Wood stove, wood furnace, wood boiler pro's and con's... Post them here.

[NSMaple1]

Varmebaronen UB40 gassification boiler, hooked up to 660 gallons of water in used propane tanks for heat storage. 2700 sq.ft. 18 year old two storey over 1500 sq.ft. unfinished basement on exposed open windy hilltop.

Pros: Natural draft (no fans) [power outage friendly], pumps out a ton of heat, only need to actually be burning on average 6 hours a day (12 hours on the very coldest of winter days), easy on wood (5-6 cords per year), no smoke, no chimney cleaning, can heat DHW all year with it by burning a load every 4-5 days in summer, entire house is as warm as we want it to be.

Cons: Only possible con is having to make a new fire every day - but I would not go back to the 'old way' of making a fire once in October no how so not a con for me. Well, maybe one more - it wasn't cheap. But well worth the investment.

 

[StihlFroling]

Varmebaronen UB40 gassification boiler, hooked up to 660 gallons of water in used propane tanks for heat storage. 2700 sq.ft. 18 year old two storey over 1500 sq.ft. unfinished basement on exposed open windy hilltop.

Pros: Natural draft (no fans) [power outage friendly], pumps out a ton of heat, only need to actually be burning on average 6 hours a day (12 hours on the very coldest of winter days), easy on wood (5-6 cords per year), no smoke, no chimney cleaning, can heat DHW all year with it by burning a load every 4-5 days in summer, entire house is as warm as we want it to be.

Cons: Only possible con is having to make a new fire every day - but I would not go back to the 'old way' of making a fire once in October no how so not a con for me. Well, maybe one more - it wasn't cheap. But well worth the investment.

So is your system an old gravity type? So you have a fire with no power but how do you circulate water or open zones with no power unless you have an old gravity system. What did the whole thing cost? Did you install or have it done? Any pics of that fire, thanks maple

 

[slowp]

Quadrafire something. The second from the smallest size. It is beyond national EPA standards. Our state has a skosh stricter requirement. It heats the house too much during our normal winter/spring/fall/ temps and is just right when we get a cold spell. It will smoke into the house if I open the door while the whole house fan is going. I just have to remember to turn the fan off. The chimney is all pipe. I burn 1.5 or 2 cords to heat my 1400 sq. ft. 4 year old house. I don't use the ash disposal thing either.
It is easier just to shovel it out. Pardon the mess. I have a habit of throwing gloves, hats, shoes etc. down by it to dry them out.

 

[NSMaple1]

So is your system an old gravity type? So you have a fire with no power but how do you circulate water or open zones with no power unless you have an old gravity system. What did the whole thing cost? Did you install or have it done? Any pics of that fire, thanks maple

No, just regular SlantFin baseboard. In four zones. There are two NO zone valves that open when they lose power, they are plumbed into my two upstairs zones and one of the downstairs ones. Flows pretty good once it gets going - I did have an issue this past fall in an outage where a small air bubble found its way into an upstairs zone when the NO valve opened & locked it up. I just manually open the fourth zone valve. Also my storage tanks are higher than top of boiler so that convects also - not quite enough to take all the heat at full output, but with the dump zones I'm good. Since the air bubble episode I've added a UPS that my main boiler circ goes through - I like lots of redundancy. All in, about $15k CDN. That includes a 2k hit on the exchange rate at the time and freight/duty/brokerage, and also includes a new 80 gallon hot water heater, and 20kw electric boiler for backup. Basically a whole new heating/DHW system except for the SlantFin baseboards and their zone valves. Did it all myself except for wiring the 80 gallon DHW heater & electric boiler. No good pics of the fire, I've got some crappy phone pics. I should try with a real camera sometime, maybe.

 

[mirvin]

Baker Falcon with home built water heater for DHW. 6 inch double wall ss chimney.
Pros heat and very efficient. The longest burn I ever got out of it was 18 hours on a fairly warm day.
Cons. 18 in fire box. People give me wood and cut it to 20-24 inches. Other than that I love it.

About the DHW heater I am thinking of starting a how to tread. Unfortunately I don't have any construction pics.

 

[Overclock]

just the good the bad and the ugly.

Well from 15 years of outdoor boiler heat here's one drawback I guarantee ya doesn't get mentioned very often; Hot Pipe in yard with super-healthy enhanced nightcrawlers thriving in the vicinity = Heaven for an enhanced breed of supermole. Yup they found me. We shall overcome someday.

 

[mirvin]

Well from 15 years of outdoor boiler heat here's one drawback I guarantee ya doesn't get mentioned very often; Hot Pipe in yard with super-healthy enhanced nightcrawlers thriving in the vicinity = Heaven for an enhanced breed of supermole. Yup they found me. We shall overcome someday.

If it is a possibility get some chickens they will eat the night crawlers, or you could take up fishing

 

[mainewoods]

Love those enhanced night crawlers!

 

[Overclock]

Are you sure that's not my weaner?

 

[chadihman]

Are you sure that's not my weaner?

So you let it out for everyone to handle? Where do you live so I can stay clear. Lol

 

[mainewoods]

It does fit your AS name - minus the L

 

[fred bergman]