# All you outdoor wood stove people get in here



## Waldershrek (Nov 23, 2009)

So I just bought my first house and it has an outdoor wood boiler that does the heat for the house and garage as well as the residential hot water. I also have an electric water heater for the summer months so I don't have to burn wood all year. I'm not sure the make or model of it yet, I will update you when I get it. 

Now my main priority is going to be figuring out how much wood I'm gonna need to get through this next fall and winter. Obviously it depends on how hot you like your house I guess. I read on another forum where a guy that burns year round goes through 10 cords a year so I figure 4-5 cords should do it for me but I'd rather have too much than not enough.

I do not currently have access to a wood lot so I will have to buy my wood. Luckily a couple guys I work with have wood lots and are in the part time business of cutting wood. The going rate around here is $200-$250 a full cord but they said they would give me a good deal. 

So....educate me on the do's and do nots of outdoor boiler ownership as well as burning wood in general.


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## Country Boy (Mar 18, 2010)

My neighbor has a burner, and he recently upgraded the lines that run from the boiler to the house with newer, heavier insulated lines. He now burns about half the wood he used to in a year and the snow doesn't melt over the lines anymore in winter. Something to investigate, I guess. I don't know how much wood he burns in a year, but he has a pretty good pile there in fall. My cousin burns a huge amount of wood in his burner (he cuts a baler wagon load of wood every week), but he is heating his house, his milking parlor and milkhouse, the shop, and his farrowing house all winter, including the hot water for each.


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## Waldershrek (Nov 23, 2009)

Country Boy said:


> My cousin burns a huge amount of wood in his burner (he cuts a baler wagon load of wood every week), but he is heating his house, his milking parlor and milkhouse, the shop, and his farrowing house all winter, including the hot water for each.


Man that's alot of wood!


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## dieselman (Nov 23, 2010)

depending on how well you are insulated plan on 2 cords per month of heating, also depends on the quality of the wood, greener wood burns hotter but may be hard to keep going in warm weather. i have an outside boiler system and heat my 1100 square foot home with 7 to8 cords of greener wood or 8 to 10 cords of drier wood, however i live in a colder climate than you. hope this helps.............dieselman.


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## Waldershrek (Nov 23, 2009)

Hell if we have winters like this one again I won't burn hardly any!


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## Country Boy (Mar 18, 2010)

Waldershrek said:


> Man that's alot of wood!


The stove is about 10x12' and stands about 8-10' tall. Its a monster. He just dumps the logs in with his skid steer and pallet forks.


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## Waldershrek (Nov 23, 2009)

Wow. I didn't even know they made them that big


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## farmertim (Dec 1, 2010)

Hey Guys educate me, I know wood by Cubic Metres (yards) not cords can you help me out how many cubic yards to a cord?

the amount of wood I burn depends on the type of wood.

Cheers


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## Larry in OK (Jul 22, 2010)

A cord of wood is 4X4x8 foot or 128 cubic foot. 
Go check out Hearth.com they have a section devoted to wood boilers. 

As to burning green wood giving you a hotter fire, I respectfully disagree. The physics of combustion disagree with that theory. For wood to burn it has to be below a specific % moisture content. When you burn green wood a significant amount of your heat is wasted drying the green wood.


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## farmertim (Dec 1, 2010)

Larry in OK said:


> A cord of wood is 4X4x8 foot or 128 cubic foot.
> Go check out Hearth.com they have a section devoted to wood boilers.
> 
> As to burning green wood giving you a hotter fire, I respectfully disagree. The physics of combustion disagree with that theory. For wood to burn it has to be below a specific % moisture content. When you burn green wood a significant amount of your heat is wasted drying the green wood.


No Larry, it was more species rather than season or not.
If I burn pine it spots everything up and burns real quick, if I burn red gum it burns slowly but clean, many of the eucalypt species are really good burning, the best I have found so far is our mountain ash (eucalypt). We have next to no deciduous trees for firewood in this country.


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## farmertim (Dec 1, 2010)

So Larry a cord is about 3.6 cubic metres and $75-$85 per cubic meter, interesting.
Thanks for the square footage conversion.
Cheers


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## Waldershrek (Nov 23, 2009)

How's that compare with down under?


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## Larry in OK (Jul 22, 2010)

farmertim said:


> No Larry, it was more species rather than season or not.
> If I burn pine it spots everything up and burns real quick, if I burn red gum it burns slowly but clean, many of the eucalypt species are really good burning, the best I have found so far is our mountain ash (eucalypt). We have next to no deciduous trees for firewood in this country.


