Woodstove for interior Alaska cabin

[AILDWarrior]

@Log Home I'm pragmatic to a fault, so it's difficult for me to wrap my head around buying a furnace and then planning to use a fuel source other than the one that it was designed for.
I don't know if you're a car person, but it's like buying a car that's built to use 87 octane fuel and then putting 91 in it instead. You're just wasting money and a premium fuel. My opinion (and it's just an opinion) is that you should be buying that DS furnace if your plan is to burn primarily anthracite coal since that's what it's designed for.

Though I haven't seen it, I know there are some people here in AK who use wood burning boilers like you showed a few posts ago. I bet The Boiler Room of Hearth would provide lots of advice on that topic.

As for heating a residential space, it's going to be very hard to beat an efficient modern wood stove designed for burning wood. We've already discussed that heating fuel is more efficient than wood, but it is a non-renewable and doesn't meet your specific goals.

 

[bholler]

I contacted DS Stoves, you can burn sub-bituminous coal in it, and the YouTubers "Simple Living Alaska" are doing it. Coal is not allowed around the Fairbanks area, I won't be living there or the areas that are restricted from coal burning...

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Ds will tell you their stoves will work with anything you want to use. But they have zero testing to confirm that.

 

[Log Home]

This is a good idea below but, does it maintain heat that it will significantly reduce the number of cords of wood burned in the winter more than a Blaze King catalytic stove? Also, can a setup like this also be used to heat the water throughout the cabin like a thermosyphon system ? What would the upfront cost be on average to be built ?

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[stoveliker]

Heat retention in the stove doesn't help reduce cords burnt. The BTUs do get released into the home, similarly to a normal wood stove, just less per hour, so over a longer time.
But then you may be cold if the BTU loss to the outside is higher than the BTU release from the masonry each hour.

Insulation (and sealing ) of the home does.helo with burning less cords.

 

[qwee]

Interesting thread. If I were moving to Alaska and was going to build a house off-grid what would I focus on? Top priority would be the size of the house, the house insulation, and the house orientation. A big house with many windows would be trouble. A cabin sized house isn't necessary either - just be reasonable. Over insulate (especially the ceiling). And I would grab free solar by facing it to the south with some southern windows.

I would know that heating is going to be a many months of the year way of life. I like the idea of having an insulated basement with the wood burner down there. And with several cords already in the basement before burning season starts. But I'm not sure of basements/foundations in a permafrost region - so would research this. Some sort of chute system to get the wood down there would work for me. Of course this would mean life would revolve around firewood. So chainsaws, wood splitter/axe, and storage would be some top priorities.

I like the idea of setting up a solar array. So what if it doesn't give you much in the middle of winter - it works the rest of the year. And a diesel or oil backup tie into the solar PV system would work for me. I would probably still want to have a couple of ductless mini splits (the hyper heat types) to use when possible - spring and fall. I would have a wood furnace/big wood stove/masonry heater in the basement centrally located and a smaller wood burner on the main floor centrally located (redundancy). And if I went into overtime?

I would order a 'brains' system from Germany and I would try to figure out how to use it. I would have electrically controlled thermal shutters on those south facing windows. The brains could open and close these shutters. I would let the brains burn the wood more efficiently and control the mini splits - if possible. And let it decide how to efficiently use the PV electricity.

This house could be a prototype in a cold burning location. I wonder how much wood a house like this, say 2000 ft2, south facing, ICF construction, over insulated ceiling, thermal shutters, and hyper-heat mini-splits would need to burn using 'brains,' to control it all? Spruce and birch are lower btu woods, so I would guess between 3 to 6 cords but probably would be less. Yes, a big wood shed would be helpful.

Life would go like this - summer - mini-splits and passive solar, fall - mini-splits, passive solar, and wood burning, winter - wood burning and diesel burning (+ a little PV and mini-split), and spring - mini-split, passive solar, and wood burning.

And I would probably set up a solar kiln by the wood shed so I could burn that 'green' white birch in one year.

 

[Log Home]

I should contact the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC) and connect them with the contractors/builders and let them come up with the game plan to build the log cabin. Let them have at it within the budget.

 

[Todd]

This is a good idea below but, does it maintain heat that it will significantly reduce the number of cords of wood burned in the winter more than a Blaze King catalytic stove? Also, can a setup like this also be used to heat the water throughout the cabin like a thermosyphon system ? What would the upfront cost be on average to be built ?

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I think a good masonry heater is around 85% efficient maybe a bit more. Really not much more than the Blaze King or other high end wood stoves. I don’t think there would be much firewood savings but it would be really cool looking smack dab in the middle of a log cabin! If I were to build a new cabin I would definitely design the cabin around one.

I know some models have water heating options over in Europe.

Cost is high, probably three times what a wood stove install would be. I had a bid on a smaller Tulikivi for my cabin and it was around $24k but some of that cost was due to reinforcing the floor.

 

[bigealta]

This thread has 100% convinced me that if i ever decide to go "off grid" i'm doing it somewhere in the Caribbean.

 

[moresnow]

This^
Add some tasty waves and a sweet fruit drink with a tiny umbrella. Maybe a paddle game, remote control and a lamp.......
This is all I need.

 

[BKVP]

I should contact the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC) and connect them with the contractors/builders and let them come up with the game plan to build the log cabin. Let them have at it within the budget.

They have some very creative ideas and implementations they can share. I've been there a few times, excellent staff.

BKVP