Anyone own a Classic Edge Outdoor Wood Burner?

[thelefthand]

My primary heat source is currently an add-on wood furnace that was built circa 1980. The unit feeds hot air into my central air system. It does fine, but it is getting to the point where it needs to be rebuilt or replaced. I'm considering moving to an outdoor wood boiler, and it seems like Central Boiler is the best option unless you're willing to pony up the $$ for a Portage and Main unit which seems to be way overkill for Central Indiana winters. I'm trying to find some people who own their Classic Edge units to understand what their experience has been like (I'm looking at either a 550 or 750 unit). I've been researching them for a few months now. My biggest question is how much wood do they consume? I'm heating a poorly insulated 2000 sq ft ranch, and I normally go through 3-4 cords of hardwood per season, but as much as 6 cords on a cold winter. My big question on the gasification units is how much wood do they burn through when they are sitting idle on warmer days? If it's in the mid 40s and sunny, my house will stay near 70 deg inside during the day without any heat source other than the sun (my AC bills suck in the summer). Anyway, I'm trying to get an idea of how much more wood (if any) I can expect to need every year since the OWB really needs to burn continuously throughout the winter where as I allow my add-on furnace to go out when it's not needed, or when running it would cause the house to be too hot (I currently let the gas furnace run on those days). If my consumption is going to actually increase, that's going to have to factor into my decision. I don't own property, but I do have access to property and I can normally find places to cut good firewood. At 4 to 6 cords, it's a few days worth of "enjoyable" work every year. If it gets much more than that, few becomes several and the "enjoyable" part goes away pretty quickly....

Thanks!
Mark

 

[yetti462]

I was advised by many to stay away from the edge. Too many issues with fire burning out, baffles clogging and maintenance needed .

Do yourself a favor and get the good thermapex water line. Bubble wrap stuff is a waste.

I bought the classic 6048 and burn year round.

 

[thelefthand]

Thanks for the information. I wondered how the did at keeping the fire burning in on warmer days.


What are you heating, and how much wood are you going through? Any idea on the usage break down for cold weather vs warmer (+mid 40s) weather?

 

[yetti462]

Im heating a 4k ft house, 30x40 pole barn and water. I burn 25-30 rick a year and as mentioned earlier burn year round, heating water through summer. On a 40° day i will burn a full wheelbarrow.

This is my first year with heat to barn and i have noticed a little more consumption.

On a day like we had this past Christmas, with wind I smoked through about a half rick.

 

[thelefthand]

Wow, that's a LOT of wood! Thanks for the information. Not sure how long your cutting your wood, so not sure how many of your ricks it takes to make up a cord, but even at 3 ricks per cord, 10 cords is a LOT of wood. I looked into a standard OWB several years ago and decided against it because it seemed like they ate almost twice as much wood as an add on wood furnace. Sounds like that hasn't changed much. I'm not able to support 6-8 cords per year for heat so I'll have to go with a gasification unit in order for it to be feasible.

 

[tmschuller]

Have you looked into heatmore? I have one and it’s about 10 years old. It’s construction and how efficient it is made me appreciate it. Neighbors have a central boiler and it will eat more wood than mine and his house is smaller.

 

[Farmerjon]

I have a Central Boiler. Not a gasser, they consume wood. Have no idea for comparison sake, but have read a lot about Heatmors but also heard CB bought them. So have no idea there. The best things are the wood and mess outside, also each room in the house is same temp.

 

[thelefthand]

Have you looked into heatmore? I have one and it’s about 10 years old. It’s construction and how efficient it is made me appreciate it. Neighbors have a central boiler and it will eat more wood than mine and his house is smaller.

What are you heating and how much wood are you using in your Heatmore?

