Outdoor Wood Furnace

[AllenM]

Does anybody have experience with outdoor wood burners? I am in the research phase and there are not many installers to talk to.

My property has many dead and dying trees and it just seem to make sense to put them to use and also have a way of disposing them.

I am meeting with one installer tomorrow but always like second or third opinions

 

[tmschuller]

I have had one for 14 years. Great investment. It’s a Heatmor brand. Lifetime guarantee and heat exchanger is made from stainless steel. Definitely designed better than most. Water jacket on the door and flue gasses exit from the front and travel thru the heat exchanger then exit the furnace. That extracts more heat. I use less wood than the neighbors central boiler brand.
There was a dealer in Indy last i knew

 

[Cavman]

Does anybody have experience with outdoor wood burners? I am in the research phase and there are not many installers to talk to.

My property has many dead and dying trees and it just seem to make sense to put them to use and also have a way of disposing them.

I am meeting with one installer tomorrow but always like second or third opinions

Use mine every season theyre great. Just gotta make sure you got good seasoned wood if ya use newer epa ones. Also not a bad idea to keep extra parts like water pump or heat exchanger on hand.

 

[AllenM]

I have an installer coming to the house tomorrow to discuss it. He is a Heatmor, Crown royal and heatmaster dealer. I am leaning toward Crown Royal gassification system

 

[patience0830]

Don't know anything about the newer ones but a brother and a sister both use them and haven't bought propane in years.

 

[ghuns]

I have an installer coming to the house tomorrow to discuss it. He is a Heatmor, Crown royal and heatmaster dealer. I am leaning toward Crown Royal gassification system

Had mine since '08. It was made by a local guy, patterned off of a Central Boiler.

For reference, that pile-o-wood is about a month's worth in early-late winter. Probably only 2-3 weeks when it's really cold. But I'm also heating over 4000 sq feet between the house and garage. Both are well insulated and I only keep the garage at 45. I can heat it up to 70 in about a half hour if I need to work out there in a t-shirt on a 10 below day.

In the last two years it's required a couple of repairs where corrosion from the firebox side ate into the water jacket. I burn a lot if junk wood a tree service drops off for me. It's rarely completely dry when I burn it, so that's probably on me. All that moisture being cooked out of wet wood combines with the gasses from combustion and makes some really acidic crap that clings to the walls.

I would echo the advice to keep spare parts. I always have a couple damper door solenoids, at least one fan, and now a pump or pump repair kit. My pump was still the original from '08 when I was caught earlier this winter without a spare, late on a Friday afternoon. Luckily I found one locally that wife could pick up on her way home from work, but it cost me over $700, compared to what I could have gotten online within 3-4 days for $300. I run straight H2O in mine so if the pump isn't running, it will freeze.

Speaking of freezing, that has happened to me once. Power went out at 1AM on a -20 night. I woke up at 5AM and the lines that go to the door were already frozen. Luckily the forecast called for 40s in the following days so it thawed out and didn't hurt anything on the boiler. I did lose my heat exchangers in the garage and breezeway. Now I have one of those cheap, plug in alarms that alert you when the power goes out and I can get the generator running.

If I was doing it over today, I'd install a gassifier. If $$$ was no object, it would be one of these...

GARN Wood Heating System

 

[Jaybird1980]

I had a Central Boiler for 15 years. They use a lot of wood like ghuns shown. Make sure to keep a spare pump. Also use dielectric unions to keep the corrosion down when different metal fittings are joined. I didn't on my first water heater sidearm and it corroded really bad fast and I had to redo it. Mine didn't have a inducer fan so I just kept a spare solenoid for the door dampener. Keep whatever spare parts you will need to be able to get the air in and the water flowing.

I chose to not run any antifreeze in mine, which meant we couldn't just up and go somewhere when the cold weather hit, someone had to be around to watch the boiler

 

[AllenM]

Had mine since '08. It was made by a local guy, patterned off of a Central Boiler.

For reference, that pile-o-wood is about a month's worth in early-late winter. Probably only 2-3 weeks when it's really cold. But I'm also heating over 4000 sq feet between the house and garage. Both are well insulated and I only keep the garage at 45. I can heat it up to 70 in about a half hour if I need to work out there in a t-shirt on a 10 below day.

In the last two years it's required a couple of repairs where corrosion from the firebox side ate into the water jacket. I burn a lot if junk wood a tree service drops off for me. It's rarely completely dry when I burn it, so that's probably on me. All that moisture being cooked out of wet wood combines with the gasses from combustion and makes some really acidic crap that clings to the walls.

I would echo the advice to keep spare parts. I always have a couple damper door solenoids, at least one fan, and now a pump or pump repair kit. My pump was still the original from '08 when I was caught earlier this winter without a spare, late on a Friday afternoon. Luckily I found one locally that wife could pick up on her way home from work, but it cost me over $700, compared to what I could have gotten online within 3-4 days for $300. I run straight H2O in mine so if the pump isn't running, it will freeze.

Speaking of freezing, that has happened to me once. Power went out at 1AM on a -20 night. I woke up at 5AM and the lines that go to the door were already frozen. Luckily the forecast called for 40s in the following days so it thawed out and didn't hurt anything on the boiler. I did lose my heat exchangers in the garage and breezeway. Now I have one of those cheap, plug in alarms that alert you when the power goes out and I can get the generator running.

If I was doing it over today, I'd install a gassifier. If $$$ was no object, it would be one of these...

GARN Wood Heating System

Garn looks interesting

 

[Cavman]

If ya can, id go ahead and have a transfer switch put in with a generator. Doeant use alot of juice to run the stove and blower in house. Nice having that heat when power is out

 

[ghuns]

Garn looks interesting

Someday, I plan to build a pole barn with radiant floor heating fed by a Garn.

