Ultimate set up

Ideally, it would be a gassifier firing hot water, large enough to produce all the heat needed for 24 hours of both heating the house as well as DHW on the coldest day of the year. In my case, that would mean a few thousand gallons of water, well insulated and used as thermal storage then tapped into as needed by circulators and heat exchanger for DHW. The idea is to fire the gassifier on a full load of wood and let it burn as efficiently as possible by controlling the exhaust gas temperature. The burn time does not matter, what matters is that as much thermal energy as possible from the fuel, and more than enough for 24 hours worth of needs is burned. The burning of the fuel and the use of the heat are totally separated and do not have to happen at the same time. Plus, during warmer times, even in the heat of summer, it would be possible to fire the boiler once a week or even less often to provide DHW year round.

Unfortunately that is not realistic in my current situation.

What I have is pretty efficient though for straight wood burning for direct heating. An Ideal Steel stove, capable of going quite a few hours between loadings. I have made a fair amount of changes to my house to accommodate wood burning and make it easier / faster, the biggest change being I put folding doors on the end of my porch, rebuilt the floor and framing to allow several tons of weight to be driven up onto the porch, and I bring firewood 'close' to the stove by driving a trailer full of wood, almost exactly one cord, up onto the porch and leave it there until all the wood is used. My stove is centrally located in the house, 8 feet from the front door, which opens onto.... wait for it.... the porch. So to load the stove, I put on gloves, open the front door, stand on the door threshold, gather an armload of wood, turn around and take two steps, then load the stove. I never get wet, or step in snow, or handle wood that has snow on it once actually using the wood stove. When the trailer gets low, say below 2/3 empty, I wait until the next weekend day, drive it off the porch and next to a holz hausen and load it up again. Not as effortless as, say, a pellet stove but pretty slick for an honest wood burning stove.

The next step in increasing efficiency and decreasing effort is fully automatic control of the burn done via electronic controller.

Brian

 

I'd have a combo wood/oil or gas boiler with hot water baseboard heat. No matter if I was there or not... the system would maintain constant temps. All dirty firewood work would be done in the basement. I'd have a nice 2nd glass front stove in the main area of the house and a cool dumbwaiter type "woodbox" built-in right next to the 2nd stove, bringing all wood up from the "dirty" basement firewood area.

 

We have mainly an open concept downstairs except the kitchen is a little out of the way. There is a cathedral ceiling in the main living area with a large cat/hybrid stove. The indoor chimney is 22' straight up. Master bedroom is separate and stays cooler than the main part of the house. Have an upstairs on one side with 2 bedrooms and a bathroom that is hardly ever used. If we did it over again we'd stay on one floor with everything off one large family/living room with a big freestanding stove more or less in the middle. The footprint would be irregular with rooms jutting out so all rooms would have ample window light on 2 or 3 sides. But we love our home as it is and it will be our one and only now. Fun to dream though.

 

Well, like anything, it depends....
I built our house in 2002/2003. We heat the main floor a total of 1156 square feet by radiant floor heat (with a cathedral ceiling) and the basement area, 1248 square feet for a total of 2404 square feet by radiant. The bedrooms are HWBB and that's around 668 square feet total. Like I said earlier, my wife likes it warm...too warm if you ask me or my daughter, 74 degrees; I come home from work in the winter and put shorts on.
Last winter we started early and cold; I lit the boiler in October and didn't stop it until mid May(?). We went through around 11 - 12 cord of wood. Remember, this heats our domestic hot water as well so you're talking 3 showers per day, clothes washing every other day, etc.
This year, it's already December and I haven't lit it yet. Sure it gets a little cold at night, but with temps hitting the upper 40's and 50's most days, I've been reluctant to start. The boiler performs best when it's running hot. When the days are warm and it has to idle a lot, I have to fiddle with it more (increase the pulse air timing etc.)
If I were to guess, I'd say an "average year" we go through 8 to 10 cord of wood...

 

The ultimate setup for me would start with the ultimate insulated house. Then heating it with what ever stove would be so much easier.

There are houses designed very well insulated with in the center of the house is one of those big masonry heaters. They claim burning few few pieces of newspaper everyday heats the place.

