Just wondering how well the outside wood furnace not the boiler works. I figure the boiler works great. But the start up cost would kill me. The hot air furnace that blows hot air through the side of the house and uses the cold air returns that are already there looks ok. Anyone got any thoughts on the hot air outsidewood furnace?

 

check into corn burners instead. my uncle has a set-up in his pole building he checked into wood burners and he said the corn burners are supposed to heat more efficient and last longer. which ever you get you have to keep up with the maintanace on them .if you live in the country you can buy field corn very cheap from the local farmers and you dont have to worry about choppin wood.

 

My uncle has a outdoor wood burner and loves it. He heats his house and barn and gets hot water for both using it. He only fills it twice a day unless it gets really cold. The initial cost is alot, but think of it as a long term investment. With the price of LP it wouldn't take long to pay for it. There are many different sizes also so you could heat a lot of buildings if you want or just the house.

Now back to your question about the corn burner. My brother has one of the small decorative ones and he loves it. It heats the whole bottom floor of the house. It is a warm heat, but not the same as a wood furnace. I know that corn is supposed to have a lot more heat, but I don't see it. But I like to indoor wood furnances because of the heat. You can get a corn burner that is set up on a boiler system like the wood burners if you want or just a convection one that runs through the ducts. I know some people like the corn because you can fill it up and be done for days to weeks depending on how much storage you have.

If I were going to buy one, which I am in a couple of years when me and the misses get a house of our own, it would depend on supply and if you want to cut wood. If there is a lot of wood available then I would get a wood boiler, if not then I would get a corn boiler. As for me there is plenty of wood so I will get a wood burner to heat the house, shop, and barn along with hot water.

 

I'm curious. What is the technical difference between a wood stove and a corn stove? Are they constructed differently? Could you burn wood in a corn burner or corn in a wood stove?

 

Corn stove is set up like a wood pellet stove, I don't think you can just light up a big pile of corn, it needs to be auger fed in, like rice coal.

I just read a very convincing artical on the outdoor furnace, a guy here locally is heating an almost 5000 sq. foot house. It cost him $3,800 to heat last year, so far this year he has spent $400.

I was a little sticker shocked at the price, they were talking like 6 G's! Wow!

The cool part is that he was on a FWA (forced warm air) system and they just plumbed a big coil into the system, so he still uses the existing system.

I was at first under the impression that you could only use the bioler if you were already on a HWBB (hot water base board), radiant floor heat, or radiators.
Guess not.
It sounds cool to me, but considering I don't have an extra $6,000 lying around AND I can reach over and kick up my propane fired furnace by pushing a button, AND the guy just comes and pumps a few hundred gallons into my buried tank ever few months..........................

 

I use a wood burner stove in teh house, a small one to supplement teh NG furnace. Saves a lot on heating costs. ( Wonderstove brand)
My bro-in-law uses a whole house corn burner that is tied into his heating vent system. this is in a 150 yr old two story stone house he remodeled.
He is a huge fan if the corn burners. he loads it once a day, and cleans it out once a week.
Its always warm in his place, so I gotta say that its working well.....

 

I was up in Greenville ME the other day and got to see a house under constrution that was "off the grid". He had 30 or so feet of solar panels and an outside wood furnace with radiant heat floors and hot water. He said that green wood works best so he can cut down a tree (on his 50 acers) and put it in the furnace right away. He paid about 27k for both systems and in ten years will need to replace the batteries (10K or so). I was impressed!

 

The corn burners need to be started on wood pellets. The corn won't start. Once you get the fire started out can start augaring in corn. You can get a corn system that is convection air or one that works as a boiler. In the boiler system they put a coil like a old radiator heater in the duct work. There is then a fan that pushes the hot air through the ducts. All the boilers work like this unless you have the radiant heat set up which runs hot water through pipes and the heat is radiated from this.