Wood heat + central air in large house

[axs]

I've been searching but can't seem to find an answer that says "yes, do this." I have some ideas from various places; however, I think our situation is slightly unique.

We're in Vermont so we're dealing with cold winters and we have a 18.2 kilowatt solar system pushing most of our appliances plus 2 9,000 btu heat pumps and 1 18,000 btu heat pump. We also have a full central air propane heating system over 4 zones that ran over 1,400 gallons per year with the previous owner. The prior owner burned 134.2 million btu in propane heat during the 2013/14 season.

We moved in last May and installed the solar and heat pump systems mostly for the badly needed tax deductions. In time we are looking to live luxuriously off grid, but are waiting for solar battery systems to last longer than a few days. In the meantime we have roughly 1,200 square feet of space that isn't heated by anything but propane.

I love cutting cords of wood and predict we'll burn around 1-2 cords in the fireplace. Since May I've cut and split around 12 cords with another 6 cords ready for splitting tomorrow. I've been donating the excess wood to charity, but those charities are claiming they have enough now and I'm pissed as hell at Suburban Propane's amazingly terrible customer service. I wanted to cut all utilities in a few years, but I'm on a mission to do it sooner due to the wonderful folks at Suburban Propane.

Our house is rather large (over 4,000 Sq Ft), but I am thinking some sort of wood burning connection to the central heating system will negate the use of propane and make us less electricity-needy better than installing another 2-3 heat pump systems at around $15,000.

Does anyone have suggestions of products or companies who I can begin to contact for wood-buring heat tied to 3 different heating sources?

Sure, we don't NEED to do a thing. We've already at overkill, but I want a good reason to keep chopping wood!

 

[brenndatomu]

Kuuma Vaporfire 100
http://www.arboristsite.com/community/ads/redirect?bannerId=25&url=http://www.lamppakuuma.com/&skipZone=0

http://www.lamppakuuma.com/kuuma-vapor-fire-100-high-efficiency-wood-gasification-furnace.html

 

[CRThomas]

I've been searching but can't seem to find an answer that says "yes, do this." I have some ideas from various places; however, I think our situation is slightly unique.

We're in Vermont so we're dealing with cold winters and we have a 18.2 kilowatt solar system pushing most of our appliances plus 2 9,000 btu heat pumps and 1 18,000 btu heat pump. We also have a full central air propane heating system over 4 zones that ran over 1,400 gallons per year with the previous owner. The prior owner burned 134.2 million btu in propane heat during the 2013/14 season.

We moved in last May and installed the solar and heat pump systems mostly for the badly needed tax deductions. In time we are looking to live luxuriously off grid, but are waiting for solar battery systems to last longer than a few days. In the meantime we have roughly 1,200 square feet of space that isn't heated by anything but propane.

I love cutting cords of wood and predict we'll burn around 1-2 cords in the fireplace. Since May I've cut and split around 12 cords with another 6 cords ready for splitting tomorrow. I've been donating the excess wood to charity, but those charities are claiming they have enough now and I'm pissed as hell at Suburban Propane's amazingly terrible customer service. I wanted to cut all utilities in a few years, but I'm on a mission to do it sooner due to the wonderful folks at Suburban Propane.

Our house is rather large (over 4,000 Sq Ft), but I am thinking some sort of wood burning connection to the central heating system will negate the use of propane and make us less electricity-needy better than installing another 2-3 heat pump systems at around $15,000.

Does anyone have suggestions of products or companies who I can begin to contact for wood-buring heat tied to 3 different heating sources?

Sure, we don't NEED to do a thing. We've already at overkill, but I want a good reason to keep chopping wood!

We have a electric furnace it is hooked to the fire placebuy doing that way our light bill runs around $100.00 a month for 4400 square feet home. When the fire burns down the electric kicks in our gen and garage and shop is on NG $16.00 a month. It works for us

 

[olyman]

post two,,and do it quick..that fireplace,,is a serious waste of wood.....

 

[Ironworker]

If you like burning wood and have that much, just throw an insert in the fireplace, I heat 3200sq. ft. with an insert. You got plenty of options.

 

[blades]

wood burner to central ducting presents a few things to deal with code wise in the way of duct spacing to flammables. Additionally ducts must be metal. You would also need a damper system to block the ac coil from the much higher duct temps produced. A lot of the newer ac coils have a lot of plastic in them. Takes a some work to do it right. Course the very first thing is to check local ordinances and with your insurance company( some co. can a real pia when comes to solid fuel appliances)

 

[olyman]

wood burner to central ducting presents a few things to deal with code wise in the way of duct spacing to flammables. Additionally ducts must be metal. You would also need a damper system to block the ac coil from the much higher duct temps produced. A lot of the newer ac coils have a lot of plastic in them. Takes a some work to do it right. Course the very first thing is to check local ordinances and with your insurance company( some co. can a real pia when comes to solid fuel appliances)

straight.......

