Should I buy an OWB or not?

[A. Stanton]

Joe, electric heat sucks--it's expensive. If I were building a house today, I would design the house to have two types of heat. For primary heat, I would look at geo-thermal. With this system, you get both heat and central air. For secondary--or back up heat I would have a wood stove or wood stove insert for a fireplace. Get an estimate for the geo-thermal. I think you will be surprised.

 

[CrappieKeith]

Heat pumps do give you cheap A/C and as far as heating goes .Once it gets to 30 degrees they suck up mega electricity.
You would need ducting to deliver your heat and A/C.
If that's the route the adding an add on wood furnace not stove is the answer.
The wood furnace can heat your home 24/7 until you decide to run your back up heat.

Then again we make a wood/gas or wood/oil furnace...all in one.That means the liquid can light your wood and you still only need 1 flue.
Then add a 3000$ A/C condensor and coil to the ducting.
You'd have 8 grand into this system.
The others will cost double that and your wood furnace will be about as efficient as wood furnaces can or will be.

 

[Randy88]

Did they ban all of them or just certain ones, they are supposed to have some of the more efficient ones out there that claim they burn smoke free but I don't know much about them, a sales guy told me they were coming out with models that would work in towns that had bans on them and these models pass the standards and are not any different than a gas furnace but I don't know anything about them. Ask some of the companies about info and then go back and talk to those at the state, most officials just lump all wood burners into one catagory and the answers no and if your armed with some knowledge about certain models being approved for certain areas that have bans on too I'd think they should have to at least hear you out before just saying no. Do some searching on the net and see whats out there that are being used in banned areas. These companies are wanting to sell units and the banned areas are the next area to sell in and you can be assured that if they can get a unit to pass they have a hot new market to sell, its got nothing to do with the wood its just the smoke and emissions they put out and once they clean that up as good as a gas or oil furnace sales are full steam ahead.

 

[Jkebxjunke]

some friends of ours had a geothermal heat pump and I believe theirs heated water too... in the summer the waste heat heated their hot water... dont forget the tax credit thing too

 

[4seasons]

I grew up with a wood furnace and heat pump/ A/C unit tied to the same ductwork. When the temps dropped Dad would put a block off plate over the A/C unit and use the wood furnace. Power bills for 3500 sqft around $150 year round with temp range of 95 summer highs to 20 winter lows.

When I got my first apartment 900 sqft window air baseboard heat and no insulation other than being the center apartment I would burn up in the summer and freeze in the winter. Power bill $150 summer & $250 winter with the same temp range. This was 8-10 years ago before electric price increases.

Now I own a 1200 sqft house with insulation overkill and have a heat pump/ A/C and a wood stove back up. After one winter with $200+ electric bills I started using the wood stove when the temp stays below 45. If I use it any warmer than that the living room (were the stove is) gets 80 or higher. My A/C return is in the same room as the stove so I can turn the fan on to circulate warm air through the house. Power bill dropped to under $100 in the middle of winter with an average temp of 35-40. This year winter was a lot colder (thank to Al Gore's Global Warming). We stayed below freezing for almost a month. We also had a price increase from the power company for a bill of $150. I am thinking of rerouting my A/C return to over the wood stove for a more efficient system. I helped put the heat pump/ A/C unit in with my Dad for a cost of $2000 and a weekend of work. The wood stove was there when I bought the place but I saw one just like it at a local hardware store for $600. And of course I have access to more wood than I can cut, but I grew up on it so I am used to it.

$800 a month sounds real high to me. I know some people with $400 bills but that's for 8000-15000 sqft. Sounds to me like you have an insulation problem. If your bill dropped from $800 to $200 you could pay for a system like mine in one winter. If you have never burned wood before I wood try this before getting an OWB. I would like to have one just to get rid of the hot room/ cold rooms, and the mess of wood chips and ash in the house.
But I will probably wait until I build another house.

