Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => HeatMaster => Topic started by: mikect05 on March 21, 2014, 06:54:12 AM
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Hi, we are looking to buy our first OWB. We have been looking at the the EPA recommended high efficiency model. However after reading these forums I think I am leaning to a HM E series.
I have a couple questions. Does anybody recommend oversizing the wood burner for longer burn times?
We have 2700sq ft of living space to heat, and would like to heat my 2 car garage just to 40 degrees or so, unless working in there.
We are in CT and like our house at 70 degrees.
I was thinking the 5000e would be good, or would it be better to oversize and get the 10000e?
Also how much wood do people usually burn. People I talk to are all over the board with this one, some say 5 cord, some say 10-15. If it is closer to the second number than the work involved and the cost just doesn't add up for me to get a OWB.
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Welcome to the forum Mr. Mikect05. Lot's of good info on here.
1. Oversizing: You don't want to oversize to get longer burns. Your best efficiency comes from a property sized stove to fit your needs. Bigger is better than smaller, but oversized is not better than properly sized. I think a 5,000E would be a good fit for your situation. I am assuming you have decent insulation for your home and will want to heat your domestic water.
2. Wood usage: There is a reason you have found wood usages all over the map. It's because wood usage is dependent on a slew of variables. Square footage, insulation levels, winter ferocity, mode of heating (forced air, oil burner, radiant flood, baseboard, etc.) region or climate and most importantly is the wood type and moisture content. Without this knowledge, 5-15 cords is about as close as you'll get.
Feel free to answer those parameters and you'll get some responses that will help you get close.
Happy reading! Hope you find a stove that works for you. I love my Heatmaster!
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If your home is properly insulated and your considering the e series the 5000e would be a great fit. Well, even it would be oversized a bit, but not in a bad way, Def don't need the 10e
With that being said, wood usage varies greatly by type and how well its taken care of... my wood shed is 16 ft long and I'm heating 2200 sq ft, so far this winter I have burned 3 1/2 to 3 3/4 rows of wood 16 ft long and probably average length of 22 inches. My wood is properly seasoned under a covered she'd with air allowed to pass through easily.
The e series is a great way to get more efficiency than a regular outdoor wood boiler without getting into the higher priced units, these are more user friendly too.
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Another thought, some folks do not differentiate between a full cord and face cord.
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Mike I would like to be a datapoint ^-^ - I run a CB eClassic 2400
I have successfully burned thru 20 pulp wood cord - aka 2 semi loads of mixed wood (6 cords - junk basswood/popular, remainder Oak,maple, pine,...)
Before your eyes fall out of your head :o, I am heating close to 8k TOTAL SF:
Newly constructed 2500sf house (in-slab & underfloor radiant) and 2 stall garage
Detached garage 4000sf (in-slab)
I also live in MN - nearly set a record for days below zero (inside of top 5, in recorded history) and snowfall was above average.
P.S. The day before spring - we got 8" of that stupid WHITE stuff
** Will let you know next spring what my wood consumption is, hopefully less cause otherwise I might need to invest/build a cheapo wood processor
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Mr. Crow, not trying to sound like I'm picking a fight. It's just the engineer in me. A U.S. Cord is the only recognized unit of measure of wood volume by U.S. Weights and Measures. It is defined as we all know it, 4x4x8 or 128 cubic feet of well stacked wood. A face cord varies from region to state to each individual person you ask. I fail to understand why people don't just use fractions of a cord. For example, you reference a face cord or a rick. Just say 1/3 of a cord. Or half a cord. A cord is always a cord. A rick or a face cord is whatever someone defines it as.
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CBJ, I totally agree with your post. :thumbup: (I should have proof read my post) It's just that I have read on this very forum some confusing one with the other and wanted Mikect05 to have that to think about. Would not want him to pass on an OWB based on wrong info.
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Mr. Crow, not trying to sound like I'm picking a fight. It's just the engineer in me. A U.S. Cord is the only recognized unit of measure of wood volume by U.S. Weights and Measures. It is defined as we all know it, 4x4x8 or 128 cubic feet of well stacked wood. A face cord varies from region to state to each individual person you ask. I fail to understand why people don't just use fractions of a cord. For example, you reference a face cord or a rick. Just say 1/3 of a cord. Or half a cord. A cord is always a cord. A rick or a face cord is whatever someone defines it as.
:post: :thumbup:
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I have cut and burned wood for over 40 years. And never "locally" heard of wood referred to by a cord. It was always a rank or a rick. Which was defined as 4'x?'x 8'
I know the only legal measure of wood is a cord, and I know it is 4x4x8.
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A cord Is only real way to measure
When u measure a rick or something else it'd hard to have a set amount
Obviously it would vary greatly.
I had 3.5 rows 16 ft long and 6 ft high, not time to do the math but someone feel free
Wood Avg length was 22 in
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4.8 cords if my math is right.
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To be honest, I never heard of a rick or any other term until I came to this forum. I always knew a cord as 4 x 4 x 8
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Mikect05 I'm running a 5000E with 3600 sqft and having no problem heating it to 72* all winter and the wife cheats at bath time and turns it up to 73.
I would have to say our house is fair on insulation because our windows are terrible vary drafty. I would have to say I'm at 8 to 9 cord with the winter we had this year, was around 7 last season compared to the 13 to 15 cord our fireplace insert took to heat the house for a winter. So as you can see BIG difference. Had the 5000E for 2 season now and love it, also heat our hot water and the 2 to 3 sticks it takes during the summer I heat year around with it for my water. Haven't used a drop of propane since Sept. of 2012. :)
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:post: Great info! Good post!
