Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: rosewood on January 30, 2010, 08:51:25 PM
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i've read on other websites about owb being so uneffiecent ,waste of wood ,more work,have to go out in the cold,by yahoos with there woodstoves. they think they get the same output as a owf . if being uneffiecent is 72 deg in house when its 8 deg outside ,burning junk wood like pine ,nasty hardwood crotchs that cant be split. then yes. i burned woodstoves in both of my homes and i dont remember it being that warm , maybe in one room and the other rooms 10 deg cooler, and to say you have to go out in cold , i dont remember stocking a seasons worth of wood in my house so i didnt have to go out in the cold either. i dont miss lugging wood in the house .cleaning ashes and wood bark up . with 2 woodstoves going it would take hours to get house up to temp after it dropped over night. knowing what i know now i would have done this years ago.
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i too heated with an indoor wood furnace...i did burn less wood but i also never heated my domestic water with my indoor wood furnace.
i agree that for the extra wood i MAY be burning, it is a good trade off of...no bugs in the house from the wood stack in the basement...no cleaning up the mud and bark from the few saturdays each year carrying and stacking the wood in the furnace room (there is not enough room for a whole winter's worth in the house) no ashes flying around the house when you try and carefuly clean out the stove...and i sure don't miss the smokey smell in the house when you have a cold chimney and it drafts backwards when lighting it!
my OWB i fill my wood shed up twice a year and my stove sits inside this shed...sure i am outside when i fill it, but i am in the shed..it is outdoor temps...but i'm not in the wind or the snow when filling it. wheni am dressed for work in the morning i fill it...when i return home at night i fill it before going in the house. the horrow stories you hear of people having to go out at midnight in a storm i think are mostly just that ..STORIES
once youhave one of these things a while you get to know how long it will run on a fill up by the outdoor temps...you adapt and life is good, you are warm and the only one "out in the cold" is your old fuel supplier! there may be better stoves out there but i built mine and it ws cheap i don't mind cutting and hauling the wood..it is good exercise, so for me...it is well worth it and from most of the folks on this site...for them as well
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Growning up we had a woodstove in the house and we still had to run the furnace half the time. The OWB is the way to go if you don't mind the up front cost. Every room close to the same temp. and all the mess outside. Plus the ability to heat mutiple building. Nothing better than after you just fill your boiler & stand there watching the smoke roll out of the stack with stars in the back ground. Doesn't get any better than that!!!!!
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Looks like I not alone by star watching on a cold clear night. What a view. Ah...the rewards of loading up the OWB. Second year of not buying three dollar heating oil. All the heat and hot water a man could possibly want. Thank God I'm a country boy!
Wilbur
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AMEN Wilbur
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Knowing what i know now I should have installed a OWB when I built my house. Put wood stove in basement first. Bad idea, ok I guess if you only want to heat your basement, and put up with the mess of wood chips all over the floor and ash dust every time you clean out the stove.
Installed Owb last year and love it, might burn more wood but still worth it. Even heat in all rooms and plenty of hot water. No fuel oil bills to pay every year.
Enough wood cut to do for next 2 years working on year 3 now. Maybe owb not for everyone but i would do it again.
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Not sorry I did it either when I built my new house. I still heat my hot water with propane and use propane as a backup but nice even heat all the time and no mess in the house. I love it. I too need the exercise of cutting, carrying & splitting the firewood getting ready for the winter. Carrying wood to the furnace each evening gets me some of the exercise I am supposed to have. I keep a 2-4 day pile by the furnace and the main pile a bit away from the furnace.
The only thing I wish I could have done differently was to be able to afford putting the under floor tubes in the basement and garge floors. However, I just couldn't swing the extra 3-4 k when I built the house and didn't have the time to put it in myself.
So I live without it. I do have the ceiling mount in the garage which makes it a bit more comfy to work during the winter and melts off the car overnight.
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and the guys with gassifiers will say we burn way too much wood in our smoke dragons too. i don't really care, i spent thousands less than they did and split, cut wood is free for me.
i like keeping the mess outside and the fact that it's a lot less likely i'm going to burn my house down by burning outside.