 

[tmschuller]

What are you heating and how much wood are you using in your Heatmore?

heating 2700 square foot home and heating domestic hot water.
I’ve never calculated into ricks. Sorry I was going by my neighbor that would comment on my wood stacked by the boiler and that it would not go as fast as his. I am using mostly ash with some cherry and beech mixed in. Depending on how cold it is of course affects the consumption. Probably not a good answer for you.. the heatmor is constructed differently. The flue gas comes up the front of the boiler and turns and runs the length of the unit then exits. It removes more heat from having the water jacket surrounding it and the door also has a water jacket. The firebox is also stainless steel and has a lifetime warranty. On most wood boilers the flue exits straight up and out and the door does not have a water jacket and I know of two people that their doors warped causing them to burn up a lot of wood.

 

[thelefthand]

I have a Central Boiler. Not a gasser, they consume wood. Have no idea for comparison sake, but have read a lot about Heatmors but also heard CB bought them. So have no idea there. The best things are the wood and mess outside, also each room in the house is same temp.

My house was built around heating with firewood using an add-on wood furnace. The basement has a built in access door/window for dropping wood in and the mess is contained to a 10x15 corner of the basement, so it's not terrible. Keeping it outside will be a bonus though.

My current wood furnace feeds hot air directly into the cold air return on my central air system. I run the fan on the central air system all time so that the air is always circulating in the house. The wood furnace has the standard surface mount thermostat which controls a blower on it. As soon as it gets up to a certain temp, it's blower kicks on and it starts supplying hot air to the system. So, essentially, the rooms are already as consistent as they are going to get. Having said that, an outdoor boiler system will give me more control over all. Getting a lot of heat out of my system is no problem. Getting a little heat out of it is another story. An OWB will keep me from getting the house too hot on warmer days. That's going to be a big bonus with my wife

My big concerns are cost, reliability, and fuel consumption. Cost is somewhat known. Reliability is a big deal, but with my back ground, there's no reason that I shouldn't be able to diagnose, fix/replace anything that goes wrong short of developing a leak in the water jacket. That leaves wood consumption. Since my current unit is not a gasifier, I'm not getting as many BTUs per pound of wood burned, but I believe that I'm doing a decent job of putting the BTUs a do get to good use. Any heat that doesn't go up the chimney is either sent into the Central air system, or leaked out into the basement where it keeps the floors nice and cozy. I normally go through 4 cords/season, and I have roughly 8 cords on hand at the moment. I don't own property, but it's not too hard for me to come up with 4 or 5 cord of oak/hickory/locust every year. I could probably come up with more, but finding the time to deal with it is another matter all together. The only reason I can handle what I do now is because I'm able to winch 2 cord at a time onto my trailer, and then use a loader to unload and stack the logs at home. Once I get it home, I can deal with it as time allows. The process works well for me, but if the need increased to 8 or 10 cords/year, I doubt that I could keep up.

 

[bobjones223]

I may be mistaken on this so if I am please fell free to correct me.

With the new EPA regulations on wood burning/heating and what they are forcing the manufacturers to do would it be better to rebuild you current unit?

 

[tmschuller]

I don’t split my wood and it’s harder for me to say how much I use.. right now 2-3 pieces of ash 13” in diameter and 2’ long will heat all day and some left.. I am need a new heat exchanger for the hydronic loops. It’s not the best. I am installing a new coil in the air handler so my recovery time will be faster/better.

 

[thelefthand]

I may be mistaken on this so if I am please fell free to correct me.

With the new EPA regulations on wood burning/heating and what they are forcing the manufacturers to do would it be better to rebuild you current unit?

