Heating your home with wood?

[ChickenToes]

We use an old Energy King wood stove. I love it, it heats the house so much better than natural gas.

We do plan on buying an outdoor wood stove in a few years. Then we could heat our house and our garage.

 

[bluey]

That's the positive of the outdoor unit. We have a three car garage I want to heat in addition to the house since I use it as a workshop.

Remember when garages used to be built for cars?

 

[chickenmum]

Oh, does Chicken Obsessed read Calvin and Hobbes?

 

[redoak]

We have a soapstone woodstove. It takes longer to heat up the house but after it goes out it holds the heat a lot longer. My mom has a timberline woodstove and it heats up the house fast but it also cools down fast (along with it the house).

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

We have a wood burning masonry heater.

It uses outside air for combustion and circulates the heat internally so that it becomes a large heat sink. Ours has a bake oven in it, too which I love.

We usually do a burn in the morning and one in the evening. It is quick and more efficient than a fireplace by far!

 

[gapeachy]

we just put in an open fab fireplace that burns wood....rocked around it...we put it on the end of our house thinking it would heat good....WRONG...... it is beautiful but all the heat goes up the chimney...we are thinking about adding an insert thinking that will do better.....

 

[bluey]

Quote:
Yes, he does!!!!

Calvin and Hobbes rocks!

 

[PurpleChicken]

In my opinion the first thing you need to consider is adding radiant
heating to your floors using the latest piping systems.

Once the pipes are in place you can use thermal solar to heat the
water/coolant during the day, an outdoor woodburning furnace
as a supplement, and then a propane "on demand type" for triple
redundancy.

Anyway you do it you are going to need electricity. The new style wood
burners need it to ciculate the air in order to produce the efficiencies
and environmental qualities they are capable of.

You also need electricity to run small circulation pumps. Plus don't
you want your well to work when you have no power?

So, a small propane generator (I suggest Kohler) would back you up
when power goes out and could run off your exisitng propane supply.

You can also consider a photovoltaic solar array with a battery system
and invertors. Those are pricey but there are a lot of gov incentives.

All of these systems can be tied together. Technically, a home like this
can be an off grid house and produce minimal emmisions.

 

[Black Feather]

Thanks guys, this is really really helpful! *taking notes*

The catalytic stove is definitely something I will be looking into, as I've also heard that they are very efficient.

Radiant in floor heating is another method that my brother mentioned, but again, I want to 'try' and create a system that can run without electricity if at all possible.

The power company around my area has a strangle hold on everyone as they are the only providers of electricity. Rates continue to climb like crazy and it's getting very expensive! I can not remember a year when they haven't gotten 8-15% rate increase ... sometimes more than one per year! I would like to break free of the rat race so to speak.

I want to start with designing a passive solar home, and then work from there.

Urban Coyote

 

[Black Feather]

Quote:
Garages are for cars??