seasoned birch in a catalytic stove sized appropriately for the building you eventually build. I've never seen a cleaner, simpler, or more cost-effective method for heating off-grid in the Interior.
I strongly encourage you to live in Fairbanks or a nearby location for a full year and rent an apartment or cabin just to garner an appreciation for the environment you are planning to live in. I'm not saying any of this with negative sentiment. Alaska is the place where dreams come to die for many people. Most vastly underestimate the cost of living, others struggle with idealized notions of "homesteading", and countless people overestimate the useful solar hours they think they can achieve.
@begreen has already mentioned several times that this is a wood stove forum. So to stay on that topic, I would still absolutely recommend that you burn local split and seasoned birch in a catalytic stove sized appropriately for the building you eventually build. I've never seen a cleaner, simpler, or more cost-effective method for heating off-grid in the Interior.
If you in don't understand the energy density difference in solar irradiation between AK and the northern contiguous US,.then you're going to be disappointed.
AILDWarrior
Member
^This
Average daily W/m^2 is a pretty standard unit of measure when building a system, not limited to rocket scientists. On a perfect day in the dead of winter, you'll see 100W/m^2 for the whole day. However. the average is 0.0 kW/m^2 per day in the month of December. To put that into perspective, you need about 5-6 panels at the perfect angle with no inverter/converter loss to power a desktop computer for an hour. Like I said before, I hope you're coming with a lot of money.
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The air heater panels can do with lower incident energy than photovoltaics, but won't put out much when not much is incident on them.
I've been doing a lot of numbers crunching and using A.I., take that with a grain of salt...
For the appliances that I will have, my daily load in kwh per day will average around 3.5 kwh to 5 kwh. A.I. gives me some minor differences...
I understand the solar system will have to be over built and $$$ to get battery autonomy for many days in interior Alaska during the winter months that have short days...
For a solar system that has around 50 kw solar array and 160kwh of battery storage, that can generate at least 30 days of battery autonomy with no sun before the batteries drop to 20% to start the backup diesel generator to recharge the batteries.
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The theoretical maximum Solar irradiance in Fairbanks in December is 100 W/m2 per a report of U. Alaska Fairbanks.
Meaning a panel of 2 square meters would only get you 200 W - theoretical maximum. If you'd have 20 hrs of sun on December (you don't...), you'd get 4000 Wh. That is about 13,500 BTU.
That is what my stove puts out in 1 hour at its minimum setting, more or less.
Multiply by 4 panels, and you get 54,000 BTUs **over a 20 hr sun day, with optimal perpendicular incidence all the time**. That is what my stove puts out in 1-1.5 hrs (i believe) at max.
You have 4 hrs of sun in Fairbanks in December, at max 2.9 degrees above the horizon (so you better have no trees for quite some distance). So 800 Wh per day (still the theoretical maximum, keeping your panels rotating with the sun to keep them perpendicular at all times, having zero reflection from the screen in front of the tubes etc.). That's 2700 BTU per day.. Times 4 panels is 10,800 BTU per day. About what two 1.5 kWh plug in heaters produce in 1 hr.
In AK winters, you'll be running stoves hard.
Meaning you'll get about 1 hr of wood back for the theoretical max **with 20 hr of sunlight per day** in winter.
50% of your wood/coal is a ridiculous statement.
No rocket calculation here.
Meaning a panel of 2 square meters would only get you 200 W - theoretical maximum. If you'd have 20 hrs of sun on December (you don't...), you'd get 4000 Wh. That is about 13,500 BTU.
That is what my stove puts out in 1 hour at its minimum setting, more or less.
Multiply by 4 panels, and you get 54,000 BTUs **over a 20 hr sun day, with optimal perpendicular incidence all the time**. That is what my stove puts out in 1-1.5 hrs (i believe) at max.