I'll concede the difference in hardwood and softwood burn characteristics but either way moisture content will play a role. No matter the species heat will be wasted to dry unseasoned wood.


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## Waldershrek (Nov 23, 2009)

So I got the info from the sellers today...the stove is a Taylor outdoor boiler. They are sending me an owners manual to look over and familiarize myself with the stove and the system. According to the previous owners they burn 12 full cords of wood a year burning from the end of November to Easter (give or take a few weeks on both ends). 

Does that seem high? It did to me at first but I guess if you consider it heats the house, the garage and the hot water I guess that's not too bad. I was planning on getting 10 cords this year and thought that would be enough.....guess I'll be upping that.

Going rate for wood around here is $60 a face cord and there's about 4 face cords in a full cord so I figure it's gonna cost me about $2800. That's really alot higher than I though wood would be. Now I'm looking at buying a truckload of logs and am awaiting a few quotes back from some local loggers and I'm watching craigslist daily. Couple guys at work burn wood too so maybe we can split a few loads of a logs and cut and split it ourselves and save some money.


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## Ed Hill (Jul 22, 2009)

*wood burning*

I am located in the northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I burn about 10 cords of wood a year to heat a 2,000 square foot house and provide hot water. I begin burning when the weather turns cold, sometime in October-November, and keep going until I run out of wood. This year, it looks like mid-May. I do have an efficeint propane back up system for hot water in summer and heat any time the fire goes out. I buy a truck load of logs and cut and split them. My furnace is an outside, politically correct unit that burns backwards and can be finicky. The drier and more uniform the wood the better.
The core of the house is passive solar, so on a sunny day, demands very little heat. The house was built in 1990, and is well insulated. For a traditional farm house, you might figure twice as much wood.
I have to laugh about burning pine. I was a forester for many years, and people in New England can go on and on about "you should only burn the driest oak you can get" and so forth. I always said people burn what they have. One year, I burned mostly hemlock blocks I got by cleaning up log landings. They burned faster than hardwood, but heated OK.


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## Waldershrek (Nov 23, 2009)

Yeah this house is a 1500 square foot A frame/ chalet style on piers. It does have all replacement windows but I'm unsure on the amount of insulation. After further discussion the sellers apparently kept the heat on 75 all winter which is too hot for me. I usually keep it around 68-70 if I'm home and turn it down to 60 if I'm gone so that should cut down on the amount I use a little I think. One thing I'm not wild about is the boiler is constantly circulating water so it's not the most efficient but oh well. I guess I'll have to use it.

Anybody heard of/used/dealt with these Taylor stoves?


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## farmertim (Dec 1, 2010)

Waldershrek said:


> How's that compare with down under?


same price but the timber that is sold at that rate is hard, long burning yellow box or redgum, (as my californian BIL says "that is some gnarly wood") very hard to split with an axe.
Cheers


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## Waldershrek (Nov 23, 2009)

farmertim said:


> same price but the timber that is sold at that rate is hard, long burning yellow box or redgum, (as my californian BIL says "that is some gnarly wood") very hard to split with an axe.
> Cheers


What is this axe thing you speak of? :lmao:


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## farmertim (Dec 1, 2010)

Waldershrek said:


> What is this axe thing you speak of? :lmao:


You're not still using your bare Hands are you?:lmao::lmao::dazed:


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## Leon Renaud (Mar 23, 2010)

Contact your local Agricultural Agency from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.I don't know your local term for it we just call it the "Extension Center" It's part of our Local Agricultural College the University of Ct. here. Find out where your local center is and pay it a visit you will be amazed at the free information available through them on tons and tons of Agricultural issues like burning wood just about anything you have an interest in they have information on and it's all free! they even offer a lot of classes on different things They usually are the source of your local 4H program ,You can get a lot of this info over this interweb thing too  As for me I'm lucky I can find this site!


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## Cublover (Feb 20, 2011)

My brother has a 'Royal' that he installed 3 years ago. It heats the house and one big radiator in the garage (Garage and house are each 38X54) House is a split foyer and he heats it all.
He's in the mountains of W.Va. He goes through 10-12 cords and 3 tons of coal.
He mixes greener wood with seasoned and has to fire it 2 times per day. He keeps the house at 78 degrees and the garage warm enough to keep things from freezing.


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## Raider12 (Mar 29, 2013)

*Outdoor wood boiler..............*

I am about to pull the trigger on buying a Hawken Energy brand boiler. From my research it has the BEST warranty out there 20 years and not pro-rated. Anybody have any thoughts? If this works, I've uploaded a brochure on the units.


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