 

[Lurch16th]

Just another opinion;

I'm in Central Pa. and have baseboard elec. The recent elec bill of $500, was my straw that broke the camels back.

I have free wood on my own property.
Irregardless,
1. There will never be another wood burning stove in my house.
Been there done that.
2. If there would be a wood burning stove in my house, it will never be in my basement. Been there done that


3. There will never be any type of combustion type heat source inside my house, gas, oil or whatever.

"Been there done that" = bugs running all over the house, sometimes snakes and rodents hidden in hollow logs, smoke and small explosions, wife constantly complaining all winter and i do mean ALL, about smelling up the house and her clothes, soot all over in every room, scuff marks from wood on the cellar entrance, wood chips and mess inside and out of the cellar , having smoke alarm go off in the middle of the night from "Puffs", AND my personal favorite, running up and down the cellar steps carrying every single log that went in the stove.
Then after i invented a chute, pushing a huge wood box from one end of the cellar to the next to get the wood to the furnace.


I originally chose elec, because bottom line is, we may or may not run out of fossil fuels, but there is always a way to generate electricity.

If i didn't have free wood, i would not install an outdoor wood burner or any other type of burner. I would install some solar panels and or wind generators.

With any wood burner you will be tied to your residence for for 8-12 hr intervals, for as long as you run it, or the fire will go out.

The Heatmor OWB i have now, will pay for itself in a few years and i will have a wind generator installed at some point.

 

[windthrown]

I have to agree on your counts of why not to have an indoor wood stove and gas water heaters. In the last house that I owned, I moved the gas fired DHW heater to the garage from the main closet in the hall. Also had natural gas wall furnaces which I have no issue with being inside. In the last house I lived in, I installed a CB OWB. That baby cooks that house still. I hope that the ex is enjoying it. I much prefer an OWB outside the house with radiant heat and Hx water heating though. Wood, bugs, fire, boiler, etc. all outside.

As for OWB, the bans on then in the east are all from BS anti-OWB lobby groups. Look at the NY state site, and they show people burning tires in their OWBs as examples of why they are banned. New England is similar, as is MD. WA state has bans on all installs of new wood burning appliances for regional air quality and smoke reasons. So do the large metro areas in CA. Seems that MD is weird, buy one but do not use it? As usual, the fanatics are ranting about the wrong stuff. BAN EVERYTHING!

 

[ihookem]

I think woodburner sales would be half if everyone would insulate their homes properly. If they still burned wood they would use half the wood they use. I can't believe the people that burn 10-15 cords a year to heat their house and hot water. I had a 2200 sq. ft ranch and burned 3 cords a year with about 200 dollars of natural gas and the natural gas heated my hot water too. I might not even buy a wood burner for my next house, because a woodgun 100 with hydronic heat and hot water will cost me 15k. By the time I break even the Woodgun will be junk, Not to mention I can make 300 dollars in interest on 15k @ 2% interest and that pays Januarys gas bill. So for what, cut wood haul it split, stack, scrounge for wood besides? Just a thought.

 

[ohioburner]

Hey Lurch I was just wondering about how much wood you go through with your Heatmor and what are you heating. I might install one this summer and was just curious.

 

[windthrown]

I think woodburner sales would be half if everyone would insulate their homes properly.

All energy used could be cut in half if people insulated their houses properly. Of course, the energy lobby is not behind people doing that...

Also there are a lot of places that do not have natural gas. At the house I put the last OWB in, there was only electricity from the grid. The boiler also cost $6k, not $15k.

 

[Lurch16th]

Hey Ohio,
The jury hasn't even left the court room on that one. I type this 1 minute after i just filled the interior lines with water and turned on the power for the first time ever After 6 weeks or so my install is finally done,,,Haaleleuyahhhh!..
Gonna pressure test overnight, then fill outside lines tomorrow and hopefully light 'er up tomorrow afternoon.

So i won't know until next spring how it works.

