# outdoor wood furnaces?



## backwoods (Sep 12, 2004)

My neighbor asked me to help her find info on the outdoor wood furnaces. I know Taylor makes them, but don't know of any others, and I didn't come up with much when I searched it. She is active military, and doesn't have time to do a lot of research, so I thought I'd ask here if anybody has them, or knows much about them, or can recommend them? Or maybe recommend against them, even!
Thanks,
backwoods


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

here are two...

http://www.hardyheater.com/

http://www.centralboiler.com/


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

another one...

http://www.hawkenenergy.com/products/furnaces/HE-2100.php


i got tired of posting sites and found this list...

http://www.greenwoodusa.com/manufacturers-furnaces.php


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## Spinner (Jul 19, 2003)

I don't know a lot about them, never had one, but a neighbor has one and loves it. I have no idea of the brand name, but he bought it in St. Louis so if you find a dealer there, it's probably the brand he has. It looks like an old fashion water cooler.


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## MJFarms (Sep 20, 2008)

I have a Free Heat machine. They are alot of work and burn alot of wood. Better check into it alot. The EPA is cracking down on these units. You'll have up to 10k rapped up in one. Only to have the EPA force you to stop using it.


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
One thing to be aware of is that there is some controversy surrounding outdoor furnaces. Some of them are not very polluting, create a lot of smoke, and are inefficient. They have been banned in some communities, and if you have nearby neighbors, the smoke is something to think about.

http://www.vtwoodsmoke.org/index.html

It looks like some of the manufacturers are working the problem.

Gary


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

the top few of the stoves on the link i posted are listed as 85% efficient. from the look of them, i bet they cost quite a bit. 

i think people need to fight this push for regulation. i am sure it is important in dense urban areas, but for those living a bit further out of town, i see no problem with having one. i already have three smokestacks on my house, and when the furnace chimney was in good shape, i used all three during the coldest weather. in my case, one outdoor boiler would eliminate the need to burn two of the three devices in my home.


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## mdharris68 (Sep 28, 2006)

Here in my area, the HEATMOR brand is real common. I have worked on one and it was built like a tank. The problem with these units are that they are typically oversized for the application, which causes a lot of non burning time which creates the low hanging cold smoke and creosote. If they could be built to match the heating load, they would burn hot and have less of the bad neighborhood smoke. This would require more frequent loadings which would deter some of the buyers who only want to load them twice in 24 hrs. 

From what I have read, HS Tarm is ahead of the game in that they recycle or have a seconday pass on the flue gasses and seem to get more heat out of thiers. I think the HS Tarm company has a good looking product line, but they charge accordingly though.


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

i looked at the diagram of one of the units from the first 85% efficient manufacturer. it was awefully complex...it looked like a schematic of the dang space shuttle. i don't like complex.


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## PamB (Jan 15, 2008)

We have had our Heatmor for over 5 years now and really like it. We usually fill it in the morning around 5 am, then again between 4-6pm, depends on when the first one of us gets home. Our home is an older modular but well insulated. We live on 160 acres with plenty of wood to cut, we burn a lot of dead elm and then some oak tops from when the woods were logged off before we bought this place. Our neighbor across the road has commented that she can smell the wood smoke occasionally, but they are not home much in the winter anymore. 
I love that it heats our hot water in the winter and now you can take long hot showers after spending the day working out in the cold. 
Another neighbor has one and we keep it filled for them when they are out of town, their house is a poorly insulated one and is a lot bigger than ours.Their furnace is a bigger model that ours. This last time we filled it for them it went out before we got down there in the morning, the guy said that it is not unusual for him to have to relight it, something we never have to do. 
We did a lot of research and looking at them before we went with the Heatmor.
Pam


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## wendle (Feb 22, 2006)

I bought a Hardy wood burner used this summer and so far I like it. No more propane for the water heater or furnace. It does use some wood, but I have a lot of downed trees and a few other places to cut with the same. The best thing is that I'm no longer at the mercy of the fuel company to pay their rates.


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## Jerry in MN (Dec 2, 2007)

Besides Heatmor and Central Boiler, another made in NW Minnesota is Woodmaster: http://www.woodmaster.com


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

We have two Empyre outdoor boilers. A 450 serving 3 zones heating about 5000 sq feet and a 250 heating 1400 square feet. The Stainless steel is first rate and its gotta have a forced draft.


