OWB's and lotsa wood.

[AIM]

I can't give you the real explanation as to how to set them up because I did not do my own. Fortunately I have a couple friends that DO know how and if you would like I can get a detailed explanation and post it. I do know that it has a lot to do with t-stat location. Actually t-stat location is the biggest factor of all. Also many of the newer ones you can set the high and low temps versus the heat anticipator of the older ones. Yes your fan will run more often but your highs and lows will be pretty much unnoticed.
A friend set mine up and if I did not have an indoor temp sensor I would never know the temp had changed at all.

You might have to get your grandparents to upgrade their t-stat though.

I'm not saying that forced air is the cats meow but to say it sucks (as you put it) is simply a matter of lack of experience.

Another thing I'd like to point out. If grandparents furnace is set like many of the older stuff. The blower fan kicks on at like 100°. Well that is pretty cold as far as heating temp goes. Then it kicks off at 180°+ which is kinda hot as far as heating goes.
Yep your gonna get hot and cold. OWB's that have the pump running 24/7 will consistantly keep the heat exchanger at your set temp. No waiting for the furnace to heat up or cool down.

Don't compare forced air propane or oil to a forced air OWB. Just ain't the same at all!

Hope I enlightened you.

 

[tld400]

I feel the same way about forced air heating systems.

I'd have to have hot water baseboard or better yet, antique radiators like I grew up with!

A continuous variable speed blower motor or even multi speed would go a long way towards making forced air feeling better. Especially if it had a minimum idle setting so it kept the air moving real slow when no heat was called for.

You might be on to something with the variable speed blower to move air real slow. Then that wood be something like baseboard heat.

 

[Dogsout]

I'd have to have hot water baseboard or better yet, antique radiators like I grew up with!

Just the set up I have with my OWB. I have 8 of those antique radiators in this 100 year old house that keep the place a constant 70 degrees all the time. Only into my second year of burning wood but I would be hard pressed to think that there would be a better heating system for me.

 

[tld400]

It's not just the temp change, it's also the wind chill factor involved with moving air across human skin.


I grew up with hot water baseboard and in another house antique radiators.

A world of difference.


Personally even if I had an air moving system for the AC I'd put in a hot water system too. I know several people who have even though they heat the water with natural gas or oil. Cold air from ceiling vents and hot air from how water baseboard is about as good as it gets.

Thats what my dads house has. He hAS natural gas hot water baseboard and central air for summer. He uses gas firepaces too when people come over and hang out in the den. I would set my house up that way but I love the woodstove now and it doesnt cost me anything but some gas for the chainsaw.

 

[Arbonaut]

Heated floor is the ultimate. Getting mass in the system regulates the fluctuation. Either way, people need ventilation and also today we use a (filter?). How do you get around that with a static system?

I like the old radiators, though. You could throw one helluva static charge off your finger. Good times.

 

[tld400]

I can't give you the real explanation as to how to set them up because I did not do my own. Fortunately I have a couple friends that DO know how and if you would like I can get a detailed explanation and post it. I do know that it has a lot to do with t-stat location. Actually t-stat location is the biggest factor of all. Also many of the newer ones you can set the high and low temps versus the heat anticipator of the older ones. Yes your fan will run more often but your highs and lows will be pretty much unnoticed.
A friend set mine up and if I did not have an indoor temp sensor I would never know the temp had changed at all.

You might have to get your grandparents to upgrade their t-stat though.

I'm not saying that forced air is the cats meow but to say it sucks (as you put it) is simply a matter of lack of experience.

Another thing I'd like to point out. If grandparents furnace is set like many of the older stuff. The blower fan kicks on at like 100°. Well that is pretty cold as far as heating temp goes. Then it kicks off at 180°+ which is kinda hot as far as heating goes.
Yep your gonna get hot and cold. OWB's that have the pump running 24/7 will consistantly keep the heat exchanger at your set temp. No waiting for the furnace to heat up or cool down.

Don't compare forced air propane or oil to a forced air OWB. Just ain't the same at all!

Hope I enlightened you.[/QUOT


You did enlighten me by saying its "not the cats meow" That all I was saying is forced air is not the best choice even when using a owb but I shouldnt of said it sucks,its still heat and better than paying a oil bill. Its just not what I would put in my house if there was another option when I was installing a 5 to 10 thousand dollar owb. But everyone has their opin.

