In addition to fueling my 2 wood stoves, I'm a good son and process and deliver my parents seasoned wood to help heat their house. I don't mind helping them out whatsoever but there wood furnace is killing me. It's a Firechief FC500 unit and its probably only 10 years old if that. It not only EATS wood, but due to the design it clogs the chimney 5 or 6 times a season. Before you ask, I am following the 3 year rule and ensuring all wood is very dry. 15 -20% moisture content. Mostly ash, cherry, hard maple, with some black locust and walnut occasionally. Northeast Ohio. Without getting into the details of the chimney issue, it's just not an ideal furnace. It burns alteast a cord of wood a month which is 4 times as much as I burn. They are willing to upgrade but they would really like to have a unit, as they do now, that has a blower that can be physically tied into the ductwork of the house. Does anyone know of an ultra efficient wood furnace? I know Napolian was making non-cat units that were recently outlawed but I'd prefer a cat stove for the efficiency and long even burn times. Does not need to be pretty as it is in the basement. After a bit of a learning curve on how to run a cat stove, I'm sure my aging parents would be thrilled to only load once or twice a day rather than fussing every few hours. And my back would like it too! Any ideas?
Kuuma Vapor Fire 100.........best on the market. brenndatomu Vapor Fire 100 - High Efficiency Wood Gasification Furnace - Kuuma There are no cat furnaces I am aware of, and if they are out there, they can't legally sell them anyway if they are not Phase 2 certified. As of right now there are only three Phase 2 certified furnaces available. One is a complete POS and the other was just released this year. The VF100 has been around for decades. They were burning clean well before it became cool to do so.
brenndatomu has a kuuma. Anything you can do to reduce the amount of wood that their system uses, will be a welcome addition, by subtraction
I already summoned him. LOL I also have one. ................................................................ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
I'd love to have one as well Edit, I don't normally have my phone on portrait mode, so I don't see sigs unless I rotate the phone.
Another alternative I've been thinking about is the possibility of just setting a regular cat stove in its place and somehow "collecting" the heat and dispersing in ductwork. Probably not the best route....
comparing wood consumption of two different heat loads in two different climates is useless. I burn more than brenndatomu does, but I have a higher heat load and live in a colder climate. You can read my review I posted a few years ago here, it covers a bunch of stuff, including wood consumption: ★★★★★ - Kuuma Vapor-Fire 100 Review I'm now burning 6 year old stuff and I seem to be using even less. So far this year I have burned 2.25 cord with 4,432 HDD's. Started burning October 1st.
Meaning that the chimney is not good/right, or that it is always plugged up? How big is the house? Our place is 1200 ft basement, 1200 main floor, and about 650 upstairs...use 4-5 cords per year to keep the house 72*-ish with a Kuuma VF100 furnace.
Chimney is good. It is only a few years old. All double wall Duravent. It plugs in the single wall right off the firebox. I believe it is due to lack of proper flue temp. Thing is, if you really "run" the firechief, it will burn an incredible amount of wood - literally as much as you would in an open fireplace. So they burn it low which provides plenty of heat but does not get the flue hot enough. House is a 2600ftsq well insulated ranch log cabin.
The Kuuma VF100 is at least as efficient as a catalytic wood stove, but likely more efficient than most. I think it would be perfect, and you have just the right folks to help you out commenting above! brenndatomu has helped me so much I couldn’t possibly repay that debt.
VF100 would heat that easily...and cut that wood consumption in half. Vapor Fire 100 - High Efficiency Wood Gasification Furnace - Kuuma Mr Lamppa (Kuuma inventor) heats his own home with an early VF100 that is 30+ years old...says he has never cleaned his chimney...inspect annually only
