Woodburning Furnace

[kbarrett]

I'm building a house on 25 acres that is mostly wooded. About the 3 or so acres in the open. I have about 120 tops hardwood trees laying all over the place from a logging a couple years back.

It would seem a shame not to put all that wood to good use by incorporating some sort of woodburning furnace into my new home. The house is a 2632 sq.ft two story with a 1316 unfinished walkout basement and attached 24 x 24 two stall garage.

It will have a high efficiency HEIL furnace (propane) and is well insulated with high efficiency (low-e glass) windows.

I've priced out a WOODMASTER unit for about $5500 and a Central Boiler unit for about $7000. I've been told that since my house is newer, it might take forever and a day for any of these units to pay for themselves in fuel savings alone.

Any experience out there with this type of heat in more efficient homes?

Thanks,

 

[kbarrett]

I forgot to mention that both of these units are "outside" units that tie into your existing heating source via water lines coiled through a plenum above the "regular" furnace.

 

[beenthere]

I think you have been given good advice. I burn wood (heat water in a wood fired boiler), and recently put in a Heil propane fired boiler, which works great as a backup (or full-time if needed). I wouldn't spend that kind of money to put another one in, but would instead work up the firewood and sell it.

My suggestion, if I were you, would be to work up those tops into firewood soon, and then sell the wood (expecting to get $120 - 150 per full cord). Your tops are not a 'forever' supply that will give you enough wood alone to recover the expense of the woodburner at the prices you quote. One can usualy figure about 6-10 acres of good hardwood forest to have a continuous supply of firewood, with some saw timber also coming out of that.

 

[brewerbob]

We moved into our new house two years ago. We have R-38 insulation in the ceiling and R-19 in the walls and floor. We have Pella wood frame argon filled windows. It's 2900 square feet and we heat with an Eagle (formerly Yukon) wood/propane furnace. Wood is $80 per cord around here as long as you split it yourself. You can cut it yourself in the national forest for $5 per cord. We use wood exclusively unless we are away from home for a long period of time. You can heat with propane, or use it as a backup, which we do. Our propane man has told me that as long as wood is $80 per cord there is no way he can match it on a per btu basis. Our furnace is in the garage, and does a good job for us. The only problems we've had are the mess you get by hauling wood into the garage to feed the furnace, and the chimney sweeping required. I sweep it from inside, and it makes quite a mess. Our furnace does not heat water, but the company offers some which do. We use propane for heating water, drying clothes, cooking, etc . We also have a wood stove in the family room which we use when the weather moderates. It doesn't do as good a job, but uses less wood. I use between 8 and 10 cords of wood a year, and about 500 gallons of propane.
Bob

 

[Anonymous Poster]

i have had a wood burning auxiliary furnace in my house since i bought it 15 years ago, recently upsized the unit as we added on to the house, about 3000 sq ft. the wood burner plugs into the hot air ducts of the furnace, and has its own blower that moves air through the house, i get my wood from my wood lot and from a friends wood lot, so it is free. i dont use it much until the temp drops below 40 as it tends to heat the house up pretty good. when it gets below 5 degrees the furnace will kick on and help out, i have saved a lot of money on gas bills over the past 15yrs with this setup, and would never own a house that did not have an aux. furnace, also if you have a power outage, gas line rupture, you are still in business.

good luck,
alex