 

[zogger]

Check out electric forklift battery packs for the most amp hours for the buck. Pros are they are built stout with welded bus bars to individual cells. Cons are they are heavy SOBs.

 

[NSMaple1]

Kuuma Vaporfire 100
http://www.arboristsite.com/community/ads/redirect?bannerId=25&url=http://www.lamppakuuma.com/&skipZone=0

http://www.lamppakuuma.com/kuuma-vapor-fire-100-high-efficiency-wood-gasification-furnace.html

Quoted for emphasis.

If you want to burn wood, and use central ductwork - this is the cats backside.

 

[stihly dan]

That almost 150,000 btu's of hp heat should cover all propane except for the 1,200 sq ft. But 150,000 btu for 2,800 is a lot of heat. May be best to insulate better, I think there are rebates for that too. That Kuuma will purr like a kitten in your set up and save electricity.

 

[mtfallsmikey]

OWB? With a hydrocoil on the air handler(s)

 

[flotek]

With that size You better look into a caddy max . It is a high tech EPA approved clean burning forced air wood furnace capable of heating large homes and long burn times between loads. .it is made by psg and sounds like a great option for a person in your situation

 

[sunfish]

We have a heat pump / central heat and air. But it rarely runs in winter.
Jotul wood stove heats our house just fine & uses no electric.

 

[mn woodcutter]

Depending on the configuration and floor plan of your house you can heat a big space with an insert or better yet a good stove. If it's 10 degrees or above my furnace never kicks on and my house is about 3300 sq ft. The same would be true when it's colder but I'm too lazy to stoke the stove in the middle of the night!

 

[axs]

Just wanted to put a quick thank you out to those who lent a hand in this thread. We decided to put off the wood-burning stove last winter to figure out what we really had with the new (they were new last year) heat pumps. Those were pretty amazing, but we still ended up using more propane than I like in heating some areas where the heat pumps aren't.

Yesterday we looked at turning a cinderblock/concrete storage room into an "almost" outdoor wood furnace room. Just waiting on some pricing estimates, but we're all really liking the Kuuma system. So big thanks to those who suggested that one.

Assuming we can make everything work, I'll post some photos of the final setup.

 

[olyman]

Depending on the configuration and floor plan of your house you can heat a big space with an insert or better yet a good stove. If it's 10 degrees or above my furnace never kicks on and my house is about 3300 sq ft. The same would be true when it's colder but I'm too lazy to stoke the stove in the middle of the night!

ill sent svk over to your place,,to have a talk about getting your fanny out of bed in the middle of the night,,for stoking the stove..................

 

[mn woodcutter]

ill sent svk over to your place,,to have a talk about getting your fanny out of bed in the middle of the night,,for stoking the stove..................

I forgot to to mention that the colder it gets at night the closer my wife is to me in bed! Haha

 

[Marshy]

The only indoor stove I am aware of that offers forced air heat and hot water is a thermo-control made by national stove works. It has a hot air hood that allows you to connect to traditional duct work and it also has stainless water coils in the firebox that can heat your thermal storage with. I am unaware of their qualifications or efficiencies but it's the only one that works like a wood furnace and a boiler. The hot water stove comes with more coils than the furnace stove but I am willing to bet you could call them and see if you can buy a furnace type stove but have the number of hot water coils the hot water stove has. Otherwise the furnace stove coil is sized just for domestic hot water not a thermal storage system...

http://www.nationalstoveworks.com/m.index.html

 

[NSMaple1]

I don't think he said anything about heating water too?

But if he wanted to do both, any boiler could also be plumbed to do it with heat exchangers.

Also keep in mind that if you put it in an outdoor furnace room (not sure how 'outdoor' that is), any heat loss will go to the outdoors rather than to the house if it was indoors (a big plus with an indoor unit). But maybe you want to heat the cinder block space you're talking about anyway?

 

[Marshy]

I don't think he said anything about heating water too?

But if he wanted to do both, any boiler could also be plumbed to do it with heat exchangers.

Also keep in mind that if you put it in an outdoor furnace room (not sure how 'outdoor' that is), any heat loss will go to the outdoors rather than to the house if it was indoors (a big plus with an indoor unit). But maybe you want to heat the cinder block space you're talking about anyway?

I guess it's open for interpretation because he said
"Does anyone have suggestions of products or companies who I can begin to contact for wood-buring heat tied to 3 different heating sources?"

That is why I suggested the thermo control because it's the only stove I know of that works like a traditional free standing stove that can be used for ~50/50 hot water/space heating. They make them with a hot air hood that can be tied directly into you existing duct. However, it might be less complicated to just go with a typical boiler and add a heat exchanger to the air unit and pipe the water to it. Sized large enough you could turn off the heat pumps in the winter (some or all). AND (assuming) since he already has a certified thermal storage it might make sense to get a new certified indoor boiler that he could get a tax credit for.