 

It all depends of the size of house, how sealed it is, insulation and what else you want to heat with wood. Every situation is somewhat different. My own prejudiced preference is a large woodstove that loads North-South. Add a Heat-Booster to improve efficiency at high burning rates, and install a Draft-Booster to make sure you compensate for lower flue gas temperatures. Also, always use an insulated chimney.
If you also want to heat water, or use a hydronic in-floor heating system, then have a good look at the safe water heating systems available from Heat-Booster.

 

Sorta reminds me of my parents centrally located fireplace that had an insert in it. Except that one is tiny compared to r one in our old house. Yep. It was massive. Fieldstone outside, id say 20 feet wide, by 8 feet deep, and it was in a cathedral ceiling about 18-20 feet tall.

I used to rock climb to the top as a kid.


As for my ideal setup here at my open concept ranch...

An epa efficient fireplace like a Napoleon nz3000 in the wall where our current fireplace is, and a wood boiler in the basement with a couple hundred gallon tank to keep hot water, with radiant in floor heat coils.

Might as well have could under my driveway so I never have to add snowblow again. Flip a switch to turn on a zone.

The wife would want a heated towel rack too.

Ooh yeah, another zone to heat the hot tub that doesn't exist on the patio too.

 

there is no ideal setup for me. i would like to try a masonry fireplace/stove that ends before the ceiling and continues up with pipe, as seems to be in the pic above, to limit thermal losses. that would be interesting except it might not fit in my 900 sq. ft. house. the ideal then is a bigger house? not in NY with our taxes. you get the idea, you can't win. the 30 hour burn described for the BK stove is a practical plan.
coming back to planet earth briefly the ideal setup is getting another stove from woodstock maybe early next decade. you can only imagine what they will have then and i'm certain my IS is going to be hopelessly outdated. i don't mind a bit and am always prepared to bleed with a smile for good hardware. it's the same situation you are in with cars now. yeah, they look good and they're better than just a few years back. the problem is that a car is a 15 year property. it's going to start to look not as good after 3 years and look pretty sad after 5. you're better off driving what you have and postponing a vehicle purchase if it's practical in your circumstances. cars? if elon musk has his way there will be killer batteries for your car. the dude is so out there he wants to sell a battery pack that will power your house. yeah, your house will be rechargeable like your drill. it's likely in about a decade there will be some alternative energy scheme feeding free energy into that house battery hence much less heating demand and we can burn a cord of wood per year for the heck of it and the pleasure of old school radiant heat. the lot of us are going to be left behind in life clinging to the old ways. nothing wrong with that someone has to represent.

 

One word - Solar. And a catalytic stove. Ok, that's more than one word.

But solar fascinates me. If I were building new, I would try to combine passive and active solar to get most of my heat. Then add the stove for the periods where the sun isn't getting through.

Greg

 

Amen to your comment. A few years back we decided to replace all our windows with low e argon arctic rated windows. when we got at it we decided to change the siding. All the old came off then one thing led to another and we decided to add to the insulation. After all was said and done we now have a tight, warm home with R30 walls and good windows. What a difference. Even with the wind howling outside it is perfectly quiet inside and no drafts or cold. The heat from the wood stove stays inside. The last 2 winters have been brutally cold with many night time temps between 30 and 40 below zero. That became more than our old Napoleon 1400 could easily handle so we now have a large cat/hybrid and we are still burning oil to keep the chill off. The next 2 weeks are above freezing day and night. Should have known! LOL!

 

I'm hoping to also design my next home... so many aspects of design I would do that are simply not done with conventional homes. It is a ways off (probably won't move until my son is on his own) but I am researching and getting ideas now.

Efficiency comes in many ways though - for example taxes. I don't want it just energy efficient but also efficient use of taxes. I want to retire early and probably won't be rich so minimizing tax cost that will be there every year regardless how little energy I use is very important. Also cleaning, and everything else. So popular are large houses now... I guess people plan on having lots of money when they retire to keep paying $1000+ a month even after their house is paid off!

So I'd like to build a more suitable sized house, like maybe 1500 sqft, and no huge open greatrooms like I have now that waste heat and square footage. I also don't need 10' high ceilings either. Mostly open floorplan, and if I do a finished basement or two story, have the stairway open and not shrouded into a doorway. I'd really like a log home, but unsure, its a tradeoff. Got to have 25+ acres of good woods, for self-sustaining source of nearly free fuel, and hunting. I wouldn't go crazy with R-50 walls if I have a good efficient stove and 25 acres of woods, other things to spend money on. payback probably better putting money into solar or something like that. Still debating on layout, and whether a stove would go in a finished basement for the whole house or if I'd need 2, or maybe one wood burner and a pellet burner for backup/aux heat on the really cold days, or maybe a wood cookstove for supplemental plus winter cooking.

