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Wood burner?

E

Erik Ks farmer

Well-known Member
Thinking about a wood burner to help heat the house this winter. We have a 900 sq foot house and I would like to take some of the load off the propane furnace. A few questions since I don't have much experience with burning wood. We have a full basement under the house, (with an exterior access) if I was to put a wood stove without a blower in the basement would I gain much, or would it be better to either place the stove on the main floor or go with a stove with a blower?
 
Install a wood stove to ,meet all safety requirements, put a grate in floor over stove or close to it and put a fan under grate to blow heat up, you will need some way for air to return from up to down, That is what I have used for nearly 50 yrs. Just my 2 cents
 
I have a 1700 sq ft house with a basement. the wood stove down stairs will heat the whole house, thats if the wife puts wood in it..lol
 
Get a stove with a blower. Then plumb the heat pipe into your current heating air ducts. the stove will blow heat through your whole housr using your current ducts.
 
It's much better to tie into the air ducts, you can have the one blower run both setups.

Just heating the basement will make hoty sopts and cool spots in the house. Open floor grates let dust, noise, and light come through even more than the ductwork does.

You will end up needing a dedicated chimney rated for wood burner. This often costs as much or more than the furnace itself, be prepared for that. You can't share chimneys any more, and it was always a bad idea with a gas furnace anyhow.

The furnace in the basement is a lot more efficient and convienient (if you have access and an area to store the wood) than an outdoor boiler, but some find it too dirty for their basementts, you'll have the chimney issue, and check with insurance, several shy away ffrom wood stoves any more.

--->Paul
 
I have a Thermo control model 500 wood boiler in my
basement, it's tied in with the oil boiler to heat the hot water
base board. I only use the wood for my 2000 sqft house, but I
still have the oil for back up. I like it, and 275 gallons of oil
will last me about 5-6 years since I hardly use it. I don't know
if you have hot water, or hot air? But there are also hot air
wood furnaces too.
 
If you use propane , look into the propane stoves that are 99.99% eficent and don t need venting , a gas furnace is only about 80% eficent.
Gas stoves can be found on E-bay.
HTH
Red
 
Think about a Harman P43 or P61 wood pellet stove in your celler. Simple direct vent exaust. No big $$$$$ chimney, no big mess or work, which wood burning involves. I have a P61 in my 1800sqf. celler, and a woodburning "Fireplace Extrodinar" fireplace on the main floor. I never burned an oz of heating oil last winter. When your celler is warm your whole house is warm and comfortable. I'm a bit bias to Harman Stoves,, as I'm a certified HS tech, but I defy you to find a better built and more efficient wood pellet stove in the marketplace today. Not the cheapest, but simply the best.
Loren the Acg.
 
Good luck with a wood stove. My experience with one is, save your money. Back in the nineties I had an old 2200 square foot house. Only lived in part of it that was one room about seven hundred square feet. Had an old wood stove in it that had been overheated and warped. Ex-wife checked around and found this (fantastic) wood-coal stove with blower, supposed to heat over eighteen hundred square feet to around seventy or eighty degrees. Think it cost around fifteen hundred dollars. Don't remember the name of the stove now, but I do remember the number of years I sat in front of it freezing my rear off all winter long. I had a thermometer on the wall about five feet off the floor and eight feet from the front of the stove. Absolute truth, it never got above thirty four degrees no matter how much wood or coal was in the fire box. I would freeze to death before I will ever feed another wood stove.
 
Much good advice here. Your LP is so cheap per
gallon and your dwelling easy to heat.
You will have to have free wood, a free wood
stove ad free labour to break even.
Now is a cozy wood fire gets the Mrs, all amorous
? Well then stoke that fire.
 
I have a wood stove in the basement. It has a automatic damper, and a jacket around it. I made a hood to go on top and ran a 12" pipe to the return air of the LP furnace. If you run the blower on the LP furnace the heat will come out the registers. If the blower is off the heat will come out the return air ducts. Works really good. The problem is it is a little dirty. The wife don't want to burn it except in a emergency. We also have a air to air heat pump. It runs so cheap you can't buy or cut wood as cheap. If your house is insulated well. I'm about the same latitude as you.
 
Never above 34 degrees? Are u sure u had any wood/coal in it, or were u Blasted, sitting in front of a dead wood stove? Wow, just when u think u have heard it all!????
 
I have a Energy king wood furnace hooked up side-by side with an oil furnace in the basment. I filled the 265 gallon oil tank in 08 and will have enough to last this year as well. It only kicks on when we are away for all day. I have all of my oun wood and make it myself. I keep the house comfortable enough for my elderly father. Wood is my first choice for home heating.
 
I have the same set up. Just a grate (boughten used from a hardware store) over the stove (which I built myself) , no fans to make drafts & no ductwork. I have a wood room that is next to the room with the stove & use a wheelbarrow to bring wood to the stove. Any mess gets swept up & used to start the fire. Block chimney with a tile liner. Insurance agent took many pictures of my homemade stove & I never had any trouble getting insurance. Set up in 1987.
 
