outdoor wood furnace

S

So. Dak.

New member
Anyone have experience with one of these? You know, the kind that heats water and send it underground to your furnace. I'm seriously considering purchasing one of these and am curious if anyone has an educated opinion on them.

I'm looking at the Wood Master www.woodmaster.com
 
I know of two who have them. Both work VERY well. The pastor at the church we go to has one of them and it is the most efficient heat I've come across. His is about 50 ft. from the house, the water lines run inside a 8" pipe full of insulation. Even in the coldest weather the home is very warm and very clean. The other one is about 150' from the house. His is used for heating his house plus heat a kiln to dry lumber. He has a small saw mill and needed a kiln, this one is very large. He loads it 4'-6' long green wood. I mean really green, like dripping wet. I have tested many different types of heating systems when I'm doing home inspections and, if I were doing my own again, thats what I would do. Pretty hard to beat radiant heat in the floors. One thing to consider, of course, is a long term supply of wood.
 
There are quite a few of them in my area, and 2 of my friends have them. One for about 5 years. They seem to work very well, and I am thinking very seriously about one myself. They say you can burn about anything in them, and one friend just burns old pallets in the summer to heat his hot water. As for the wood, even in the case of having to buy it, in my area at least, it would still be quite a bit cheaper than buying oil.
Barry
 
The guy next door who is disabled has one of this type and likes it very well, he lets me fill it for him,haul the wood for him, clean it out for him. I think it is one of the best I have seen. The winters here are not as cold as yours but filled up with oak it will last 2 to 3 days. He too heats the floors and his water with it. It has to be 4 years old and has only had to clean it out once in a while.
Mauser
 
i havent heard much about them other than one caught fire last nite near here but that was b/c the extra wood was stored too close to the burner.
 
I don't know about those furnaces, but I do know that radiant floor heating is absolutely the best. I installed a diesel furnace fired system in a new home in Fairbanks Alaska. They circulated glycol in 3 seperate loops. The guy I was working for had built a 2500 sq ft home with the same system a year earlier; it heated the house Dec, Jan, Feb, AND Mar, In Fairbanks, with 400 gals of fuel. Awesome efficiency!
 
My brother uses one made by Central Boiler, his neighbor is a dealer and has one also. Yes, they'll burn most any wood, even some of the punkiest stuff I never thought would burn. LOL. They both have a heat exchanger in the duct-work, works like a big heater core and works with the original thermostat.

They both have added their units in addition to the original propane furnace so in case they would have to be gone a few days the propane will still kick on and heat the house even if the woodburner goes out. Also heats the water in the home. The propane furnace doesn't run when using the woodburner.

The neighbor( distributor of Central Boiler) heats I believe 4 buildings with his. Workshop, fur-shed, Garage, and house. I wouldn't swear to it but I believe it supplys hot water to the fur-shed also.

I've been considering going with one also but hope to move next year and am not sure I could get my investment back.

Cro-mag
 
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I have one, a Hardy Wood Furnace, and it's great. You never run out of hot water! You can burn about anything in it, however, it is best to get a decent ratio of seasoned wood along with some green. When I'm running the outside wood furnace and have a fire built in the fireplace I don't care how cold it is, the electric never kicks on. I think it's well worth the investment. Especially with the rising cost of commercial heating sources, and if you can cut the wood yourself, well it's a no brainer.
 
here in Southern WI about every 5th home outside of town has one I have 2 friends that have one and they LOVE em although we were drywalling a hame for a fella (maybe city folk) and he couldnt grasp the fact that a 30" log wouldnt fire from some luke warm ashes /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif he'd fill it once a day 11:00 pm but he wouldn't anything small in to get it up so every morn I would have to go out and fire it -10 cools the water in a hurry. I will have one at my home when I biuld my next place. I also have a friend that has a pellet stove in his home and he says it works great and is much cheeper then his gas furnace.
 
Wood,Wood and more wood! I have two part time jobs and one of them is feeding an outdoor furnace. Like others have said they'll burn anything thats wood. The people I work for use the hard wood inside for the fireplace and wood stove in the main house which is not heated with the o/f.
They use oil for the house.
The O/F heats a 2 story 3 bay garage/ workshop and another greenhouse / garage.
We burn fern. Blowdown and any trees that he is given (free). They keep two employees. Myself and another woman. we both put in about 10 hours a week cutting, splitting and stacking the wood on pallets in front of the O/F. The woman of the house likes to feed the fire. The man of the house has a tractor, a trailer and a medium size truck. Chainsaws and an endless supply of blades. When were collecting wood the woman and I put in about 15 hours a week each on top of the 10 hours a week cutting and splitting. I don't mind telling you how much we get paid because it will help you decide weither you will save or not.
I know it sounds kinda shabby but there is'nt much to do around here in the winter, It's something.
We both make $12 an hour.
20 hours x $12 to cut,split and stack (includes the hardwood for the main house)
30 hours/week x 3 weeks to gather wood for next year.
to burn 27 cord a year. It's a lot of work.
Theres a lot of variables. I don't start untill after thanksgiving and will probably go on back to my masonry in april. The other woman takes care of it in the warmer months. I'd say 5 months we'll go thru the 20 cord when it's cold.
Wood, Wood and more wood! WE NEED MORE WOOD! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/angry-smiley-055.gif
hope I helped. Joe
 
All the stuff I read says that you only have to load up the stove 1 maybe 2 times a day. I talked to a guy here in SD that only loads his about once every day and a half and he's heating about 4,000 square feet. Then I talked to another guy here and he said that he doesn't think he even loads his that much.
 
