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How is the heat circulated into the home? I know most of these are free-standing, usually a short distance from the house, yet people use them for not only heat in the home but for hot water as well.
How is all that circulated? Is it pressure-related, or an electrical pump?
If it's an electrical pump then isn't it rendered useless when the power goes out?
Forgive me if these questions seem obvious to someone with experience with an outdoor furnace, but I'm ignorant on the topic and I'm very interested in one of these IF they're good for when the power goes out.
Well you have to buy the pellets and with 20 acres of woods why would you want to buy pellets ?
Plus if there's a bad storm and you need heat..the woods are right there while the pellets sit in a store miles away.
Just saying. Plus the pellet stoves require fuel..something you are looking to get away from.
Regarding your 2nd paragraph------I believe you mean------" the stacked firewood is right there "
Only an idiot ( who has a woodstove ) would wait til a bad storm hits to grab their chainsaw and go out in the woods looking for snow/ice covered wood to cut up .
If they weren't prepared enough to have some already cut,dried,and stacked. they probably wouldn't be prepared enough to have gas for the chainsaw if a storm hit.
How is the heat circulated into the home? I know most of these are free-standing, usually a short distance from the house, yet people use them for not only heat in the home but for hot water as well.
How is all that circulated? Is it pressure-related, or an electrical pump?
If it's an electrical pump then isn't it rendered useless when the power goes out?
Forgive me if these questions seem obvious to someone with experience with an outdoor furnace, but I'm ignorant on the topic and I'm very interested in one of these IF they're good for when the power goes out.
They use electrical pumps usually.
They also burn up a lot more wood than a stove (or perhaps even using a good rumford fireplace would). Their main benefit is the fire is outside, along with the mess.
JHust make sure you realise what is involved in cutting;drying;splittting and transporting wood long term with no fuel avialble todo any of this.
Yeah. I have some antique crosscut saws, several files and a handful of saw sets, to keep them going. I prefer handsaws over chainsaws since they're quiet and safer, but, a chainsaw is very nice to have when you need to get the wood cut, especially here up North where it takes several cords to heat a place.
We have a heat pump (for summer a/c) with a propane gas furnace as a backup. And because we live so remotely, I also had a Jotul woodstove installed. For the last decade, we've used the woodstove at this place as our primary winter heat source - we built an open floor plan to maximize our use of the woodstove here. Every summer we cut wood from our land, split it, and stack cords of it, and rarely rely on either the heat pump or gas until it is severely cold or my back hurts At our prior home, we used a woodstove quite a bit for a couple of decades there (but not exclusively, as the house was pretty chopped up into little rooms).
This year, because my elderly dog has chronic bronchitis, I decided to just use the HP - weather has been pretty mild compared to the usual temps here.
The heat pump died last Thursday, gas backup refused to come on, and it took three days before the hvac guy could come fix it this past Monday (warranty work). They gave us a new thermostat, and the HP and the gas furnace both worked fine (neither are very old). No problems until last night, when I woke up at 3am last night because I was freezing, and they'd both quit again. Same exact thing.
And I immediately fired up the woodstove and got the house toasty again (no one is coming to fix this until Friday). The reason I like the woodstove is that it is low tech and the only person I need to rely upon is me, and I make sure I have a full stack of cut and split wood every year with which to run it if I wish to do so. I am not dependant upon someone else to keep my home warm, no matter what.
In previous homes, we bought chimney cleaning tools and did the annual cleanings ourselves; now we are older, and this roof is steeper, and I plan to hire that done by someone else. But when we were younger? No problem.
In my neck of the woods, the only complaint I've heard about pellet stoves from neighbors who use them is the unpredictable price sometimes here of the pellets, or their inability to get them if there is some esp. bad weather and a shortage happens. You could get around that I guess by just having quite a bit extra on hand. And they also mention that if the elecricity goes out, there is no heat. Sounds from other posts like you could get a gas model, which eliminates that issue as well. Pellet stoves also mean you don't have to sweep up all the mess the wood you bring in, nor have to worry as much about indoor air quality (my problems usually come from trying to damp back the stove too much for the overnight burn).
I personally don't want to rely on pellets that I need to buy from someone else, but that is just how I feel about it. I know a ton of happy pellet people who think I am wierd for breaking my back over splitting wood like this, but I've never minded it.
P.S. Back when I was looking at stoves, I also liked Lopis. Hearth.com has a lot of information/reviews about different brands of woodstoves and general heating issues.
Last edited by sugarsugar; 01-13-2010 at 05:00 PM..
Regarding your 2nd paragraph------I believe you mean------" the stacked firewood is right there "
Only an idiot ( who has a woodstove ) would wait til a bad storm hits to grab their chainsaw and go out in the woods looking for snow/ice covered wood to cut up .
If they weren't prepared enough to have some already cut,dried,and stacked. they probably wouldn't be prepared enough to have gas for the chainsaw if a storm hit.
I guess that paragraph didn't come out quite right. Yes I know wood has to be seasoned.
It doesnt matter how small your home is you can still use a wood stove. You stated you built a pole barn with an apartment in the top, why not put a wood stove in the barn part with floor vents for heat? You have plenty of wood soo there is no need to purchase any thing but a good stove.
Make sure you check with your insurance company to make sure it is installed in accordance with their safety guidelines.
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