Exterior wood furnaces and boilers

I see on the net those wood boilers in a shed. I would guess that these are
super expensive, install costs would be high.

I also see the furnaces that push hot air into the house,

I live in Wisconsin so it gets cold up here, I now have a small wood stove but it dont heat real well. It came with the home
Can anybody help me with some opinions if they have one of these. I will be getting a tax refund and would like to plow this money into lowering my heat bill.

I have one of those "wood boilers in a shed" and I really like it. Mine is not a brand name, but built buy a local fellow in his welding shop. He builds about 25 a year to sell. I paid $2200 for mine new in 2005. What I like is the fact that it will burn what others consider junk wood. I burn aspen with no trouble, slab wood from local sawmills work great, or any other type of wood works good too. As long as my water temperature in the boiler is between 150-170 degrees, house is warm.
I live in MN, and we have seen several morning temps of -30 this year, and it was still comfortable in the house.

How is your house set up (single story, basement, etc)? What is and where is your current furnace located and where is your wood stove located?

Dave

Ive had a Central Boiler out door stove for 7 years and love it. It does get hungry but havnt bought any oil since I installed.

We looked at getting an outdoor boiler for our home. The model we looked at (Classic brand - smallest model) was determined to be the size for our house (2600 sq ft). The unit with the plumbing fixtures to the house, the water to air exchanger (for forced air), and the water to water exchanger (for hot water) seemed to be in the $6000 range - it was a couple of years ago. Generally speaking you will go through quite a lot more wood than you would with an indoor forced air furnace (but obviously not all houses are set up to allow for one of those, ours included). If you have access to lots of wood, maybe that is not a problem. We ultimately decided against it due to the much higher wood consumption. I know several people that swear by them though too. Good luck, let us know what you decide.

Whether you can use a wood boiler or furnace depends on what type of heat your house has:

Boiler for forced hot water, furnace for force hot air.

I have a wood boiler in my basement that circulates water through the oil boiler when wood boiler is hot, and to the zones when they call for heat. Mine is a simple relatively cheap little thing (I paid $1 K for it about 15 years ago) and not terribly efficient. I like it alot but it would be better if it were more efficent. However, better boilers run into the Thousands new; a high end one like TARM would be on the order of $7K - $8K.

The outdoor ones work about the same way, the only real negative I've heard about them is that the chimneys are not very high (10 feet maybe) and the neighbors can get tire of breathing your wood smoke right quick. If you are rural, that shouldn't be much of a problem.

The other thing about outdoor boilers is you'll need to run anti-freeze in your system rather thatn straight water.

I think outdoor boilers new cost on the order of $5K to $6K, plus parts you might be up to $7K to $8K when all is said and done.

If you live near a population center - keep your eye on craigslist. I see people giveing used indoor boiler away or at least selling them cheap with some regularity.

,, forced air cannot hold the heat like water can ...neighbor has a 250 gllon water tank , in his basement for heat storage for the outside water furnace ,, works very well, has it at the bottom of steps and it is a boot warmer and glove /jacket dryer as well ..........

,, forced air cannot hold the heat like water can ...neighbor has a 250 gllon water tank , in his basement for heat storage for the outside water furnace ,, works very well, has it at the bottom of steps and it is a boot warmer and glove /jacket dryer as well ..........

I am on my 7th winter with a Classic Boiler. I do have forced air in my house, it uses a heat exchanger in the furnace plenum to draw the heat from. I also use it for my domestic hot water. I don't have anti freeze in the system, there is no need for it unless you let the fire go out. I haven't bought a dime worth of propane for heat in 7 years. I typically burn from the end of September into May in northwest lower Michigan, mostly for the unlimited "free" hot water, I don't need heat near that long. I too burn junk wood, pine etc, even old punky wood that wouldn't be used in a wood stove.

A guy I work with has a "Charmaster" Wood furnace, it is indoors and it is a forced air unit. It came with his house when he bought it. The charmaster website gives specs and dimensions and all that jazz. He loves his Charmaster, just load up and the fan goes off and on during the day, he has NO fuel bill other then electric, He chops a lot of wood too, he has 10+ acres of wood with lots of dead trees.

We bought our outside boiler 3yrs. ago and have saved about $1800.00 a year on our heat and hot water. I have a Central boiler,very well known in Wisconsin and Illinois,I live in the northwest corner of Illinois,where we have had a very cold winter,as everyone else has also,we had temps. of -40 below and our house stayed right on 74degrees and it also heats 100% of our hot water year around,yes I run my boiler 365 days a year for hot water, our junk wood in the fence lines works very well to burn in the summer, in the summer I put wood in it about 3 times a week.3 yrs ago when we had our boiler installed our gas man came and filled our big silver PIG up,$600.00 was the bill,82% full,3 yrs. later it is 79% the top of the wife's stove is gas and that is all,I shut the gas off to the water heater don't need it. Very simply put for me there is no substitute for my boiler-- I haven't heard my wife say she's cold since we have had it,so you know it's warm!!!I think the web sight is www.centralboiler.com. is where I looked for info on it,there are a lot of boilers out there--DO YOUR HOME WORK!!!

When we bought our house, central heating was a wood/coal heater in the center of the living room and one in the center of the dining room. Had galvanized plumbing also. Needed to run water lines anyway so went ahead and ran plumbing and hung radiators. Used a 15 gallon electric water heater and a circulation pump for heating and an on demand heater for hot water the 1st year or so until I ran across a used oil boiler. Still use the on demand heater in no heat months.
If I was in your place, I'd plumb my house for hot water heat, then tie into it with whatever you decide to heat the water with.