 

[Blazin]

-15° here, loaded the boiler at 5 last night with eight 24" splits of ash, water temp still at 180° and 73° in the house 13 1/2 hours later.....WIN!

 

[upsnake]

Tld400 - While i will agree with you I would rather have radiant floor heat, my house was built with forced air.
There are two things that i have found.
1. With propane, there is the cool down cycle at the end where the gas is off but it has to keep blowing air to cool off the heat exchanger. That part kinda sucked.

2. The thermostat should have a set back option. For example if i wanted my house to be 70, with a 3 degree setback, the furnace would kick on at 67 and off at 73. That much of a swing to me was not really comfortable.

The nice thing with heating with forced air and the CB OWB, is that I don't have to let the gas warm up and then cool off the heat exchanger. So i set my setback to 1 degree. The house ranges from 69.7 to 69.9.
The blow comes on and off a little bit more this way but it is more comfortable, add to that I have a whole house humidifier it really is not bad in there.


But as you said to each their own heating system. It was not worth the expense to change the heating system in my house, when the forced air furnace / AC was already there and in good shape.

 

[greendohn]

I have a newer, LP 90+ efficient forced air furnace, with an OWB HE. In this old house when it's 3 degrees outside and I can keep the indoor temps at 72-74 degrees 24/7 with NO noticeable temp fluctuation and the LP shut off. My young daughters can lay on the floor to watch tv, do home work, and sit on a warm crapper day and night,,I got no complaints. How can it get any better?

I threw the old fire place insert out when I installed the OWB. I still keep an old wood stove in the detached garage to poke around at when I'm out there swillin' cold ones. I can and I have hooked it up to the fire place in the house, a "trial run" in the event of a long term power failure, which I haven't seen since I was a kid in the late 70's. I've gotta Honda and a Yamaha generator, both small ones, that may or may not run things if I need 'em. It seems drastic, but, in the event of prolonged power loss, should the generators not hold up, I guess I would drain the OWB to keep it from freezing and run the free standing wood stove for the duration.

 

[tld400]

Tld400 - While i will agree with you I would rather have radiant floor heat, my house was built with forced air.
There are two things that i have found.
1. With propane, there is the cool down cycle at the end where the gas is off but it has to keep blowing air to cool off the heat exchanger. That part kinda sucked.

2. The thermostat should have a set back option. For example if i wanted my house to be 70, with a 3 degree setback, the furnace would kick on at 67 and off at 73. That much of a swing to me was not really comfortable.

The nice thing with heating with forced air and the CB OWB, is that I don't have to let the gas warm up and then cool off the heat exchanger. So i set my setback to 1 degree. The house ranges from 69.7 to 69.9.
The blow comes on and off a little bit more this way but it is more comfortable, add to that I have a whole house humidifier it really is not bad in there.


But as you said to each their own heating system. It was not worth the expense to change the heating system in my house, when the forced air furnace / AC was already there and in good shape.

I only have had exp. with the gas versions of the forced air and it did exactly what you are saying. Thats why I didnt like it. But if the owb makes a dif. in the way the heat fluxuates that is great. :msp_thumbup:

 

[Dogsout]

Shoot, I've ridden my motorcycle in colder temperatures than that when I lived up north. 20 below (Fahrenheit) not counting the wind chill on a Harley Softail Custom. No windshield n no heated gear, no thermal undies with my regular clothing, and a leather jacket. My average speed was 70mph with at least 20mph head winds. Oh, n no helmet either. Sounds to me like y'all need to buck up and grow a set. Damn kids anyway (yes I know your 50, AIM is 44 and J1M is 38) otstir: :hmm3grin2orange:

Storm, being a fellow rider I'm not sure how to take this. I've also ridden in extremely cold temps. My coldest was in the single digits with a stiff 25 mph wind blowing. I had on thick socks over my boots, a t-shirt then a polartec fleece sweatshirt then a regular sweatshirt over that. Dual insulated coveralls on top of each other plus a goose down filled jacket on top of all that. Snowmobile gloves topped it all off and a full face helmet to boot. I still froze my ass off on my commute into work. Not to sound like I'm calling you out here, but I find it tough to believe you could survive for long in those temps you rode with just regular clothing and a leather jacket and no helmet. For what it's worth now, I do have an electric vest, and could never go back. Again, sorry if it sounds like I'm being combatitive here. It's just tough for me to swallow that one....

