# Wind or outdoor furnace??



## JR05 (Jan 1, 2005)

Ok, we are going to have some $$ available soon and want to do something to start saving on our energy costs. We have talked about getting an outdoor wood furnace to take over heating the house and the barn, no more propane!($400. mthly)Wood wouldn't be a problem as we live in the country and are surrounded by woods. Or... get a wind turbine to generate electic for whole farm or at least half of it. Our electric bills are running 300+ monthly. Cost wise we could buy 2 turbines for the price of the furnace. So which would you do if you had the choice? We would do all the work to install either one as hb is an electrican.

jr05


----------



## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

JR05 said:


> Ok, we are going to have some $$ available soon and want to do something to start saving on our energy costs. We have talked about getting an outdoor wood furnace to take over heating the house and the barn, no more propane!($400. mthly)Wood wouldn't be a problem as we live in the country and are surrounded by woods. Or... get a wind turbine to generate electic for whole farm or at least half of it. Our electric bills are running 300+ monthly. Cost wise we could buy 2 turbines for the price of the furnace. So which would you do if you had the choice? We would do all the work to install either one as hb is an electrican.
> 
> jr05


 Better do the math, at $300 a month, you're using a good bit of electricity, and turbines aint cheap, nor maintenence-free. Then there is the cost of the tower, the wiring, the charge controller, etc. 
Not knowing your site and its wind potential, the outdoor furnace with a water heating option might be your best bet. Check out the HomePower website, a few months ago they did an in-depth comparison of the wind turbines currently available.


----------



## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Yes you might get two small turbines for $5000 bucks . . .
But then you would need a big chunk of that for the towers . .
And the rest of the system $$$

With the wood burner you'll have "on demand" heat anytime..
wind blowing or not.

Those small turbines are likely not to have as much drop down on your electric bill as you might think.


----------



## JR05 (Jan 1, 2005)

The cost of the wind turbines include the towers and various parts, for 2 sets complete it is about $6,000. The wood burner with all parts is about $6500-7000. The turbines we are looking at generate 1000w each. We saw them on/in the Backwoods magazine. Living in Mid-west Missouri we have a wind pretty much all the time and we are on a hill. With the battery bank or feed back to the electric company(credits) they suggest we should have power all the time. We have time to still do more investigating, would like to hear from someone that has the turbines and those that have the outdoor furnace, pros/cons.

jr05


----------



## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

Why not go with one 2000 watt wind turbine and save yourself the cost of a second tower. 

I think I would go with the wood boiler and put the savings away for a solar or wind setup a couple years down the road. Have you thought about a solar shed like Solar Gary's? It would also save on the cost of getting wood.


----------



## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

Anytime you're looking to save on energy costs, the first step is to take an accurate inventory of energy users - and know exactly what each device is using and its cost. The best "value" for your investment money may not be a wood furnace or a wind turbine - perhaps it is upgrading your insulation, solar heat, a more fuel efficient vehicle, new windows... or some combination of upgrades.

Traditionally, generating your own electricity, when you're already on the grid, is not a great investment.

.


----------



## Blu3duk (Jun 2, 2002)

$300 per month electric sounds like you need an energy audit pronto! and $400 per month propane? do you have a green house? what temp do you set your house for? try lowering the upper limit... we turned the thermostat by only 2 degrees and the place is as warm and we use 10-20 % less fuel during the aproximate same type outside cold temp values.... I did not keep a data sheet like i should have, did not really expect to still be renting this house this winter, but lookslike we can continue for awhile longer until something else better crops up.....

If you have access to firewood, think about woodgas generation and use the heat generated by the set up as partial heat, turn the lectric into a battery bank [ i prefer 24 volt forklift batteries and go for the model 5548 or bigger Xantrex invertor and monitoring system... but that is my preference, there are of course other manufactures out there but that one will run a light industrial shop and is the one used for battery power at a few concerts promoting such use] No you cant just buy a wood gasifier on the market that will suit yer needs more than likely, however it aint rocket science and any good tinkerer could put one together.

William


----------



## RiverPines (Dec 12, 2006)

400 for propane?
Is that year round budget or just the cold months.

Just asking because here the propane is so high per gallon it 1,500 to fill a 500 pound tank which last about 1 month during the coldest of the winter, and thats keeping the house cold, not warm!

We have both the house and a basement to heat if we dont want frozen pipes.

We went with indoor wood heat. Free wood.
No regrets at all.
We have electric radiators for the night time and in the basement, so the pipes dont freeze. In the bedroom, a radiator is on and kept so the room is warm. I hate trying to sleep in a cold room.
Our electric is 200-300 during the 2 coldest moths otherwise its a lot lower.

So our heat cost for the winter has dropped extremely well.
From 3k for just propane to a total of 900 for everything. Big differance!