 

[Jaybird1980]

Someday, I plan to build a pole barn with radiant floor heating fed by a Garn.

Where was yours built? A guy not far from me use to build some like that.

 

[Jaybird1980]

I have an installer coming to the house tomorrow to discuss it. He is a Heatmor, Crown royal and heatmaster dealer. I am leaning toward Crown Royal gassification system

Another thing I thought of since you mentioned Heatmor. When I was shopping around for one a guy that sells Heatmor demonstrated one for me. At that time they used an auger in the back that removed ash from the unit. He stuck the auger in and turned it about 5 times and it locked solid. I watched him fight with that thing for the next 45 min. and decided I wanted nothing to do with that, especially in the middle of winter. I don't know if they still use that setup, but I would try to keep it as simple as possible. With the Central you just shovel them out the door, nothing to go wrong that way.

 

[ghuns]

Where was yours built? A guy not far from me use to build some like that.

Koontz Lake area.

At the time I decided to buy one, already October, everybody I looked at said I couldn't get one until May or June. I wanted one NOW. The previous winter, just the winter, I'd spent $2500 on LP. A buddy had one built by the guy and was happy with it, and he said I could have it in two weeks. And he was about half the price of anything I looked at.

I spent the two weeks, trenching, running all the lines, installing the heat exchangers and add on water heater so when he dropped it off I just hooked up the power and supply/return lines. Was up and running in about an hour.

 

[Jaybird1980]

Koontz Lake area.

Yep, that's the guy. A buddy of mine bought one from him.

 

[ghuns]

Yep, that's the guy. A buddy of mine bought one from him.

He built a MONSTER one that takes a 4 foot high stack of 4'x'4 skids in one load. I think it was for the slaughterhouse in Koontz Lake.

He was quite the hillbilly engineer.

He had one in his shop that he'd built years before. It didn't have the enclosure you'd have on one made for outside. Anytime he got a bright idea for an improvement on his design, he'd just torch his apart and weld it back up to test it.

He burned nothing but 2x4 scraps in his. He had a source somewhere that dumped him semi loads of them.

The other thing he did that people think is nuts was to not use ANY pex tubing. All his lines are 1" Goodyear radiator hose. The really good stuff. His theory was, it's cheaper(at least if you factor in tools required), easier to make connections, and if it freezes, it won't break.

I was skeptical, so my lines in the ground are the typical insulated pex. But once it gets inside, I used the radiator hose. For connections you just heat up the hose with a heat gun, slide it over a 3/4" pipe nipple, and hose clamp it. I used two hose clamps on ever connection. Haven't had a leak yet.

 

[ghuns]

Someday, I plan to build a pole barn with radiant floor heating fed by a Garn.

Like this setup...

 

[tmschuller]

I have an installer coming to the house tomorrow to discuss it. He is a Heatmor, Crown royal and heatmaster dealer. I am leaning toward Crown Royal gassification system

Heard great things about the gasification ones. Never have seen one used.

 

[Jaybird1980]

He built a MONSTER one that takes a 4 foot high stack of 4'x'4 skids in one load. I think it was for the slaughterhouse in Koontz Lake.

He was quite the hillbilly engineer.

He had one in his shop that he'd built years before. It didn't have the enclosure you'd have on one made for outside. Anytime he got a bright idea for an improvement on his design, he'd just torch his apart and weld it back up to test it.

He burned nothing but 2x4 scraps in his. He had a source somewhere that dumped him semi loads of them.

The other thing he did that people think is nuts was to not use ANY pex tubing. All his lines are 1" Goodyear radiator hose. The really good stuff. His theory was, it's cheaper(at least if you factor in tools required), easier to make connections, and if it freezes, it won't break.

I was skeptical, so my lines in the ground are the typical insulated pex. But once it gets inside, I used the radiator hose. For connections you just heat up the hose with a heat gun, slide it over a 3/4" pipe nipple, and hose clamp it. I used two hose clamps on ever connection. Haven't had a leak yet.

Yeah, Saylor's have a big one. I'm pretty sure it's from him. I never knew he built them until a couple years after I bought mine.

I used pex from the boiler to copper in the house. Had some corrosion issues because I didn't use dielectric unions at the water heater. I ended up using short pieces of radiator hose to tie in the second time around. Never had a problem after that.

 

[ghuns]

Yeah, Saylor's have a big one. I'm pretty sure it's from him...

IIR, his dad owns the slaughterhouse.

 

[Farmerjon]

Yep, he is the middle son, the youngest brother butchers in their shop. The 2x4's came from a high end home builder in Knox. Have a couple piles of them still remaining in my woodyard. Tolbrothers were the builders.

Best thing I ever did was buy my first one. We are on a 2nd one.

Heard bad things with an auger if you burnt wood with nails. Nails plug the auger. Our first one was a Central Boiler from Topeka Feed and Stove in Topeka, Indiana. Excellent guys, can't say enough good about them. That was back in '94 or '95. Cannot imagine the money saved in LP due to this purchase. About 10 or 11 or so years ago they were going to outlaw the preemission stoves so we sold our old one and bought a new one from same place but next generation. Great stove, don't darken their door, terrible to deal with and I was paying cash! The gassifiers will burn less wood, but I am lazy and burn mostly what falls on our farm. Sometimes I cut wood and throw it into the stove that afternoon evening. Gassifiers need specific percentage of moisture or they gum up. I don't want that. Crappy wood, buggy wood, some questionable wood, all provides heat.