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## tallpaul (Sep 5, 2004)

I have a taylor as do several friends. Another friend has two central boilers- one for his business and one for home. 

I have had mine for 8 years and the better the wood the cleaner they burn. I would not have one in a dense neighborhood. I like that the mess is outside and the wood is easy to acess etc. The negatives are not being able to leave for several days in freezing weather unless ya find a sitter for the stove. 

As far as banning them etc- there better be a grandfather clause or they can pay my gas bill!


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Outside wood boilers are controversial here on Homesteadingtoday and out in the real world. They have been banned by many communities and many people have removed theirs because of the increased wood needed due to heat losses inherent in their operation.

If my neighbor asked me for information about an Outside Wood Boiler, I'd respond the same way as if he'd asked me for information on a 1000 sow farrowing operation or a skunk rendering plant. They are often refered to as " there goes the neighborhood...."

I've had a wood boiler in the basement for 30 years and never had the kind of stench that I've smelled from those OWB. Lots of different reasons, I guess. 

Dry wood, SPLIT, always split, and dried at least a full year may keep the neighbors from cursing that wood burner. Most people intend to just burn seasoned wood, many fall short of those intentions. Having the capacity to take a 2 or 3 foot long piece often results in un-split wood. Unsplit is unseasoned.

Check with your local officials to make sure your area doesn't already have a ban on them.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

for a lot less you canput a small efficient wood stove inside the house if properly installed most insurance companies do not increase your home owners 

they use less wood , have almost no smoke , my mail man asked if i had added a wood furnace i said no a wood stove and that i had a fire going in it right then he couldn't tell untill he looked close and could see the heat trails at the cap. and don't loose heat getting it to your house , also no aditional furnace parts or hot water base boards to buy and install. cost especialy if you can find a previose years modle stove at your dealer and buy it for about 1/2 off and add a new stainless steel chimney your looking around 3000 

down sides , you have to cut and split the wood smaller and carry it in thru the house


no smell of smoke in the house if you operate the stove properly , and very very few townships or cities have banned them and they are epa approved.


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## wendle (Feb 22, 2006)

Around here the insurance won't cover you if you have an indoor wood stove. Amazingly they don't see anything wrong with a poorly installed fireplace though.


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## Mel in N.C. (May 11, 2002)

We have a Hardy stove and have been very pleased with it. It is WARM heat. Before the wood stove the heat pump would blow cool air. The thermostat might say 70 degrees but it sure didn't feel it. We are fortunate to live on acreage and have plenty of trees naturally down each year that provide our wood. I guess it depends on your situation but we are very happy with ours.


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## seagullplayer (Nov 6, 2008)

We have an inside wood stove and love it. 

One couple we are close to replaced theirs last year after talking to us about our stove. He was over at the house looking at my wood pile for the winter, he said he would burn at least 10 times more than we did. Their unit would not keep the house warm on the coldest days, the unit was installed to far from the house. He also had a lot of pump trouble, they where told it was the hardness of the well water.

They now love that they don't have to keep a fire over the summer to keep hot water (the put in an electric water heater) and that it was the warmest they had ever been in the house.

But some people love them. Proper installation seems to be key. Be sure and have her ask about her water hardness before she buys.

Good luck


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## bloogrssgrl (Jan 20, 2008)

You might want to recommend that your neighbor looks for a burner that is actually a gasifier. What this means is that the gases that normally go out the flue (and into your neighbors' houses) on the regular OWB's get recirculated and burned. These units are a bit pricier but much more efficient and kinder to the rest of the world.


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## Durandal (Aug 19, 2007)

We run on a Central Boiler. Heat a home, garage, and use it during the fall to dry corn.

Works great. It heats the home and the hot water tank. Then we turn it off in the warm weather months.

Our's is a midsized one. I would recommend a smaller one. With the cost of wood these days though I am not too sure how economical they are. We have 300 acres and lots of wood either to cut or claim from flooding, yearly and burning 22 THOUSAND pounds of wood is nothing for us.


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

i'm torn between getting one sized just big enough for the house, or getting one that i could also use to heat the garage or a greenhouse. either way, i would get to use wood that i would otherwise let rot. i have lots of pine, spruce and tulip poplar that is just not practical for me to burn inside. i also have lots of thorny hawthorn that is excellent to burn, but it is actually dangerous to handle too much. i could toss in long lengths of hawthorn and not worry about de-thorning those eye gouging spikes that could easily blind someone.