The best part, once winter is over, no more having to pay off whats owed as we come into spring with no heating debt!

And once we get the wood burner going in the morning, our house is real warm, 72-80F. 
No more being cold while paying to be cold because you cant afford to set that thermostat higher!!!
Warm when we sleep and warm all day!
3k to be cold all the time is nuts!


----------



## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

I think heat should be the priority.


----------



## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

Can you share with us the model of turbine you are thinking about? Just remember, that '1000 watt' turbine is only going to generate 1000watts at a certain wind speed, not your 'average wind speed', which is probably much lower. I mean, yeah, if it kicked out 1000watts per hour, all day long, 24kwh per day probably would be enough for you, but I think in reality you'll probably get closer to a TENTH that amount...


----------



## Ross (May 9, 2002)

We hav 2 outdoor furnaces here. They work well but you are a slave to the fire. Meaning it's daily work rain or shine snowstorm or sunny day. Not a bad thing just know it's not always contributors to your daily comfort. There's lots of associated costs like the underground lines and rads etc too. They add up. Size the furnace correctly too big and you waste wood. Do spend some dollars on help setting up the deltaT and temp rise.


----------



## tomjones (Dec 22, 2007)

I think you are vastly underestimating the cost to remove 1/2 your electric bill. This one I have researched a lot. You should too, but unless you are 100% sure, go with the heat first, and add on a domestic hot water heater. If it were me I would look at a higher efficiency unit with thermals storage, like the HS-Tarm.

Good luck.

Tom


----------



## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Excuse me but I find that 6k for "two sets" rather suspect.
I install wind turbines and know a wee bit about the available equipment.
How tall are the towers . .?
You will be disapointed with the performance of those units if they are not 100 feet in the air.

And you are kidding yourself if you think that those >whatever they are< units are going to wipe out your big electric bill.

I have an upcomming project (after the snow melts) of putting in a turbine for a large orchard farm. Their electric per month is $1200. The turbine installed will be about $60k.

Spend some money doing things to reduce your usage first . . .rather than a couple toy turbines.


----------



## JR05 (Jan 1, 2005)

Thank you for all the input. We are going with the outdoor furnace.Wood won't be a problem. We did some more research and we are in a class 2 area which doesn't support the wind idea. The units we were looking at are the Whisper 200 from Hardy Solar and we were getting the 30' towers. The propane cost is for the winter months Nov-April as we heat our barn too for the kidding season (goats). The electric company increased their prices this year and the cost of electric increased $100 per month for us! I will stick the extra $$ back and look for smaller ways to save on utilities. The Solar idea could possibly be used for the barn(winter furnace and summer large fans and year round milk machine(20 goats and 3 cows) and chicken houses(30'-20' and 10'10). One our biggest cost is running 3 refrigerators for the milk possibly look for something more energy efficient. Thanks again.

jr05


----------



## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

I think you are making a wise descision, those Whisper turbines on 30' towers probably werent going to do much for your power bill. Being in Missouri with its hardwood forests, the furnace is probably a good bet. Have you considered any sort of solar space heating? Does your goat barn have good solar exposure in the winter? If it does, it wouldnt take much to rig up a low-cost solar heater. Any supplemental heat would help... Basically a mini-greenhouse, that would transfer heat to the living space...there are many variations on this idea.


----------



## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

. . . .30 foot towers . . . . . . .

Wow

The first rule of thumb for wind is 30 feet ABOVE any trees or buildings.

You would have been VERY disapointed........................


----------



## Ross (May 9, 2002)

Don't forget you can add a side arm water heater to heat water for your house too. It uses the water from the boiler to heat the DWH tank with an add on heat exchanger. I really gotta get mine assembled! Have to get a rad or coil for the clothes drier too.


----------



## Al. Countryboy (Oct 2, 2004)

We have a woodheater in our attached greenhouse. The heater is insulated with little heat actually going into the greenhouse. The heater blower pulls cooler air off the floor in the house and circulates it through the heater which is nice and warm coming back out. Yes there is alot of work using wood, but I use part of the greenhouse to store a fairly large amount of wood for those cold wet days when we have them. The green house is also a big help in cutting our heating costs. Our cold days are clear sunny days and temps. can easly reach 100 degrees in the greenhousa with outside temps. being in the 30's. Many times we will open the windows and door where the greenhouse is attached and let the heat enter into the house. We also have goats and 2 freezers and our power bill is rarely over $100 a month. This is also not a little house that we live in either, but is well insulated. We have a number of south facing windows in our small milk barn and kidding room that really warms up fast when the sun comes up. We also have 4 old storm doors in our hen house which lets in lots of sun to warm up those hens to where they will use there energy for laying eggs instead of keeping warm. :rock:


----------