Hate to beat a dead horse but here we go. Pennsy you tried to be nice and question her comments about riding in cold weather, but I am pulling out the BS card big time. In the situation you described above Flhx I don't care if you were totally engulfed in flames you could not ride more then a MILE in those conditions without getting a nice case of frostbite. Heck you could not keep your eyes open because they would instantly freeze the water in them. 20 below, 20mph head wind, @ 70 mph, with minimal protection I'm just going to take a stab that the windchill would come in somewhere around 100 below zero. Your credibility took a hit on your untrue comments about OWB and now you throw this farce in to the equation and I would be hard pressed to believe you if you said the sun will rise in the east in the morning, until I seen it for myself. I have done my fair share of cold weather riding and I agree 100% with Pennsy's comments above. I am 53 so I will save you some time looking my age up when you reply. Finally if you had a PAIR and you could actually do what you stated above, you wouldn't have them for long as they would be froze and long gone.

 

[AIM]

Several years back a coworker had to take his Harley in for some service during the winter. He was planning to trailer it to the dealer about an hour away. While getting ready to go he noticed a bad tire, wheel bearing, or something that I can't remember was wrong with the trailer. He thought what the hell I'll just ride and have his wife follow. I remember he said it took like 2 hours to make the hour trip due to stopping all the time to warm up.

If memory serves he fixed his trailer to pick up his bike when it was done.

 

[Uncle John]

Hate to beat a dead horse but here we go. Pennsy you tried to be nice and question her comments about riding in cold weather, but I am pulling out the BS card big time. In the situation you described above Flhx I don't care if you were totally engulfed in flames you could not ride more then a MILE in those conditions without getting a nice case of frostbite. Heck you could not keep your eyes open because they would instantly freeze the water in them. 20 below, 20mph head wind, @ 70 mph, with minimal protection I'm just going to take a stab that the windchill would come in somewhere around 100 below zero. Your credibility took a hit on your untrue comments about OWB and now you throw this farce in to the equation and I would be hard pressed to believe you if you said the sun will rise in the east in the morning, until I seen it for myself. I have done my fair share of cold weather riding and I agree 100% with Pennsy's comments above. I am 53 so I will save you some time looking my age up when you reply. Finally if you had a PAIR and you could actually do what you stated above, you wouldn't have them for long as they would be froze and long gone.

You would be found in the ditch you and the cycle laying on your sides frozen together!

 

[XSKIER]

Well, I'll tell ya, you won't ever find me using an OWB. They may be fine for some, but they don't do a thing for me. First, if the power goes off for a week in mid winter, What are you going to do? It takes electricity to run those pumps that get the heat into the house. If y'all are like many folk, they use electricity to cook with. I know do. BUT no electricity, no use of the electric stove, microwave, coffee maker and so on.

You'll never hear me complain about those hot spots you mentioned or getting up in the morning to add toothpicks to the fire to get the house where it might be considered warm because chances are, I'm up in the middle of the night anyway. I might be composing email or reading here on AS.

And if I had to deal with an electrical outage for a week, or three, I would still have my morning coffee, I would still have hot satisfying meals, my bath or shower might be a bit on the cold side, but it's not like I've never taken a cold shower before, so it's really not a big deal. But I can take hot baths. (heat the water on the wood stove) And lights, I have flashlights to find my way around and to locate the oil lamps. My refrigerator or freezer? I'd just shove em outside.

Technically, I am only dependent on electricity just a little, but I can do without it and still be nice n warm n toasty as well as being well fed through the coldest of temperatures. And you with those fancy outdoor wood burners, well, your still in the same boat along with those who run natural gas, propane, or fuel oil. Those furnaces don't run without electricity. On my little wood stove, I'm not even running the blower. So given a choice, I'll stick with my wood stove and maybe burn 2 cord of wood a year vs your OWB burning what, 9 cord a year? N next year I intend on burning one cord after I put on a new roof and do some insulating.

AND when I get my electric bill for this month, I expect it to be below 450kwh used. No fuel oil, no propane! I'd give the price, but those I believe vary state to state and whatever erroneous charges the electric company decides to tack on. Last month I was at 509kwh

One of my reasons for going with a wood stove is so that I would not longer have to be concerned about those power outages especially during the winter. So far this winter we've only had one and the power was out about a day. No worries, n no complaints here.