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4.8 cords if my math is right.
I would guess that's a close amount... I appreciate it
That was with a heat master 6000E, will eventually be called the 325g
Considering running the new g200 next year
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New Heatmaster model names coming Scott?
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Maybe not across the board, not sure where they'll be or available to but there will be a coal series of stoves from heatmaster, yoder has made reference to these on here too
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Hi, we are looking to buy our first OWB. We have been looking at the the EPA recommended high efficiency model. However after reading these forums I think I am leaning to a HM E series.
I have a couple questions. Does anybody recommend oversizing the wood burner for longer burn times?
We have 2700sq ft of living space to heat, and would like to heat my 2 car garage just to 40 degrees or so, unless working in there.
We are in CT and like our house at 70 degrees.
I was thinking the 5000e would be good, or would it be better to oversize and get the 10000e?
Also how much wood do people usually burn. People I talk to are all over the board with this one, some say 5 cord, some say 10-15. If it is closer to the second number than the work involved and the cost just doesn't add up for me to get a OWB.
How much are you paying to heat your house now should be the real question?
Well insulated or so so? Single pane or double pane low e windows?
Electric or gas water heater? If gas is it LP or nat gas?
Almost 15 years ago when I went to a OWB I was paying almost $400 a month for nat gas and running a side kick wood burner on the furnace, and the house was anything but warm as we wanted it but was as warm as we could afford. Since using the OWB my gas bill is the minimum allowable in the winter. My nat gas bill is actually higher in the summer than the winter as I don't run the OWB for hot water in the summer and instead rely on the gas water heater. I pay $38 a month for gas in the summer. Biggest plus is the house is as warm as you want it in the winter with a practically endless supply of hot water.
One plus for me heating with wood is I'm a farmer, own almost 300 acres then rent another 1000, if I didn't cut those down trees up for firewood they would instead be shoved in the fence row and left to rot. I am of Dutch, German and Swiss heritage on my dads side, letting something useful goto waste is a mortal sin.
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Thank you all so much, very good info here. Yes I have been getting ready to take the plunge with a OWB and then I start hearing people burning 15 cord and my jaw dropped.
I will be buying my wood for about $100 a cord for green log length.
To answer a few questions: our house is not very well insulated right now, with older windows, but I plan to insulate the house this summer and replace the windows so that I can say that it will be at least insulated moderately well.
We like to keep our house at 70 degrees while people are home which is 3 full days a week, and in the mornings and evenings. at night we drop the temp in the house to 66, and during the days when nobody is home we drop it down to 62. My buddy with an indoor wood furnace said that is not advisable with a Wood burner and we would be better off just leaving it set for 70.
1/3 of our house has baseboard heat, and the other part of our house will have hydro-air with a new duct system put in.
We are also going to put in a heat pump on the side of the house with the duct, and a ductless mini split heat pump on the other side of our home.
So when it is 35 degrees or warmer we expect most of the heating load to switch over to the heat pump, and below that we will rely on the OWB.
How well could the 5000e handle being used that way, in other words if we have a few days where it is not being called on much for heat will I be able to keep it going okay with just a little wood?
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Our house is a one level ranch with an add on in-law apartment. Right now we have a boiler on one side of our house that heats through baseboard and heats our hot water. On the other side of our house we have a oil furnace and an electric hot water heater, well did until yesterday when I took it out and connected the boiler to all the hot water lines.
Our furnace is old and I don't know how efficient it is or rather isn't. The ducts are under, and uninsulated and run through an uninsulated garage. This will all be redone with a hydro-air system to either run off of the OWB or boiler so it is hard to say what our heating bill is now because I will be ripping much of it out and insulating everything better.
Another question: If later on we wanted to heat a pool, and a small greenhouse would I be able to do that with the 5000e?
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One more question:
What is the AFUE rating of the 5000e?
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The 5000e is very forgiving unlike you'd find with a gasser or some other models. But it will work well at its max potential and also do well puttering along.
The 5000e has the capacity to do more than your home for sure, how much would depend on the size of the greenhouse/pool and whether it was going to be used at the same time as the home and for how late or how early into the year..
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Changing your windows makes a huge difference, after just installing new double panes in place of the old single pane wood windows we lowered the thermostat a degree as 72 just felt to warm.
We drop to 67 at night, both the wife and I don't like a warm bedroom at night. During the day we leave it at 71 regardless if anybody is home.
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Why waste the money on a heat pump when you are buying a owb? I haven't used my heatpump in 3 years.
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Why waste the money on a heat pump when you are buying a owb? I haven't used my heatpump in 3 years.
Yea, I was just mulling this over in my mind, maybe a heat pump water heater would be a better investment for the summer....
The reason I was thinking heat pump is we need to change out our ac anyways and we are going to be going solar so I figured free sun energy to heat, wood I will have to pay for.
Can I do okay with a gasser unit on warmer spring days with just a few sticks to keep it going, would I be better off using a hot water tank to hold the heat for night and letting it go out...?
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Gotcha. If you're already getting a new ac then I would do the heatpump too. Which reminds me that I still need to call the hvac guy and have him come fix mine! :bash:
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hey pal, I also have a heatmaster 5000,heating approx. 4000 sq feet,includn a garage and bonus room,here in nova scotia we burn hardwood, and alittle juniper,i burn about 12 cords,hopefully next yr a lot less,when I make a few adjustments to get better effic, my family has been in the forestry business for about 7o yrs,here we call it a cord 4x4x8 ,lol...heat pump, I have one ,but just for ac,and in early fall before I start the owb up,good luck,free heat is awesome and burning even 12 cords is easy.take care pal.