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

 

[Rich L]

I have 700 sqft, blown in insulation with 2x6 walls, 24 O.C.

I heat about 8-10 hours a day with the Jotul and I'll use about 2 cords of spruce this winter. If I heated with just the Jotul, I would be at 6 cords which is what I keep stored.

I love the Jotul, but I can't stand refueling it every two hours. Plus it gets too hot in the house when temps are above 20F or so. I've posted on the Blaze King section, but I'm patiently awaiting the BK Sentry 14. I think it's going to be a much better solution for my home, and hopefully I'll get overnight burns

I mentioned this to Log Home separately, but my primary heat source is a Toyotomi Laser 301. On an annual basis, I average 0.75 gpd. I almost spend more money buying logs and processing them myself than I do on fuel oil. The margin is about $0.05/day in savings. But I like burning wood so I keep doing it.

The only homes in my area that are more efficient have large windows facing directly south and get lots of p-solar. Mine's nothing fancy, no fancy engineering, and just dual pane windows. But it's small, and I think that's the key to success.

Refueling every two hours is a crime.I use a pipe damper that extends heat times.Also my Recoheat gives me overnight heat without a problem.Check out the videos on this item.It kicks out the heat from the stove as soon as the pipe gets warm.The hotter the pipe the more heat it puts out.What I also adore about this feature is that when the wood burns down to coals the recoheat is taking the heat from the coals and pushing it into the home.This gives you more hours of usable heat thus eliminating as many re-fuelings.

 

[Log Home]

Refueling every two hours is a crime.I use a pipe damper that extends heat times.Also my Recoheat gives me overnight heat without a problem.Check out the videos on this item.It kicks out the heat from the stove as soon as the pipe gets warm.The hotter the pipe the more heat it puts out.What I also adore about this feature is that when the wood burns down to coals the recoheat is taking the heat from the coals and pushing it into the home.This gives you more hours of usable heat thus eliminating as many re-fuelings.

Does a pipe damper work with and is compatible with Blaze King stoves that are catalytic stoves ?

 

[BKVP]

Does a pipe damper work with and is compatible with Blaze King stoves that are catalytic stoves ?

Please do not use a damper on our stoves. The thermostat can control just about any draft scenario. Thank you.

BKVP

 

[Rich L]

Does a pipe damper work with and is compatible with Blaze King stoves that are catalytic stoves ?

I don't think you need one on a Blaze King Cat.It would help on the Jotul you mentioned not on the Cat.

 

[bholler]

I don't think you need one on a Blaze King Cat.It would help on the Jotul you mentioned not on the Cat.

I dont think they mentioned a jotul did they?

 

[Rich L]

I dont think they mentioned a jotul did they?

Your right I thought I was responding to AILD Warrior.Thanks for the correction.

 

[AILDWarrior]

Refueling every two hours is a crime.I use a pipe damper that extends heat times.Also my Recoheat gives me overnight heat without a problem.Check out the videos on this item.It kicks out the heat from the stove as soon as the pipe gets warm.The hotter the pipe the more heat it puts out.What I also adore about this feature is that when the wood burns down to coals the recoheat is taking the heat from the coals and pushing it into the home.This gives you more hours of usable heat thus eliminating as many re-fuelings.

I'm not trying to catastrophize here, but the Recoheat would increase my anxiety over my flue temps such that I would no longer enjoy burning wood. Generally, I want to enjoy burning wood, so I'm going to have to pass on the Recoheat.

I have thought about the pipe damper as it would be very useful to slow down the burn, especially on windy days. However, my system is really easy to sweep from below right now and the pipe damper would be an inconvenience.

I appreciate the advice but I've come to the conclusion that this is just not the right stove for my specific use case, regardless of how I might accessorize or modify it. I'm going to wait patiently for the BK Sentry to be released in the US and this sweet little Jotul is going to find a happy new home in my shop.

 

[CatfishHunter]

Hi, I have some questions about which wood stove would be best for a 1,800 square foot off grid log home in interior Alaska where temps on some days can drop to negative -58 below zero Fahrenheit.

This sounds like a fun project. I love the thought of living off the grid in the middle of nowhere. I've always been fiercely independent and love being self-sufficient. Our cabin in northern MN used to see -40 but usually only see -20 to -30 most recent winters. Our trusty 1993 Haughs woodburner does the trick but is nowhere as efficient as all the new stoves. Insulate the heck out of everything and also consider having a mudroom to act as a buffer when you go in and out of the cabin. You can have a lot of heat loss if you or others are going in and out on those really cold days.