Heating With A Wood Furnace

genecarp

hi, does anyone have experience heating with a wood furnace, i am involved with a project that requires one, we will be installing one made by (greenwood), they seem pretty basic in nature, however there are some decisions to make regarding installation, thanks

Jason Whipple

We use them all the time around here. You being from a Metro area, I would go to the fire and safety codes enforcer to get all the details. I did a wood stove in upstate NY last year and it's a good thing I checked in first. There were a lot of additional safety steps I needed to do so it would pass inspection in a Metro area.

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KentWhitten

Our insurance wouldn't cover anything that wasn't (UL?) listed. They might be stricter with the smoke emissions in closer to the city. We're having fights with these new outdoor wood furnaces blowing smoke all over the place.

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Riversong

Outdoor wood boilers are not EPA regulated and are incredibly dirty.

An investigation by the New York State Attorney General's Environmental Protection Bureau found that even when used properly, one of these units emits as much fine particle pollution as:

2 heavy-duty diesel trucks
12 EPA-certified indoor wood stoves
45 passenger cars
1,000 homes with oil heat
1,800 homes with natural gas heat

And they typically have smokestacks close to the ground (about window level), run often on low idle, and run in the summer to supply hot water when everyone's windows are open.

cleveman

yes

genecarp

the system that i am refering to is very different than what is being discussed here, the GREENWOOD unit burns at 2000 deg, it has very little emissions, it also gets piped into a normal 6" chimney flue, exiting above the roofline.

Guisbuild

to all in this thread......

I have an outdoor furnace(central boiler)...I have out of respect for my neighbors installed a 15 foot flu pipe...


I have very little smoke that actually hits the ground and b/c it is a none pressurized system my city fire marshal has allowed it. I heat almost 6500 sq ft and have had no complaints from my neighbors.

guisbuild

TimNJ

I have a HSTARM wood boiler. It too uses air injection to achieve very high temps. After the initial fire starts there is almost no visible smoke and it has an aquastat in it so it will turn itself on and off. There are more and more companies making this type of wood burner for prices that are quite a bit lower than TARM. One is made by the boiler company Dunkirk. I forget the name they use ECO 2000 or something like that. Search Dunkirks web site and you may find a link to it. I posted it on the HVAC page a month or two ago.

woodchuck2

I have a Woodmaster at one home and will be putting one in my primary home. They work awesome. As stated above you may get complaints about the smoke so a stack is a great idea, 15'-18' keeps you at approx. hight of a chimney on a ranch home so unless the town/city is going to ban all woodstoves then they cannot do anything to you without being discrimitive. I have already dealt with my local town zoning about this matter, people were complaining that the emissions of the boiler could be seen and it was unsafe. I told them it was just as safe as a woodstove and if they wanted unsafe then they could come stand next to my power vent off my boiler which is up to code and breathe some of that in. I also stated to them that they were being discrimitive about the fuel being used to heat my home, in the day in age that we live in and Greenies pushing for alternative fuels why were they trying to shut down my source of heat that uses a renewable resource for fuel and try to push me back into a fossil fuel. By the time i and several others left that meeting we had the greenies standing up for us. In my book they are well worth the money and should pay for themselves the first year or two. I burn pine and popular and it has all been free, i cut it in 16"-24" blocks with no splitting involved.