I have one at my mountain house in Va. I think it's great. It's the best heat in the world, no fans coming on, no drafts in the house, no dust accumulation from heat vents etc. The floor is always warm, you can drop your duds on the floor at night beside the bed and when you get up next morning they're nice and warm. Plus, like someone else said, you'll never run out of hot water.

It has a 500 gallon water tank and a huge firebox and it WILL burn anything. The comment about mixing dried and green wood is correct, green wood will greatly reduce the numer of trips to stoke the fire. Plus, other than a little kindling to start the fire when it gets cold, you don't need to split the wood. Whole logs burn much longer than split wood. The bigger the better. When it's really cold I've been known to use a sledge hammer to drive logs into the box. Get it crammed full at 6:00 PM after hunting and it'll still be holding 170 degrees in the tank the next morning at 6:00 AM.
If you're installing a new one be sure to add the propane backup option. Then if you leave home for a few days in winter the propane will take over automatically when the fire burns down. It's fairly cheap to add it at installation, but very expensive to add at a later date.

I hope this helps you some.
 
My neighbor has one and loves it, but boy does he go through the wood! My brother has done some research on building a hay bale burning stove. I guess it's similar to a wood burner, but I don't know if he would use heated water or just blow it into his ductwork? He said a few small square straw bales would burn for days.
aaron
 
The central boilers are some of the best I have seen on the market. They are very well engineered. my in-laws in Northern Wisconsin have been tunning woodmasters with a fuel oil backup for years and they work very well but I like the centrals.you can even convert the centrals to dual fuel so you can burn wood and then switch to LP or fuel oil right in the same unit apparently. you can put a pretty long stick in there and they can go the whole day with one fill unless it is really cold outside. Make sure to check with your insurance agent as most companies make you put them a minimum of 50 feet from any structure.

In our area the corn stoves are really popular. You can heat most houses with one of the small free standing stoves and they are far cheaper to purchase than the wood stoves(you can get a decent one for 2500 dollars) and you don't have to trench in the insulated pex tubing or tie into your exchanger. they generally run continuously for a few dollars a day so you can spend less time chopping wood and more time shooting.
 
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In our area the corn stoves are really popular. You can heat most houses with one of the small free standing stoves and they are far cheaper to purchase than the wood stoves(you can get a decent one for 2500 dollars) and you don't have to trench in the insulated pex tubing or tie into your exchanger. they generally run continuously for a few dollars a day So you can spend less time chopping wood and more time shooting.




yep, there is the time and expense of wood cutting to consider as compared to the low expense and no time of corn burning.
 
I know 2 guys that have them one is a Hardy the other is a Central Boiler. Both are very good but I would go with the Central Boiler. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
 
day. So.Dak,

The Woodmaster is a good unit my brother has had one for several years. He has had to have some repair done to it on the jacket once. One thing you will need to keep in mind with these units though, they cool the smoke down alot when in idle mode and will just sit there and pump out a lot of low hanging smoke that can lay in the yard and be quite obnoxious. If you have well cured wood and have the unit set where it will be down wind of your house for most of the prevailing winds it is a great help. Another brother of mine had a neighbor who never did get his wood put up in time and was heating a small house with one and the smoke just hung in my brothers yard all the time. One of the towns here created a ordinance banning these units because of this.
We have a Woodmaster corn unit that is out side between the work shop and my dads house and we love it. Heats both buildings great on 5 1/2 bushels of corn a day /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif

SOR
 
I went over to restock the pallets in front of the O/F yesterday. They burned over a 1/2 cord in 4 days. Is been cold. 0 at night and 15 in the day. I'm going over today and take some pic's of "The wood farm" and will post. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Feed the wood monster.
furn3.jpg

They keep six pallets up close to the O/F. If I was to take a week off they'd be empty at this time of year.

furn5.jpg

The main house is set up with a heater in the cellar from the O/F but they don't use it. They have a massave stone fireplace and another stone chimney that vents a wood stove. An 11 kw generator takes care of the house in power outtages.

The green house/ garage is 80 deg. all the time.
furn1.jpg


This 4 bay garage /shop is kept at 65 deg.
furn4.jpg
 
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