Dave

I looked at those wood furnaces also becausae i have plenty of wood.They are expensive to buy and install,then cutting the wood takes a lot of work.We decided to go with a geo-thermal system.It cost less than the outside boiler and so far the only cost is a higher electric bill.

I have a wood boiler in my cellar tied in with my oil boiler. The wood stove heats the water inside it throught a series of stainless steel pipes. Works well. If the temp drops below 68, or wereever you set your thermostat the oil kicks in. After the oil boiler shuts down, the water it the tank is 180 degrees and the wood stove circulator keeps circulating the water throught the house. Added bonus I can use the stove for a cook top and warm up near it when I came in from outside.

I've done quiet a bit of research on boilers this past year. I was looking at outside types and inside types.

The thing with most conventional outside boilers is that they're terribly inefficient, to the point where if you were buying wood there would be little to no gain over oil. They love to claim that you can run green wood in them, which you can, but here's the thing, you waste a TON of your heat drying out that green firewood before it will burn. Burning dry firewood means faster, hotter combustion. They also smoke like a bugger, to the point that at least here in Maine, they're trying to regulate them. This comes down to efficiency again. The way they're designed is they have pipes that run right through the firebox to warm the water. This does heat the water quickly but it also keeps the temp in the firebox down which again hurts the combustion and causes smoke. Think of smoke as lost energy.

Anyway, after talking to a lot of dealers you hear that most that don't Central Boiler brand boilers dislike them. Yes, they're usually the least expensive but as one guy put it they're the ones that gave every other outside boiler manufacture a bad name.

If you want to do it right look for one of the newer clean burning boiler, something with gasification or one of the other technologies. Then you will want to look into some heat storage device. Pretty much a big insulated tank. This way you take advantage of storing the heat that's built up when the fire is burning hot, not wasting it and having to cycle the boiler constantly.

It's not cheap but in the long run it's probably the best way you can go. IF you are cutting your own wood then you can make it pay for it's self after a while.

K

Kopeck--The dealers you talked to that didn't like the central boilers,were just mad because they didn't have one!!When it snows mine will have snow on it's roof for days at a time. I burn all seasoned oak during the winter--If central boiler's are the least expensive in your neck of the woods I would hate to see the price of other models. Outside wood boilers aren't for everyone, having your own wood supply really helps.Mine does not have water pipes running through the fire box,the fire box is completely surrounded by water and circulated through the system,very efficient.I went to about 5 different farms with different brand outside boilers, and the people were very willing to show there stove and all the workings, I had mine installed by a dealer, except I poured the pad and dug the trench for the thermo pex,mine has a 25 year warranty
Binderman

Hello Guest,
You can brouse this web site WWW.outbackheating .com
Guido.

Binder,

Do you have the E series or the CL series?

K

I've had my Central Boiler unit for 7 years now and love it. I installed it myself and also ran lines to my garage to heat that too. If your house is insulated good and the same with a garage, and you insulate the pex properly, I feel the unit is efficent. An endless supply of hot water, I have mine going all year 'round. The wife never has to touch it unless I'm away for a few days and that makes her happy!

(reply to post at 15:22:40 02/08/09)

Click to expand...

Look at this website of outbackheating co.
This one is a better link.
www.outbackheatinginc.com
Guido.

Kopeck, I have the CL---50-36.I totally agree with the Pennsylvanian, about your house being insulated and your pex lines insulated. You can have the best stove in the world, but if your house and system is not efficient,you are losing alot of heat. Binderman

Check out the arborist site lot's of info.
Untitled URL Link

When in discussions of outdoor wood boilers and their feasibility one needs to talk to boiler owners and compare apples to apples. I own a Central Boiler model CL 6048. I live in southern Michigan. I heat a 1700 to 1800 sq. ft.; fairly well insulated house built in 1980. I have propane forced air furnace and an electric hot water heater (I use the boiler to heat the domestic hot water). My boiler is about 80 feet from the house. I am in my third winter with the boiler. I figure that I have about 10K in it when the installed and ready to use. I have a reliable source of wood and have had luck having wood given to me also. I figure that I have used about 15 to 17 face cords of wood each heating season (we vacation south for 2 to 4 weeks every winter). I find that the smoke is minimal, it smokes some after filling but after a few hours the smoke is barely visible. One time I used some very poor wood and had excessive smoke. Before we bought the boiler my wife kept the house very cool, she used an electric heat dish focused on her and kept an Afghan blanket over her to keep warm. Now she keeps the house “very” warm. Only one time did we run out of domestic hot water, it was after 5 people took showers and the last one had cool water to finish. All the other boiler manufacturers have boilers that get the job done also. The argument of which is the best is the same as Chevy and Ford, John Deere and Farmall. I must note that I have seen on the Internet of photos of boilers “smoking”, in the photos it was obvious that it was a cold day, everything covered with frost. Is this smoke any different that what you see coming out of your car’s exhaust on a cold day?

Bill

There is good info on Woodheat.org.
I use a Clayton forced air furnace which is in my basement. I use it in tandem with a propane backup. I can load all of the wood I need for the winter into my basement during the summer.
Several of my brothers in law use outside boilers, they are safe but expensive and you have to go outside to load them.
I think that you save about 130 gallons of propane for every cord of wood burned.
good luck. My house was 81 degrees this morning.