We heat a 2,750 square foot two story home. In a normal winter we use 3 to 4 cords of wood, 250 gallons of LP gas ( that includes cooking) and $200.00 for 2 electric baseboard heaters in bedrooms on second floor. Wood stove does most of the heating basement stays at 85 degrees, main floor 72-74 degrees and 68 degrees on second story and no blowers on the wood stove .The gas furnace is only used if we go away or if temperature gets down in single digit numbers and the electric heater are set at 68 degrees so bedrooms never drop below 68.
 
I'm in a similar boat except I have 1,600 sq ft. I put an "Earth Stove" I bought used in 93, next to my nat gas 93% furnace. No ducts, no blower. Simply a way to use up "junk wood" I accumulated. Once the basement gets warm, It heats the whole house. Although the far ends get a little chilly. I don't get too serious about it and let the furnace come on in the AM a few times. When it really helps is when its 20 deg and windy out. I'd like to tie in to my ducts but I don't know if they make an "either or" damper to shut off the air flow. I use about 12 face cords of wood in Michigan.
 
Juat all my heat is from a antuque wood stove called a Round Oak. It heats the main rooms, but not the bedrooms. When I built my house in the 70's ceiling heat was the big thing then. With the price of electricity it is very expensive to heat the house. Stan
 
My sisters old farm house takes 12 full cords if you heat it to 72 F. She uses 2-3 cords, and only heats it to about 45-55 F. Its a big old uninsulated farm house.
 
Ever try coal? I prefer coal over wood any day. Way less work. Longer burn times. Steadier heat. Check it out. http://nepacrossroads.com/
 
Pacific Energy stove---made in Canada.

Ceiling fans in open areas--Heats home except for bedrooms.
a84661.jpg
 
Just bought a stove from a couple. they used coal for 1 winter.Coal is over 200 bucks and hard to buy here.The smell and toxic ashes make it a poor choice.Wood pellet stoves are taking over here.
 
I have a Fisher Papa Bear stove I bought new in
1977 and it heats my house real well (app. 1500 square ft)The stove is in the basement and so is the furnace so I cut a hole in the return duct work and I can turn on the blower in really cold weather and the heat goes evenly over the whole house.Or you could cut a register in the floor and put a circulating fan under it.Learning how to burn the stove and use dry hardwood like Hickory,Oak and Black Locust is the key.Wood like Wild Cherry and Maple burn pretty good but won't put out the heat like hardwood.
 
I've heard the term "face cord" all my life (70 years) and never had an explanation of its size. What exactly is a face cord.
Frank
 
A small stove with a clean hot fire will serve you much better than an over size stove with a smokey fire. It's more efficient and doesn't clog the chimney.

We have a small wood stove in the living room and an automatic thermostat that's set low most of the time and only warms the house up with the furnace about an hour before the alarm clock goes off. Very happy with that combination.
 
Yes.
A guy that works for me has a Wood furnace called a charmaster in the basement. He has a 1000 sq. foot house. No blower and it heats fine. With outside access on the side of the basement it will work great, less mess on the main floor.
 
We had a woodchuck forced air in Missouri back in the early 80's, hooked into the existing duct work with a thermostat. It worked good but the house was only around 700 sq ft. Wood can be a mess though and then you still have to cut, split, load, stack, unload, drag it in, stoke the fire, clean up dust, ash, dirt. Since we have lived here we put in a countryside pellet/corn stove and just love it. 2100 sq ft and I use fans to move the heat around. In the SW corner of the house sits the stove in the LR it'll be 74 degrees, and three door openings later it'll be 68 degrees in the back BR,only use one fan to push it back there. We just bought pellets for 170$ton, and it will take
2 to 2.5 tons for the winter. Was using corn but price is too high now. we are on propane as well and haven't used any for three years now. rest of the house is electric.
go for the pellets, easy to handle(come in 50 pd bags), easy to clean up(once a week to clean out the ash bin), runs all the time(unless it gets above 55 dgrs outdrs).
good luck,
Kent
 
I had a small wood stove in my basement for about 10 years. The heat pretty much came up thru the floors and heated the upstairs evenly--but you couldn't get it really warm on cold days. Got tired of hauling firewood downstairs, up and down to fill stove and carting ashes up the exterior stairs.
Went to a vermont casting up stairs tied into my fireplace chimney. Much easier to maintain and get a lot more heat.
 
(quoted from post at 09:19:48 10/06/12) I've heard the term "face cord" all my life (70 years) and never had an explanation of its size. What exactly is a face cord.
Frank
Click to expand...

Bush Cord is 4x4x8ft. Face cord is 16"x4x8ft
 
Just some more info, I am clearing trees out of the pasture here at home, lots of honey locus, hedge, hackberry and elm. I have quite a bit of oak and walnut on the place also, in addition I have a couple rented pastures I'm clearing too, plenty of wood and may as well cut it up and use it rather than push it up and burn it. The house was built in 1889 and isn't insulated real well and the propane furnace runs constantly if it gets below 30. I don't want to be cold all winter again.
 
Your off to a good start. No sense in wasting a great heat
source with all that free wood! Good luck.
 
Put it in the basement. Don't need a blower. Heat
will come up the stairs and circulate, heat rises.
You would want a cold air return register at say
the far end of the basement. If you put the stove
in the upstairs, the heat will run you out.
 
2 foot logs can be hard to load.Sounds good until you have to handle a 2 foot stick over hot coals.
 
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