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## solidwoods (Dec 23, 2005)

I use a Taylor to heat 2 buildings 3000 sf each, 2 lumber dry kilns, dog grooming business hotwater, and heat under the bathtub.

Wood fired water heaters cost allot. If you have a use for heat to make profit then it can make a profit.
Beware of cheap imitations. Quite a few welding shops market heaters that look like the brand name heaters. A friend purchased one from ebay for $5000. and the door hinge welds let loose.

Myself I like Taylor better that Central Boiler because of the design differences.
jim


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## solidwoods (Dec 23, 2005)

seagullplayer said:


> We have an inside wood stove and love it.
> 
> One couple we are close to replaced theirs last year after talking to us about our stove. He was over at the house looking at my wood pile for the winter, he said he would burn at least 10 times more than we did. Their unit would not keep the house warm on the coldest days, the unit was installed to far from the house. He also had a lot of pump trouble, they where told it was the hardness of the well water.
> 
> ...



Hard/soft water has absolutely absolutely nothing to do with hot water heater performance.
You add a chemical to the water for anti corrosion but that is all.
Distance of water transportation does matter, but how its insulated matters 1000X more. Transportation line insulation is where some people fall short and they pay for it every second the unit is used.

How much heat exchange in the home matters also.
Don't use enough heat exchange and you must compensate with higher water temps which makes the concept less efficient.
Increase the home heat exchange and you can reduce your water temp and you will use less wood.

I use a Taylor and love it. They are not cheap. If you have a business use for heat or a large requirement for heat, then it can make money for you.
jim


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## Kris in MI (May 30, 2002)

This is our second season running a used Hardy that is probably 10 yrs old now. A friend of ours installed it in his brand new house, used it for 5 years, then went with a corn burner because he was tired of cutting wood (didn't put his teens to work!!). It sat unused for about 2 years before we bought it off him and installed it at our house.

We love it. Our house is 2700 sq ft if you count the basement, which we do since it is heated via the radiant floor heat in the floor of the main level (left off the insulating foil barrier, so heat can 'go down' to basement too). In normal weather, we stoke the burner once a day, twice if the weather is in the single digits or below. It also heats all our domestic hot water (in summer we just switch the water heater to propane).

Since dh is an engineer and has hvac experience (and also designed and installed our hydronic radiant heat system in the house), we did all the outdoor boiler installation ourselves, tying it into our existing heat system and hot water heater. Total cost to us: $2000. We are only 1/2 way through our second season of use and it has already paid for itself in savings on propane (what we used to heat with). We do not have to buy our wood; several neighbors who had their properties timbered a few years ago told us we could clean up the 'tops' that were left. We also do storm damage clean-up for people. So far, we have not had to cut anything from our own property.

ETA: because of our abundant wood source, we do not burn any softwoods or green wood. This year's woodpile was cut several years ago (planning ahead before we even got the outdoor boiler), and split in 2007.


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

We've got a neighbor about 2 miles down the road that uses one, and I am glad I dont live very close to them. Whenever I pass by their house, I see thier pollution-machine cranking and think, 'Why dont they let some air into that darn fire!'. Still better than burning coal, but i dont like to see smoldering fires. Means inefficiency, which also means waste.


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

once again, i think you should blame it on operator error. it is most likely caused by forced draft on damp wood. my neighbor has a forced draft hot air wood furnace in his basement and it smokes as bad as any outdoor unit will when he uses damp wood. the neighbors down the street use outdoor furnaces but have lots of wood (they own a sawmill business) and they store their wood under the roof of the pavillion where the stove is located. i never see that stove smoke any worse than a normal chimney from an indoor woodstove. 

it's like farming...if you can make money on one acre, farming 100 acres won't help much. i notice you have a thread where you heat hot water using a woodstove. apparently your stove doesn't smoke. i would guess you are using dry wood. if folks used dry wood, no matter what the device, they would have a cleaner burn. large or small, the principle is the same.


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

MELOC said:


> once again, i think you should blame it on operator error. it is most likely caused by forced draft on damp wood. my neighbor has a forced draft hot air wood furnace in his basement and it smokes as bad as any outdoor unit will when he uses damp wood. the neighbors down the street use outdoor furnaces but have lots of wood (they own a sawmill business) and they store their wood under the roof of the pavillion where the stove is located. i never see that stove smoke any worse than a normal chimney from an indoor woodstove.
> 
> it's like farming...if you can make money on one acre, farming 100 acres won't help much. i notice you have a thread where you heat hot water using a woodstove. apparently your stove doesn't smoke. i would guess you are using dry wood. if folks used dry wood, no matter what the device, they would have a cleaner burn. large or small, the principle is the same.


