Looking Into outdoor wood/corn stoves (help!)?

Question

My central heat just bit the dust. I am interested in heating my home with wood or corn. I live in a rural community and both of these would be easy to get. I am wanting to use my existing duct work. I would prefer an outdoor unit. How do these work? Do they kick on and off with a thermostat? How hard are they to install? What are some of the best brands. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Replacing your heat pump is cheaper than installing a wood stove. Yes, you can use a thermostat with the wood stove. It would just control the blower motor. You may be able to use your existing duct work it just depends on what you've got. The wood would be cheaper to heat but remember if you let the fire die down then you have no heat.....you will need to feed the stove day and night....personally I would rather pay the power company and get a good night's rest.

Answer 2

We put an Empyre II in two years ago, its an outside wood boiler, and we burn a loggers cord every winter, which for the past two yrs has cost us $300.00, this yr it went up to $350.00, but we heat a 4 bedroom 2 bath , 2 floor home that is 2000 sq ft, it is thermostatically controlled, and when it drops below a certain temp, which it rarely does, our furnace takes over. Wood heat is a warmer heat, and very economical. They are pricey, we paid $8000.00 for the stove and installation, but with the rising cost of heat, its already paid for itself. I say that cause people are filling their propane tanks every 3-4 weeks during the coldest part of winter, at a cost of $1200-$1500 per tank. So wood boiler is definately the way to go, if you can install yourself, you can probally get away with even a smaller version, we bought the larger model, because we plan on hooking the detached 3 car garage into it eventually, plus it cost us just a bit more than $2000 to have it installed.

Answer 3

Outdoor stoves, (wood, corn, whatever) are very tough to install and most all of them actually heat water that's pumped into your house via a couple of hoses, one in one out. The hoses usually need to be buried and run thru the basement walls to hook up to existiing piping inside. They work best for homes that already have hot water radiant heat installed. If you have the room for a small stove in a corner of some room, you install a brick veneer on the wall to disapate the heat, have a contractor install a flue pipe, either thru the wall or the ceiling, roof, wherever it needs to go and heat most if not all of the house with that. I have relatives that use corn in their burner and it works great. The heat is clean, no wood smoke smell, has a hopper with an auger that feeds the corn into the heat chamber, and a blower on it to circulate the warm air.

Answer 4

too many questions for this venue. Just look for outdoor stoves on line. Personally I would buy one that is dual fuel. Most people who have wood pellet stoves have discovered the pellets can be very hard to find.

Answer 5

Outdoor wood furnaces are a very simple answer. They can be hooked up to almost any heating system.

Answer 6

if you have a basement ecspecially a walkout
better to have a corn furnace all equiptment even with a hopper somewhere around 3,500