Or did I missinterpret your post, that your actually complaining about your OWB? Ooops!

So do you catch enough rain water indoors to last and use gravity pressure for your showers? Do you update Arboristsite from a solar powered device?
I'd be screwed here at my house for getting water without electricity, I'd have to cut a hole in the pond and bucket in water, heat it on the wood stove then have my girlfriend pour it over me to do a shower.

 

[zogger]

So do you catch enough rain water indoors to last and use gravity pressure for your showers? Do you update Arboristsite from a solar powered device?
I'd be screwed here at my house for getting water without electricity, I'd have to cut a hole in the pond and bucket in water, heat it on the wood stove then have my girlfriend pour it over me to do a shower.

I could do my laptop, cellphone and wireless internet easy from our little modest solar rig. Its what I used before. Plus a light or two, etc. Modest, two panels, charge controller, some golf cart batts, it is hooked to the RV now but we used that for a long time when we lived in it. We also have what is called a bore bucket for the well should that be necessary in any super long term power outage. Food stores, garden, blah blah. I could also keep the battery saw charged and only need bar oil then.

 

[brenndatomu]

If I want my house at 70 I would put it at 70. How the heck can anyone mess that up. The problem is not the t-stat its how the heating system works. If there is a different way to put t-stat at 70 please enlighten me because I will pass info down to grandparents who still have forced air and hate it too because it kicks on and off, hot and cold. Not trying to pick a fight just saying this was my past exper. with it. Woodstoves and baseboard heat keep house at a much warm steady heatin my opinion.

I feel the same way about forced air heating systems.

I'd have to have hot water baseboard or better yet, antique radiators like I grew up with!

A continuous variable speed blower motor or even multi speed would go a long way towards making forced air feeling better. Especially if it had a minimum idle setting so it kept the air moving real slow when no heat was called for.

I can't give you the real explanation as to how to set them up because I did not do my own. Fortunately I have a couple friends that DO know how and if you would like I can get a detailed explanation and post it. I do know that it has a lot to do with t-stat location. Actually t-stat location is the biggest factor of all. Also many of the newer ones you can set the high and low temps versus the heat anticipator of the older ones. Yes your fan will run more often but your highs and lows will be pretty much unnoticed.
A friend set mine up and if I did not have an indoor temp sensor I would never know the temp had changed at all.

You might have to get your grandparents to upgrade their t-stat though.

I'm not saying that forced air is the cats meow but to say it sucks (as you put it) is simply a matter of lack of experience.

Another thing I'd like to point out. If grandparents furnace is set like many of the older stuff. The blower fan kicks on at like 100°. Well that is pretty cold as far as heating temp goes. Then it kicks off at 180°+ which is kinda hot as far as heating goes.
Yep your gonna get hot and cold. OWB's that have the pump running 24/7 will consistantly keep the heat exchanger at your set temp. No waiting for the furnace to heat up or cool down.

Don't compare forced air propane or oil to a forced air OWB. Just ain't the same at all!

Hope I enlightened you.

I agree, a newer T-stat could/would make a huge difference! With my standard digital programmable T-stat that was on the old fuel oil furnace, temp fluctuated 3 degrees, felt like more. When I installed my Yukon multifuel, Yukon specified a Honeywell FocusPro 5000 T-stat to control the wood furnace damper, I was thinkin, "a 'stat is a 'stat, what's the big deal?" I'm glad I bought it, it opens and closes the damper while holding the temp spot on my desired setting. The only reason it ever fluctuates at all is if I let the firebox run out of wood or load too much real dry stuff. OBTW, this is a forced air system...

 

[ijon]

I owned my Woodmaster for twelve years. Its older than than that, it was built in 1994. I bought it as a demo. It heats my hot water, my house and my garage. I'am wintering fourty Talapia in the garage also. Before the boiler I was always looking for a way to get off propane, because it was so expensive, problem solved.

 

[jh35]

I loaded the Heatmor at 5:15 am yesterday. I came home to this at 9pm last night. Mostly Ash but some pine in there as well. House is 1000 sq ft plus DHW and full basement. Wife, me and a 13 year old daughter that uses her share of hot water. I used 5 cord per year avg for a long time with the basement furnace. I will probably go though 7 cord this year but the house is more comfortable and no propane for the DHW while the owb is running.

 

[Blazin]

 

[Guswhit]

What size is that Central Boiler, 6048?