 

[Randy88]

Now for the next question, what does it cost to heat with a ground source heat pump, the reason I'm asking is that they were all the rage for the last few years and everybody bragged on them and now are starting to complain what the electricity costs to heat them. Theres one down the road that cost 600 bucks a month year round and that came from the owner himself, granted its a huge house but still and he used supplimental heat besides. A friend of mine is an electrician and he told me theres two types high pressure and low pressure, low pressure only is used to cool in the summer, high does both and never invest in high pressure system because the repairs will kill you after a few years with compressors and switches and motors, he said their an electricians dream machine for repairs, he'll make retirement off the systems. He told me to use low pressure and cool in the summer and something else to heat with in the winter that was cheaper. Seems I get a 50 percent agreement and 50percent disagree type reaction when I ask.


As for having wood heat in the house I'd agree with the sediment been there done that and lived with it for 20 years, never again, did the basement thing and also the stove in the upstairs thing too, I'll pass on those ideas, same as the last guys only for 20 years worth of reasons.


Do like the owb though is one of the best investments I ever made, if your going to put something in or attached to your house check with the insurance company first, we talked about putting a cheaper wood furnace in the garage but found my insurance would triple and thats the best quote we had, made the larger cost to go owb look better right from the get go, my insurance even went down a little because we shut off the gas furnace that was in the house and capped it along with the gas water heater so theres no ignition source in the house. Yes we did have problems in the past once from a faulty pilot sensor on a water heater that filled the house one day full of lp gas and why it didn't blow I'll never know, the othe time was from a gas stove that had a bad ignitor and the gas valve leaked and filled the house again. Both times in the summer, never figured I'd ever try for the third lucky time so we did away with gas in the house.

 

[KLUSTER]

Owb

Outdoor woodburner , definetly the ticket , if you don't mind a little work. I keep my house @ garage , both at 72 degree's all winter. Also heat domestic hot water all year long ! All on about 1.5 to 2 triaxle loads of logs per year... House @ garage are 35' x 48' during 25-30 degree weather, i can pack stove full on fri. Night, and return sun. Afternoon, still have hot coals to reload. Mahoening 300 series.

 

[ihookem]

Hey Windthrown, if I can get an owb for 6k I might go for it.What kind was it? I might get away with a cb , the smallest one but might also go to the CB 5036, I want a Woodgun 100 though and after hydronic heating the price goes up every time I think about it. I don't know yet. Also, like we both agree, about using so much energy in this country, we really need to insulate our houses better, we are going to need to save energy. Insulation is a lot easier than cutting wood.

 

[windthrown]

Hey Windthrown, if I can get an owb for 6k I might go for it.What kind was it? I might get away with a cb , the smallest one but might also go to the CB 5036, I want a Woodgun 100 though and after hydronic heating the price goes up every time I think about it. I don't know yet. Also, like we both agree, about using so much energy in this country, we really need to insulate our houses better, we are going to need to save energy. Insulation is a lot easier than cutting wood.

$6k was the price for a new Central Boiler 4436, delivered to Oregon 4 years ago. No sales tax in Oregon. $8k was the entire install cost, with labor, back-hoe loading, parts, Hx's and slab for it. They do not sell that size model any more though. That offset a $250-300 a month electric heating bill, at the then low rate of 9.3 cents a kWhr.

If I buy a house and get the Obamanomics $8k rebate, that should just about pay for a new CB for it. I am a 'new' homeowner reborn again. I sold my last house 5 years ago, so I qualify for the home buying rebate as a firt time buyer. Go figure... anyway, I plan on insulating the holy :censored: out of it. If I get a gutted kitchen type foreclosure, all the easier. Super insulate it.

 

[Jkebxjunke]

$800 for 1 month does seem high... I just got my bill for last month... and its just under $1100.. now that is with 4 chicken houses and 125,000 birds... 300 light bulbs .. and several ventilating ( 1/2 and 1 hp motors) fans 4 well pumps... some electric baseboard heat in pump rooms and some in the main house... but I do have some propane heat, propane hot water and cook with it.