Heating a house....

2darts said
buddy of mine installed a wood burning furnace outside and is hook to a radiant heat system in the floor. 4' logs fit in that thing. cheap to run, but the initial cost was pricey. Are you building on a large lot?

5 acres. If we decide to do an outdoor boiler it will be down the road.

Idaho said
I put in my own in floor radiant heat - 3 floors, heat source is 2 50 gal natural gas hot water heaters. Very happy with it. Does need power to circulate so a small generator would keep us going in a power outage. For ultimate self reliance and cost reduction, an outdoor wood fired boiler like what was mentioned would do it.

If you do in floor radiant I have a contact for the best design consultant out there.

PM on its way shortly......

krazykuda said
When my house was built, the fireplaces have "sleeves" around them and vents at the bottom of the fireplace and one or two at the top. As the fire heats up the inner part radiates heat into the sleeve and it comes out of the top vents.

We would put some fans in front of the bottom vent(s) and then get better circulation and more heat out of the top vent. One year we threw a New Year's party and I had that sucker putting out so much heat (I like BIG fires) that people were holding the door to the outside open to cool down - in middle of winter in Chicago!!!

If you put a jacket/sleeve around the heat source and then push the air with a cheap fan, it can put out alot of heat.

My Dad had an old all plate fire box in his house. Very much what you described. Once he put small blowers in the bottom worked well. He loved BIG fires as well. If the tips of the fire were not coming out of the chimney cap he was not happy. For years all we burned was old wooden gutters, tar and all (he owned a gutter business). Neighbor was on the fire department and he used to jump down my Dads throat about it constantly. After 10 years of listening to him my Dad had the chimney cleaned. Surprisingly there was no creosote. Guess the occasional log fire kept it clean.

chryslerfat said
My house is a 2 story 1880 built farmhouse. It has a vent in each room to allow heat to rise naturally. I heat with a wood burner in the basement that works well. At one time that is how all these old farm houses were heated. They also used coal.

My sister's old house had a wood burner in the basement. Her rocket scientist boyfriend tore it out and put electric baseboard in its place. Thought the guy was going to have a heart attack when that first cold spell hit and he got the bill. Have some questions, will just pm you...

FISHBREATH said
Just as important as heating choice is insulation. Put in the maximum amount you can afford, especially in the ceiling. Heat transfer (BTUs) increases parabolically as the differential between warm and cold areas increases. You might want to consider orienting the house, if possible, to garner as much wintertime solar gain as possible. That is free heat on sunny days. Keep total window area as low as possible because windows transfer heat much more readily than insulated walls.

North-south is what folks up here have told me as to house placement. Architect/engineer that we will be using has told us that what we want is not the most energy efficient. What we are looking at is, if I can bring myself to take all those small trees down, is a daylight basement, a second floor and then an insulated attic in the trusses. Due to the smaller foot print he said it will be tough to get heavy insulation up in the attic. I do not like real steep pitched roofs and last we spoke about everything he said that a steep roof will be necessary. I know the steeper the better for snow slide off as well as load capacity but......

Would like to thank you folks for your input.....