You have 4 hrs of sun in Fairbanks in December, at max 2.9 degrees above the horizon (so you better have no trees for quite some distance). So 800 Wh per day (still the theoretical maximum, keeping your panels rotating with the sun to keep them perpendicular at all times, having zero reflection from the screen in front of the tubes etc.). That's 2700 BTU per day.. Times 4 panels is 10,800 BTU per day. About what two 1.5 kWh plug in heaters produce in 1 hr.
In AK winters, you'll be running stoves hard.
Meaning you'll get about 1 hr of wood back for the theoretical max **with 20 hr of sunlight per day** in winter.
50% of your wood/coal is a ridiculous statement.
No rocket calculation here.
AILDWarrior
Member
Just to dummy check your numbers, you'll need 32 perfectly efficient panels and perfect conditions from November-February to meet your daily need with zero surplus. You probably need to triple that number to produce the reserve you're expecting and make it through days with less than ideal conditions. If you're converting to ac, you also need to take into account a 5-10% conversion loss. Even if you install everything yourself, you're looking at 90 panels and 50 135ah 24V batteries. Up here, that's about $100k in those two materials alone, if not more.
I guess I'm having a really hard time understanding why you want to make this as complicated and expensive as possible. Your coal stove/water heater alone has multiple failure points, some of which would disable your hot water or home heating. Plus coal is an absolute pain to deal with and you still have to haul it and store it just like firewood. If your electric system needs a backup generator, why not just use the generator in the first place? Also, I believe those Arctica air heaters use an electric fan, making your argument against a Toyo stove a moot point.
The greatest aircraft engineers in the world(Skunkworks) rely on the KISS principal; if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for the rest of us. Catalytic wood stove, diesel genny, diesel hot water, relatively small battery bank, backup diesel heater. Easy-peasy. Save your money to buy quintuple-pane, argon sealed windows or some other nonsense instead.
I guess I'm having a really hard time understanding why you want to make this as complicated and expensive as possible. Your coal stove/water heater alone has multiple failure points, some of which would disable your hot water or home heating. Plus coal is an absolute pain to deal with and you still have to haul it and store it just like firewood. If your electric system needs a backup generator, why not just use the generator in the first place? Also, I believe those Arctica air heaters use an electric fan, making your argument against a Toyo stove a moot point.
The greatest aircraft engineers in the world(Skunkworks) rely on the KISS principal; if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for the rest of us. Catalytic wood stove, diesel genny, diesel hot water, relatively small battery bank, backup diesel heater. Easy-peasy. Save your money to buy quintuple-pane, argon sealed windows or some other nonsense instead.
I can sum up these 10 pages of "fantasy".
If you are serious get a blaze king.
Ponder on now to continue the Dream/nightmare.
If you are serious get a blaze king.
Ponder on now to continue the Dream/nightmare.
I already posted many times about the coal stove and wood stove I will be having installed.
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AILDWarrior
Member
You can lead a horse to water...but you can't prevent it from trading all of its water for fleeting fantasies. I've done my part to prevent another Alaskan dream casualty. I wish you the best of luck, and please spend as much of your money as possible in-state.
What doesn't have failure points in very cold weather? There's no perfect solution. The DS Stoves water heater has fewer failure points than the Toyo water heater.
What is the math on diesel fuel and how much annually will it cost? Battery autonomy, depending on how long you go between using the generator to recharge the batteries will determine a lot on how much diesel fuel used annually.
The Arctica uses fans powered by solar, their own solar panels independent from the main solar farm.
I'm planning on a refrigerator, chest freezer, electric stove, washer machine, well pump, outlet for engine block heater for diesel truck.
You only mentioned coal, you didn't mention that I will be adding a dual fuel stove that can burn both wood logs and coal and adding a second wood stove.
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AILDWarrior
Member
Because this is a wood stove page, I'm going to go back to the original questions asked and then depart this conversation if we can't stay on topic.
Again, I wish you the best of luck in all of your endeavors. There are some tremendously skilled contractors in Alaska, especially in the Interior, who will greatly benefit from your dream.
Depends on the layout, if it's open-concept with no hallways you should be set with a stove in the center of the house, or even a corner that has visible exposure to the doors of all of the rooms. Put the stove on the bottom floor and you'll have plenty of heat upstairs.
