Having never heard of something so imposing and impressive, a few readers asked me about our outdoor wood furnace and because I can’t think of anything better to write about today, here goes:
The outdoor wood furnace is a giant thing-y that heats the house by some such.
No, seriously, it resembles a deluxe outhouse with a chimney and because OWF’s require a steady supply of wood, they’re typically found in the backyards of country people, i.e., in the vicinity of turkey fryers on porches or near municipalities featuring restaurants like Shoneys, Cracker Barrel and Country Cookin.’
How it works: You build a fire in the giant wood stove, and shut the door. A fan kicks on which stokes the flames to heat water to a pre-set temperature (I prefer a toasty temperature so I can dress like it’s August). The water circulates through radiators in the house, providing blissful, welcome, precious warmth via steam. Once the water hits the desired temperature, the fan shuts off, stifling the flames. When the temperature dips, the fan starts up again and the fire roars, and on and on it goes until April.
The best thing about an OWF is that you can heat the house as hot as you want — 75, 80, 90 degrees — and it doesn’t cost anything beyond what you pay for wood. But since Jake routinely clears property for construction jobs, we always have free wood.
But what we save in monthly heating bills, we more than make up for in sweat equity. The trees must be hauled home then unloaded where they dry out for six months or more. Once dry, Jake and I spend a weekend processing the wood — it’s first cut into segments with a chain saw, then split with a gas-powered log splitter. The wood is then loaded into a dump trailer, hauled over to the wood shed, unloaded, then stacked in tall Jenga-esque structures. By this point, it’s Sunday evening and I’ve lost all feeling in my arms.
The fire must also be consistently fed. The fan apparatus ensures a slow, steady burn, but we still have to load the furnace with wood every morning and evening. Vacationing in the winter can be an issue because if someone is not there to feed the fire, you come home to an ice box. This is why it’s necessary to have an alternate heat source to ensure your pipes don’t freeze while you’re away (we have a propane stove in the kitchen), or be lucky enough to live across the road from an incredible family who feed the fire for you.
It’s also not cheap. Our outdoor wood furnace cost $20,000, so it will be a few more years before we can legitimately say “it’s free” (in dollar terms) to heat our home. But we did save a bundle in installation costs since Jake did it all himself.
What else? Oh yeah, just because you own one doesn’t mean you’re turning into a redneck (that’s what I repeat to myself in the mirror, anyway)…. even though your hair permanently reeks of wood smoke.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I love our OWB so much. We were able to put ours in for about $12k, and for what we were paying for propane, it will have paid for itself by Christmas this year. My husband also gets wood from work, so it’s been a perfect solution for us.
Ours is much less “Satan’s outhouse” than yours, though. No fiery italicized logo on ours. Ours is, dare I say, kind of cute, with its green siding and little work light mounted on the corner.
I’m sure this is a dumb question, but how is the heat traveling to the radiators in your house?
Not a dumb question. I’ll give you the answer as I understand it. The water runs through underground pipes that connect to those affixed to the ceiling of our basement-slash-crawl space. THese in turn are hooked into radiators that are located in every room of the house. Don’t ask me how Jake did all this. He’s amazing like that.
You are right Jessie, if you have radiators. In our case, the house already had forced-air (propane) heat. My husband installed a hear exchanger on top of our furnace, on top of the fan. The hot water from the OWB circulates through the coils of the heat exchanger, and the fan blows over them, distributing the heat into the ducts and into the house.
Wow, so the water is in a reservoir close to the OWB? And, man that just sounds like a nightmare of ground shifting (I’m in Texas remember) and busted pipes. Weirdly, I’m fascinated by this
The water surrounds the firebox of the OWB, and is constantly pumped back and forth from the OWB to the house. The underground pipe is actually two pipes surrounded by insulation (called PEX) – one headed toward the house with hot water, and one going back to the OWB with the slightly less hot water.
While the subject of your OWB is facinating, I wanted to point out that the Facebook link for your “Follow Me” thingy does not work. Since I do not Tweet, nor use RSS I am a bit anxious that I will close this window and all thoughts of your charming blog will escape my frightfully forgetful mind and I may never wander this way again. =(
And the lines are run below the frost line – usually not enough shifting there to damage the pipes since it doesn’t freeze that far underground.
This is really interesting, I had actually been wondering what the advantage was of an outdoor wood burning furnace over just a plain old wood stove. At first I thought, “You have to go outside to stoke it? How annoying.” But then I remembered what it was like growing up with a wood stove. You have to go outside to get wood every day anyway. And when you come home from vacation your house IS an ice box. But that doesn’t really matter (at least to your parents) if you don’t have indoor plumbing. No pipes = no frozen pipes.
I’m pretty late on this comment (I just discovered your blog tonigh) — bu I’m fascinated by the outdoor wood furnace. We’ve got a monster of a wood furnace, but it’s an old school one in our basement that was hooked up to our duct system. I never knew they made ones that are built outside — I guess your frost line isn’t too deep!
Loved the redneck comment at the end. Our detached garage/workshop is heated by a wood stove. Everytime my husband comes back into the house, it’s just a pungent reminder we’re not in DC anymore.
My husband and I are revving up for a move to North Carolina and we will need to learn a few things about country living. Loved your blog on the outdoor wood furnace as the home we may buy has an old Taylor furnace. While doing some research, I came across the information you posted. Keep it up, it helps us country folk wanna be’s!