That's the ultimate question. My unit is 40 years old. If I have it rebuilt, it may last me the rest of my life, or at least until I'm old enough that I can no longer process my own firewood. But, I'm the only one who deals with heating the house. My wife doesn't remember what our heating bill was before I installed this furnace, she doesn't deal with it, and she gets really frustrated if the house gets too warm. She doesn't say much about the mess in the basement because it's contained to the far corner, I clean it up every spring, and I spray the basement for bugs every couple of months with Bifren. My current unit isn't completely worn out, and could probably go another 5 years before it was absolutely finished. If I make the change in the next few years, this unit would still make a good backup should problems arise. If my wood usage would be approximately the same with the OWB, it would actually reduce my workload slightly. If I don't have to take it to the basement, that's one less time that I have to pick it up an move it, and it would eliminate the mess, reduce the frequency that I needed to spray, and I would only need to tend to the fire once or twice a day instead of 4 to 6 times. Then there's the benefit of moving the fire hazard out side. Since the heat would be supplied on demand instead of all the time, it would also eliminate the problem of getting the house too hot. Basically, there are a LOT of little benefits that, in the long run, probably make it a worth while investment. I have yet to talk to anyone with an OWB that regrets having one. They may regret buying a specific brand or model, but so long as they were already familiar with the whole firewood process, they are all glad they have an OWB. I just need to make sure that I'm not spending thousands and thousands of dollars on something that's going to end up being noticeably more work than what I'm doing now.

 

[thelefthand]

I don’t split my wood and it’s harder for me to say how much I use.. right now 2-3 pieces of ash 13” in diameter and 2’ long will heat all day and some left.. I am need a new heat exchanger for the hydronic loops. It’s not the best. I am installing a new coil in the air handler so my recovery time will be faster/better.

Thanks a TON for that information. Its really hard to approximate wood usage. I get it, but your information is extremely helpful! I prefer not splitting wood also. I have a 10x10 door on my current unit, and I don't split anything that's under 8" across. What I do split (I split a lot because I cut a lot of large trees), I try to get splits that are 6" to 8". The smaller pieces that are left get used for kindling, or get thrown in on a bed of coals before adding bigger stuff on top.

You're probably using a little more than I am at the moment, but I'm also burning white oak and hickory which are about 15% and 25% heavier than white ash. So we are probably really close to the same. Since your unit is not a gasification boiler, that gives me a lot of confidence that my consumption won't increase if I go with an OWB so long as its either EPA certified, or at least an efficient non-gasification unit.

 

[Farmerjon]

We bought our first one in '94 or '96. Anyway, burnt that stove until maybe 6 years ago. Bought a new one due to saving money and heard the old style wasn't going to be allowed to be sold so bought a new "old style" Central Boiler. Removed the old one off of the pad, sold it, put new one on pad (needed to extend the pad as new one had larger footprint) hooked up and hasn't missed a beat. My wood consumption is a little higher as I see this winter where my water lines are so the insulation isn't working as well.

We went from a small uninsulated farm house with burning two wood stoves (one in the basement, one in the front room) and still in whichever year it was, burning $3,000.00 worth of propane. Whatever year it was, the first year we had the OWB propane went up 3 or 4 times and was twice as expensive. We penciled it out and it originally was going to take 8 years to pay for itself, with the propane hikes it paid for itself in less than 3.

Wood consumption, hard to figure, I cut our wood off of our farm, if I get behind the OWB will consume green wood also (yes I know I am getting less Btu's, but life happens). Almost lost my arm due to an aunerisym (sp?) bursting, bought wood two years, spent less than $2,500 each year so still cheaper than propane at the cheap prices! It will take big pieces, big enough I can't handle them any more. So I split. I split more for mornings when my wife fills the stove, I put in bigger pieces yet at night. We do the stove when we do chores, morning and night. No other time, that also is great versus getting up in the middle of the night to add wood to the stove in the house.

This type of winter we are experiencing, it is coasting. No major wood consumption. Whole different story in sub zero weather. I have a stack of dried oak that I use then. The OWB becomes a hungry beast in those temperatures so you need to be ready for it. We have a 2 wheeled wheelbarrow that we fill and throw that amount in morning and then at night. So two wheel barrow loads per day. That will vary depending on temps and types of wood, lately it is more like 1 and a half loads. Summer we burn pine to keep the hot water hot.

This is our only source of heat. We are hermits by nature and have livestock to feed so don't go anywhere. If you are a vacationer and weekends away, might not fit your lifestyle. Look at past history of prevailing winds, place your stove accordingly in your yard so you aren't covering your house or yard with smoke.

Oh, the old stove also heated our new addition to the house as well as another line going to the farrowing house to keep baby pigs warm also.

Hope this helps.