I'm not an expert, but many other experts have already answered your question here. Generally, you'll see longer burn times with catalytic stoves, along with better efficiency and less pollution.
I'm definitely not the expert here and you've already received lots of great advice from some serious experts on this forum.
Let your contractor know that you don't have any experience in residential construction and that you have lots of money. They'll bend over backwards for you.
Again, I wish you the best of luck in all of your endeavors. There are some tremendously skilled contractors in Alaska, especially in the Interior, who will greatly benefit from your dream.
Thank you.
If you could guesstimate with a rough estimate, my daily kwh will be around 4 kwh to 5 kwh when I add up the refrigerator, chest freezer, stove/oven, washer machine, well pump, outlet for engine block heater according to A.I.. I'd like hot water. I posted above my ideas but, I'm open to all alternative ideas for the most affordable efficient and reliable/durable setup that does not complicate anything. What do you recommend for around 1,800 square foot, 2 floor, 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath/shower log cabin ?
I have 1700 sqft with refrigerator/freezer combo side by side, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer (running 2 times per week).
Hot water is oil, so no kWh there for me.
Electric cooking (one warm meal per day, no cooking hot breakfasts here).
We don't watch much tv (45 mins max per day), I do have a big computer screen (work at home); the computer is a laptop docked. TV/radio etc. stuff gets switched off automatically overnight with a wifi plug on a schedule.
All LED lights, all appliances energy star (whatever that may mean).
So no chest freezer, no well pump, no block heater (resistive heat uses a lot).
Yet (Before minisplit) we use 10.5 kWh per day (averaged over the year).
And I understand from users here that that's low.
I don't think you'll be making it with 5 kWh per day.
Hot water is oil, so no kWh there for me.
Electric cooking (one warm meal per day, no cooking hot breakfasts here).
We don't watch much tv (45 mins max per day), I do have a big computer screen (work at home); the computer is a laptop docked. TV/radio etc. stuff gets switched off automatically overnight with a wifi plug on a schedule.
All LED lights, all appliances energy star (whatever that may mean).
So no chest freezer, no well pump, no block heater (resistive heat uses a lot).
Yet (Before minisplit) we use 10.5 kWh per day (averaged over the year).
And I understand from users here that that's low.
I don't think you'll be making it with 5 kWh per day.
Have you ever burnt coal? Or wood for that matter. I see you ignored my advice about the durability of ds stoves as well
AILDWarrior
Member
You would be wise to assume at least 10kwh per day, double your best estimate. Then assume zero solar production and plan on running the diesel genset to recharge the depleted batteries as needed. Bonus if solar reduces that need.
You keep bringing up operating costs and trying to pinch pennies but then want to build a mansion in a hostile environment. No part of this will be cheap.
Home heating is the easy part. Yes the DS can do it with coal or wood. The Bk will do it with much less wood.
Quit wasting time with hokey unreliable devices until after you are secure and safe with proven reliable things.
You keep bringing up operating costs and trying to pinch pennies but then want to build a mansion in a hostile environment. No part of this will be cheap.
Home heating is the easy part. Yes the DS can do it with coal or wood. The Bk will do it with much less wood.
Quit wasting time with hokey unreliable devices until after you are secure and safe with proven reliable things.
I'm pretty sure Log Home is an AI agent punking everyone here.
Sam Altman's latest hack.
Sam Altman's latest hack.
Please check out the NIEL logs I mentioned.They are the best fuel next to coal.If you can afford them, they'll get you through the winter.
There has been a lot of hokey product placement. Like marketing startups. Hmmm. No way. That would be wild.
AILDWarrior
Member
Not that I'm aware of...looks like they ship in 1 ton pallets from Idaho. Given that Anchorage is 2300 miles from Idaho by road and everything would have to be shipped by a freight forwarder, I imagine the price is $1000+ per pallet. I'd rather just buy 6 cords of spruce here in a dump truck and process it myself for that price. But everyone likes to do things a bit differently
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