I'd keep the woodstove a simple freestander, probably the one I already have. A lot cheaper and less hassle than boilers and pipes and pumps and the like. For a smaller well designed home a freestander should probably heat it just fine, maybe a few small fans is all the extra needed. Though I guess most banks require some form thermostat controlled central heating... I'd rather avoid that from the get go to avoid the cost and hassle of all the duct work and what not. maybe just some electric baseboard heater for show.

 

I like your practical approach. Basement??? Not sure if it's money well spent. Slab on grade insulated underneath with access to space under floor for pipes and whatever else might be worth considering. A good size utility room with short plumbing runs with access might be ok. Also can make the plumbing easily drainable allows for leaving for winter vacations. Small oil furnace with a few duct runs makes coming and going a cinch. Just musing and realize our love of basements has advantages too. Especially if the lot is sloped to allow a walk out. Musing of an old fool!

 

This ^

A Blaze king Ashford, would be my second choice, would be nice to have something with a longer burn time.

 

Dunno if anyone said this... indoor gasser with enough storage and insulation for one fire per winter...
I win....

 

Yep, I go back and forth about basement. The big advantage (besides more easily running plumbing and electric) is the cheaper taxes on that square footage. And if we are talking a lifetime that could be a significant amount of money. If we are talking about something a bit more expensive like a log home, the cost of a basement might be a lot less than the cost of a second story of log construction, or a much larger log first floor, but I really haven't looked at all the numbers yet. Depends on the foundation type and how much it cost to excavate and all that. Also allows you to make a smaller footprint for the same footage. But basements are often a source of moisture issues, and lots of advantages to simple slab. A combined first floor laundry/bathroom, and have it bordering the kitchen makes the longest plumbing run a matter of feet. Even if you really wanted a bath in your bedroom you could have it straight above, and still short runs.

As far as wood heat, I'm not sure if it would be easier to get a more even heat from a large 1 story or a smaller 2 story...

 

My house was built by the previous owner who planned an auxiliary wood furnace in with the electric heat pump. With two thermostats, we can go all winter without using the heat pump. I find it pretty close to ideal since the air is force throughout the house. It's a ranch house on a slab so the furnace is located in a room attached to the garage. I wish the furnace room had it's own exterior door and covered porch so that I could store firewood there but now I'm getting picky.

The one thing that could be better is less heat inrushing when I light up a fresh fire, and longer / slower burn times. I suppose a hot water baseboard setup would do that because the water would take much longer to warm and cool.

Plus make the furnace easier to monitor - right now it's in a room in the garage and so you have to walk around and put on slippers just to know what's going on. We're in and out of the house frequently so it's not a major pain but I have to wonder if a new EPA compliant furnace will be more difficult to keep happy.

 

Water as a heat sink is a very good method for storing energy. The trick is to heat the water using a wood stove. A "Hot-Jacket" by Heat-Booster is great for this purpose. You can monitor wood stove combustion process by installing a thermocouple near flue collar. Use it with an inexpensive (~$25) controller to operate alarm for low and high temperatures. Low alarm means more fuel is needed. Run telephone wires from stove to where the alarm devices are needed.

 

I've always like the idea of a masonry heater in a house that is laid out for it to work well. That being said I think I might miss seeing the fire with the short burs you would have in it. I think it's something I would like to try someday but I'm not sure I would call it the "ultimate" setup.

 

This is what Id love to have but the house would have to be large (7,500 on the first floor alone) plus a large two sided stone wood bin.
Then likely to put a few Woodstock stoves in selective open rooms in the upstairs. Then with a large ESSE stove in the Kitchen with a propane burner/griddle mix side that is personal tank only and many on hand for the switch out. If you want me to get into the grill part that's an entirely different story.
Ive gone as far as wanting to design my own FATBOY stove as it would be semi potbelly but geometrically designed as well. Think cylindrical with a triangular toping panels which one is able to open via hydraulic opening for stove feeding from the top. This may seem dangerous but The fire would be directed in a bottom area and wood dropped down into the "chamber" (firebox at this point becomes a small concept) and moved to the burning area.
Complex yes but this size stove would likely be able to heat 20,000 sf centrally located in a cellar.