Outdoor Wood Burning Furnace, Opinions?

[ndemge]

I have a small house, and allergies, so I dont' have a fireplace or burn any wood.<br /><br />Anyone here have the outdoor wood burner, what are your opinions? My family splits wood every year, 2 brothers and my parents burn for heat, only cost for our wood is fuel and upkeep on saws/splitter.<br /><br />Also, what is the max distance from the house you can put the burner? My parents house is only abotu 1,000' away, would be really nice if we could have a bit larger unit and share.

 

[TELMANMN]

Re: Outdoor Wood Burning Furnace, Opinions?

I do not know about sharing a resource but from I have ascertained, they work quite well if built properly. <br /> As to how far away I believe it is a matter of local codes.

 

[ndemge]

Re: Outdoor Wood Burning Furnace, Opinions?

Doing some reasearch tonight, found a guy here in MO that sells one that is fan forced instead of the more expensive water units.<br /><br />All it is is a Big metal box, with a 55 gallon drum inside, drum heats the air around it and air is forced through and into the house, with smoke going outside.<br /><br />It see this as a VERY easy thing to build yourself, except I have worries about one thing, what happens when the drum rusts through, and one ember goes through the duct into the house?<br /><br />The guy selling these units will take apointments to come to his house to check out the one he uses, thinking of seeing how they do it to get an idea of what type to go with.<br /><br />My electric bill pushes $200-250 a month in the winter, burning wood would pay for itself VERY quickly. <br /><br />not opposed to welding it up myself if I can come up with a good set of plans.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Outdoor Wood Burning Furnace, Opinions?

99% of the units we see here in VT heat up hot water. I would not think that a division of 1000' would work.<br /><br />They burn virtually any wood do to the short chimney and seem to work very nice.<br /><br />Bob

 

[Ron G]

Re: Outdoor Wood Burning Furnace, Opinions?

A guy here last put one in pretty darn amazing he puts wood in it once a week he said it heats his house and his hot water he said he can put 4'logs in it 2 1/2'diameter.keep us posted on what you find out.

 

[llfish]

Re: Outdoor Wood Burning Furnace, Opinions?

Great units we have had ours for ten years and no problem. Heats house shop and water. Our unit is about 25 feet from the house.

 

[tomatolord]

Re: Outdoor Wood Burning Furnace, Opinions?

well it would not be 1000 it would 500 or so if you put it somewhere in the middle -<br /><br />I do not think hot air would work across that distance though - it would be a matter of a getting a blast of cold air prior to the hot air coming in.<br /><br />Here is something on the air heat ones - The Heat is going to go thru a window or wall into one room thru the heat duct off the top of the furnace.......IT WILL NOT HOOK into your existing heatduct. You can use your existing ductwork as the COLD AIR RETURN.<br /><br />Basically it blasts the heat into 1 room and heat will gravitate to the rest of the house, ideally you would have the cold air return at the far end so that the air gets circulated...<br /><br />===============<br /><br />The people I know that have them love them - because they can burn whatever wood they want pine and they dont have to split it only cut in 4 foot sections and toss it in.<br /><br />One of the biggest costs is rerouting the plumbing to the outside of the house<br /><br />Tomatolord