Hi, I found you guys while searching the interwebs on wood furnaces. I just bought a place outside Parksburg Pa with a little over 2 acres, large 2 car garage and a 2,000sf rancher on it. Right now it's got oil heat and I'm studying options for lowering my costs. I'm using 5 gal/day right now give or take and at $3.79/gal that adds up.
My first thought was a heat pump with a propane backup. I'm an HVAC contractor so installing it wouldn't be hard. Now I've started looking at add-on wood furnaces and wood would be a lot cheaper to run than propane or a heat pump. Actually the heat pump isn't much cheaper than propane to run. Wood, depending on the actual efficiency of the unit could approach half the cost of propane. Also, living in NE PA I'm not far from Anthracite coal and that's even cheaper.
The current system is forced air but I would like to do radiant wall panels with PEX. I want to make a solar collector and heat a storage tank in the basement and run a heat exchanger in there to heat the radiant panels. I figure with a hot water loop I could keep the water tank warm as well with the wood furnace.
Right now I'm eyeing up the DAKA 521. As a city boy I'm not sure where this will all go and in case I don't like dealing with loading a wood furnace, etc, then I don't feel bad due to the low cost of the unit. Once all the radiant panels are in place I could always add a quality wood boiler, but that would be down the road.
Guess that's all for now,
David
My first thought was a heat pump with a propane backup. I'm an HVAC contractor so installing it wouldn't be hard. Now I've started looking at add-on wood furnaces and wood would be a lot cheaper to run than propane or a heat pump. Actually the heat pump isn't much cheaper than propane to run. Wood, depending on the actual efficiency of the unit could approach half the cost of propane. Also, living in NE PA I'm not far from Anthracite coal and that's even cheaper.
The current system is forced air but I would like to do radiant wall panels with PEX. I want to make a solar collector and heat a storage tank in the basement and run a heat exchanger in there to heat the radiant panels. I figure with a hot water loop I could keep the water tank warm as well with the wood furnace.
Right now I'm eyeing up the DAKA 521. As a city boy I'm not sure where this will all go and in case I don't like dealing with loading a wood furnace, etc, then I don't feel bad due to the low cost of the unit. Once all the radiant panels are in place I could always add a quality wood boiler, but that would be down the road.
Guess that's all for now,
David
