[Cambium]

Originally Posted by brien51

Wood stoves are good but wood gassification boilers are even better. ...

Wood stoves heat the air mostly around them and then gradually cools the farther away it travels from the stove. They also produce a lot of creosote if they burn slower when the area is sufficiently heated to the comfort zone.

Excellent post...thanks... Im very intrigued. How often do you put a piece of wood in the burner? What do you do at night for heat? My issue is going down stairs each time to reload.

As just to reply to that comment, thats incorrect. That comment "heat the air around it" refers to fireplaces... If you have a blower or fan you can get even distribution. The room with wood stove is 71, other rooms 68 which is good enough for us.

Ranch homes need a blower for sure. Raised ranches and colonials would be easier to heat since heat rises.

[renovating]

I dunno, I guess I am the only poster on here very disappointed with our insert. We have gone through almost a cord, yet have had our heat on in this cold night and day...the savings we may make up in oil costs we lose paying for our wood.

[JViello]

Originally Posted by Cambium

Ranch homes need a blower for sure.

No they don't. Convection is convection. The problem is where the stove is vented. You want to see a huge increase in stove efficiency, external vent your stove's air intake. That's the main reason opposite areas of the stove are "cold". It's drawing cold air in. (As much as people like to think their house is airtight, they are far from it.)

I have about a 4* drop at most from the living area where my stove is, inside the fireplace (Not an insert) and the furthest part of the house away from it.

So the living area is a nice toasty 72-73* (Or 80* if we want it. ) and the bedrooms are a comfy 68-69* for sleeping.

Originally Posted by brien51

Wood stoves are good but wood gassification boilers are even better. I have a HS Tarm MB Solo. It stands besides my oil boiler and uses wood to heat the wood boiler to about 200 Degrees F and circulates the water between the two boilers. When there is a call for heat, the water is circulated to that zone and the cooler water comes back. This precipitates the damper to open more at the bottom of the wood boiler and increases the flames to burn more wood to heat more water. It's a great system because the wood heat is evenly distributed through the existing baseboard heaters. Wood stoves heat the air mostly around them and then gradually cools the farther away it travels from the stove. They also produce a lot of creosote if they burn slower when the area is sufficiently heated to the comfort zone.

The gassification boiler has a series of baffles that the burned wood gases flow through that reburns those gases so I don't get any creosote in the chimney flue or the stove pipe connecting from the boiler to the flue. I have all four of my chimneys inspected and cleaned every year but the one for the boiler has never been cleaned since it has no creosoyte. My chimney sweep can't believe it. The only creosote that is produced collects in the firebox and I have a spray solution that dries it out and flakes it away as I scrape the inside of the firebox. I burn 5 cords of wood to heat a three zoned, 3000 sq ft area, from Dec to March. Use no oil in thiat time unless fire goes out and the oil burner will automatically come on.

My next heating system will be a geothemal system no wood, no oil, and very little electricty.


Home heating systems using wood burning boilers from TARM Biomass (http://www.woodboilers.com/wood-boilers.aspx - broken link)


TARM wood gasification boiler


How TARM Wood Boilers Work - TimberBuySell.com - the portal for timber, logs and woody biomass (http://timberbuysell.com/Community/DisplayNews.asp?id=488 - broken link)

Are you kidding me? Do you have a clue what those things cost? $15-25K! Your ROI will come in about 30 years. LOL

My stove cost me $700.00, I fabricated my own liner and insert for about $30.00.

[Cambium]

Originally Posted by JViello

Are you kidding me? Do you have a clue what those things cost? $15-25K! Your ROI will come in about 30 years. LOL

My stove cost me $700.00, I fabricated my own liner and insert for about $30.00.

Are the wood burning furnaces really that much? If so then yeah, not worth it.

My stove costed me $350 brand new on craigslist but I regret the size of it now,.. only 15 inch split pieces... If I'm spending $900 a year on oil with this stove I guess with a bigger stove that would be cut in half.

[HeadedWest]

Originally Posted by brien51

My next heating system will be a geothemal system no wood, no oil, and very little electricty.

I owned a house with a geothermal heat pump. It used less electricity than air exchange, but I wouldn't call it "very little". I never did get used to that warm-but-not-hot air coming out of the vents in the winter.

Whatever I did save over 3 years was wiped out instantly when the outside pipes sprung a leak and I had to have the whole yard excavated to replace the buried pipes.

[JViello]

Originally Posted by Cambium

Are the wood burning furnaces really that much? If so then yeah, not worth it.

My stove costed me $350 brand new on craigslist but I regret the size of it now,.. only 15 inch split pieces... If I'm spending $900 a year on oil with this stove I guess with a bigger stove that would be cut in half.

No a wood burning FURNACE is less than that, these are uber techy gassification units. You can get a wood burning furnace for not much more than a regular furnace, however those models suck as a wood stove and suck as a furnace. Neither one very efficient. External wood furnances are ideal IMHO as you can load the sucker up with 4 foot logs and forget it for a long time. However, they are pretty much regulated out of existence in CT.

Originally Posted by HeadedWest

I owned a house with a geothermal heat pump. It used less electricity than air exchange, but I wouldn't call it "very little". I never did get used to that warm-but-not-hot air coming out of the vents in the winter.

Whatever I did save over 3 years was wiped out instantly when the outside pipes sprung a leak and I had to have the whole yard excavated to replace the buried pipes.

I agree. Heat pumps in the South without electric supplementation are the same way. Yea the air coming out is 75* or whatever...but it just doesn't give that warm to the bone feeling and if anything the circulating air made me more chilly.

[Tetto]

Originally Posted by JViello

Neither one very efficient. External wood furnances are ideal IMHO as you can load the sucker up with 4 foot logs and forget it for a long time. However, they are pretty much regulated out of existence in CT.

Thank you Sen. elect Blumy...

[Cambium]

Seems like I skipped over last year. LOL!! I wonder why.

This year my boiler is not turning on when the T-Stat calls for it but the wood stove has been on since end of October. Toasty (too warm) living room at 70-73 and rest of house comfortable at 63-68. I always test the system in October. When I realize the heat wasnt coming on, I actually thought that was good news.

I been through 1/4 cord already. Havent filled my oil tank since January 2012 and this is what I have left a little less.

[gtmo]

Originally Posted by Cambium

Seems like I skipped over last year. LOL!! I wonder why.

This year my boiler is not turning on when the T-Stat calls for it but the wood stove has been on since end of October. Toasty (too warm) living room at 70-73 and rest of house comfortable at 63-68. I always test the system in October. When I realize the heat wasnt coming on, I actually thought that was good news.

I been through 1/4 cord already. Havent filled my oil tank since January 2012 and this is what I have left a little less.

Last year, I heated the house primarily with wood pellets. I have a raised ranch with a pellet stove in the living room downstairs. I was going through almost 2 bags of pellets a day to keep the downstairs at about 75. The half of the upstairs closer to the stove (family room, dining room, kitchen) would get to about 65 and the bedrooms would be in the low 60s. I would close the flaps on the baseboard radiators in the kitchen, family room, and dining room and then set the thermostat to 67.

I went through about 4 ton of pellets and maybe 180 gallons of oil last the winter (including hot water). Total cost was 1200 for the pellets plus 600 for the oil.

This year, I am only turning on the pellet stove when we are in the room, and heating the upstairs primarily with the oil furnace. I'm probably going to go through 1.5 ton of pellets and 360 of oil. Total cost will be 1200 for the oil and 450 for the pellets.

[sgorneau]

Old thread, but was wondering how everyone with a wood stove is doing during this cold snap