Wood burning heat (Missoula: loft, house, pros and cons)

[Stephan_K]

If you lived in a 2500 sq ft two story loft type home, heated your home mainly with wood and had to replace your current wood burning system, what wood burning heating system would you replace it with and why considering all the pros and cons of heating with wood in your local area? Or would you change to a different heat system all together? Considering best bang for your buck of course...

[ElkHunter]

I'd put in a good pellet stove. It's worth the bucks if you spend a little extra and get one that you can duct the heat to the far corners. Otherwise you burn up the loft area and freeze out the ground floor.

[jimj]

I would replace it with what my neighbor just installed, a wood/gas fired boiler. It's self contained in a little building about the size of a small gardening shed and he only has to load it about every three days. If it runs out of wood the gas burner automatically turns on. This system is a radiant heat system and it not only heats his house but his garage and 40x40 shop as well, not to mention provides his hot water too. He could have also set up a zone to heat his walkways and driveways to keep snow and ice off them but ran low on cash.
I'm not a fan of pellet stoves since if the power goes out you have nothing to run the auger that feeds the stove and I think they're more messy due to dust and such than regular wood but that's just me...

[MontanaNative64]

There is no wood burning allowed in the Missoula area anymore am I correct on that? I think due to the inversions that they have now banned wood burning stoves in the missoula valley, so if you are in this area you would have to be considering something else.