Wow, you guys have been busy!
@Log Home, I'm sorry this is a long post but I want to give you some relevant info and my own personal experience to help you out. My current home is in South-Central AK and we often see temps down to -5F but usually hang out around 15-25F during the winter.
I attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks for five years and fell in love with the place. Eventually I want to move back there, probably when I'm an old man who can spend more time on forums like this. I'll list my dream setup below, but it reflects what I have seen in one of the best-constructed and most efficient homes I found there.
My "money-is-not-an-issue" Dream Setup in Fairbanks:
- Off Grid, 700 sqft home with attached/heated shop/garage, 2x8 walls using staggered studs and closed-cell spray foamed, ICF foundation, concrete pad for garage heated by radiant from Oil Miser
- 70 kWh battery bank charged by 10kVA diesel generator with gasoline genny as a backup
- Toyotomi Laser 301, they are just wonderful. At the lowest setting, they only use 25 W after the ignition phase.
- Wood stove with catalyst for longer burns
- Hot water from Toyotomi Oil Miser so I only needed to store one type of fuel
That being said, most young college students looking to save a buck live in "dry cabins" and I've been in my fair share of these as well. They are generally 300-600 sqft, on-grid, heated by a Toyotomi Laser 301/Wood Stove and have no running water (outhouse required). IMHO, this is the way for simple living in the interior. However, I've only met a handful of people who were up to, and actually enjoyed the experience.
Here's my two cents on what you've presented so far, I won't get offended if you don't like it:
- Larger homes and off-grid don't play well together in Interior AK. Money will solve most of your problems here though, so hopefully you have a lot of it.
- Everybody loves log cabins because they look cool and are rustic. I've been in a few of them in cold weather and they suck. I would do modern construction with a log facade if that's really what you're going for.
- You say you need to hire a diesel mechanic if your genny breaks. No, you don't. YOU are the diesel mechanic. If you can't fix it, or are unwilling to learn, this might not be the lifestyle for you. Every single person I've met who lives off-grid in the Interior has a can-do attitude and most are masters of many trades through years of DIY learning.
- Solar is mostly just a novelty. Your best sun is in the summer when temps are 80F+, not worried about heating the home here. Going back to the first bullet, if you've got lots of money, you can probably build yourself a large enough solar farm to run a fully-furnished home. Did anyone mention that lithium batteries cost twice as much here because we have to ship them up on trucks via Canada or water routes? Better bring your own batteries, I'm not saying that sarcastically, I really mean it. I think you've already beat around the bush here on the thread, but you really are going to have to rely on a generator for a majority of your load. Get yourself a nice one like a Yanmar or Cummins and install it in a sound-insulated shed heated with an off-grid Nordic Stove or another Toyotomi. You only need to keep the shed temp above 40F or so to keep your water from freezing as well, fuel consumption will be at a minimum.
- Hauling fuel. EVERYBODY hauls fuel and water in pickup trucks. Get a nice 3/4 ton pickup, put a 100 gallon fuel tank in the bed with a pump powered off the alternator and get to work. You'll be hauling your water in a poly tank as well if you can't drill good clean water in your well. Plan to buy a plow for the truck, or a tractor with a snowblower for your driveway. Get a chainsaw to cut down fallen trees that might be in your way. You are your own fuel-delivery person, get that order filled!
Bottom Line: this is a wood stove forum and you asked about wood stoves. I don't think I answered that very well, but I also want to give you a more personal perspective so that you can have a realistic observation of your situation to better decide on a wood stove. I would absolutely do a wood stove over a pellet stove, especially in the Interior, like others have suggested. Interior Alaskans have the great fortune to access lots of birch (I'm stuck with spruce where I live). Picking the stove should actually be one of the easiest pieces to the puzzle you are currently facing. Start with heating oil as your primary/reliable source of heat for the home size you want to build. Then, pick out a wood stove that will heat your space and stick it in the middle of the house. If money is no object, I would 100% have a professional build a masonry furnace in the middle of your home. They have a really cool one at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center that is absolutely worth checking out.
Again sorry for the long post, it would be much shorter if I didn't care about you or your dream. I wish you the best on your journey; you're going to learn a lot regardless of what happens, in that there is immense value.
www.thesmartsurvivalist.com
www.homesteadingforum.org
salamanderstoves.com
www.arcticasolar.com
) for solar energy impinging perpendicular on a surface for Washington state and Alaska??