 
Well personally I try to burn seasoned hardwood, and try to keep a hot fire to minimize the smoke. But of course it smokes some, its a fire! 
I called my neighbors outdoor furnace a 'pollution machine' because they dont seem to care too much about the condition of the blaze, seems they just fill it with whatever and let it smolder 24/7. I am guessing they heat their water with it too, because it runs in all seasons. 
And I wont blame it on the stove, either, my dad used to heat his house with a wood furnace and he would do much the same thing, keep a smoldering fire while he was away at work. Course he gave that up about ten years ago, when cutting and splitting became too much work for him.


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## tinman1 (Jan 20, 2009)

We have a hardy stainless owb. The newer models are about 4 inches thick..stainless inside & out,well insulated.It has an automatic draft and actually burns HALF the wood my indoor wb. does...I totally agree with seasoned wood vs. green or wet wood.For inside or outside burners,,We fill it twice a day during cold weather ...& have a heat pump for above 40 degrees or so,and electric hot water.Ran an extra line to H.Water so when owb. is on it runs hot water to it also..This unit is very efficient,but unit,heatexchanger,and thermostat cost right at 5000.00.Plus the cost for piping,insulation for piping,electric hookup and installation is extra..I work in Heating field so installed myself...We love it..


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## doinit (Mar 29, 2007)

hi folks 
this year i decided to burn wood , but as a low income homesteader could not afford a 10000 $ OWB . so i did some research on stoves and wood burning ,and came up with a plan to build my own. 
it is simply an airtight wood stove in a small insulated building just outside the house , with the stove door outside the "shed".it is then allowed to rise naturally into the house via insulated pipe . we live in a sub 1000 sqft house and have only used 3 cords so far this winter and 30$ in oil for the really cold nights! with building the heater and cutting wood i will probably be about 800 this year in heating costs but next year will be less than half , so with some thought and ambition it can be done inexpensivly and safely !!


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## tab (Aug 20, 2002)

We have had our Central Boiler for about 8-9 years. It has paid for itself many times over. We go through about 2-3 loads of logs per year. That is with hot water all year and heat in this old drafty house (warm!) about 6 months per year, sometimes more. The greener the wood the cleaner the burn, very little ceosote, we used to get more off our old indoor wood stove. Tried the seasoned wood and got much more creoste. It is right behind the house and we rarely have any smoke smell. This last year we did split the wood but that was the exception. I don't like to unless the logs are big. Properly installed lines and chimney make a huge difference in the operation. Just like any furnace, the PROPER installation is important. Central Boiler is one of the brands rated at 85% efficiency. Based on the ashes I take out of the stove vs the wood placed in I believe it is a very efficient burn. The only time there is smoke is when the damper is open and it is burning and possibly when it is "starting" and "stopping". On a very cold day when the damper is closed one can see a faint smoke line when it is not burning. The interesting thing about this stove (to me) vs a conventional stove, is it almost looks like it is out when the damper is closed. I have placed wood in the stove that I did not think would go, huge and wet, and it does. 

Our neioghbor has a Taylor which we get more smoke from than our own. Part of the issue is he puts stuff in it that does NOT belong in any stove. From the color of the smoke it is plastic and such. I also question his installation....again proper installation of any heating device.

They are work. It is a trade off between working manually when I choose and working another job to be able to heat this old house. When fuel was three dollars a gallon wood was up a bit but not the same as fuel oil. If I ever get really brave, I will learn to cut the trees that really need to be thinned out on our property. That would cut the bill more. Scrub trees and soft woods burn but I try to keep the main wood hard woods as it has more BTU's. Any fallen trees, which there have been many with the frequent wind storms, are put to use. We have the capacity to heat the shop, just need to convince dh to spend the $$.  We have a seperate wood stove in the shop, which again, smokes more than the wood boiler and it is much smaller.

I was not totally convinced prior to purchasing that I would like the boiler but I have to say I have become convinced with use that it was the correct decision for us. I have postd about the stove before and had people argue my experience (some who admit to not owning one) but this is my 2 cents.


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