# Which wood furnace you bought or you would like to get and why?



## squish (Sep 10, 2010)

I am just going to throw this out here and see what happens . I just want to know which wood furnace people bought and why? "example", size,efficiency,feature's like oil burner,electric element, or draft feature auto ,manual,forced? fire box size? construction of unit? loading door size?well you get the point. Or witch unit you would like to have?


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## laynes69 (Sep 10, 2010)

Well I have a 1950 Hotblast wood furnace, which is a Caddy. There were alot of reasons I wanted this furnace. The first one and most important to me was it is EPA Certified. Some manufacturers will tell you its just a sales hype, but putting out 90% less emissions and getting more heat from the wood was important. The construction was important, and it had the same 7 gauge firebox as other furnaces out there. This furnace has a stainless steel ceramic blanket baffle which will not break if something hits it as I have a few times on accident. It has a large multi-speed blower which is important and we have a moist basement so the cabinet is zinc coated painted steel to resist rusting. The old furnace had a forced draft, which I wouldn't use because it ate wood much faster and didn't give me more heat. The new furnace has a auto draft controlled by a thermostat, but uses a natural draft so when there is a good call for heat I still have coals in the morning. It uses less wood. I have my woodfurnace tied into the ducting besides the central furnace so I don't need the optional elements, but if I ever decided I could add electric to my furnace or an oil burner to make it a multi-fuel unit. It had the glass door which is nice because I can see what the fire is doing instead guessing or opening and closing the door to check the fire. On the construction I liked the fact the furnace had a true secondary system where the rails and burn tubes are constructed of stainless steel to withstand the high temperatures of combustion. There is a large secondary heat exchanger above the firebox, which takes me about 30 seconds to run the cleaning tool through and clean out because of a door on the front of the unit. Firebox size scared me but its no problem. I don't have to worry about busted grates because our furnace has a firebrick floor which holds a fire longer. All these points I ran through my head before getting what I got last year. It was the best choice I made. I looked at a ton of furnaces, but like I said the main reason was it was EPA Certified, and I always read about how much cleaner and better the units burned. It turned out they were correct and I was sold. Hope this helps, I happy with what I have.


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## btuser (Sep 11, 2010)

A witch wood furnace?  Now that's old school, but I have to say the btu content of witches has been greatly exaggerated.

What do you burn apart from witches?  MORE WITCHES


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## stee6043 (Sep 11, 2010)

My home owners association frowns upon burning witches.

I bought my EKO 40 because it's an excellent wood burner all around.  If I had an outbuilding I would have bought a Garn...


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## jason elmer (Sep 11, 2010)

I heard witch hazel burns quite well and is the fuel of choice for a witch wood burner.  Sorry couldn't help myself.

I believe Tarm, Biomass, Econoburn, , and EKO are all good boilers.  Garn and Froling are also good options.  I own a Biomass 60 but have yet to install it.  Hope to have it in this fall.


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## Singed Eyebrows (Sep 11, 2010)

The EPA frowns on burning of witches. The rules say no matter which witch furnace you buy you can only burn 2 witches a day, which is overregulation in my opinion, Randy


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## mark123 (Sep 11, 2010)

I went with a woodgun E-180 with all the bells and whistles. I did a lot of research and for me it seemed like the best choice. I will be hooking it up in the near future so I cannot tell you how it is working but I did talk to several other owners and all liked theirs. I was limited for space so I needed a gasifier with built in oil burner for back-up. Some of the people I talked to said you can fill it and get up to 10 hours of burn time. I am not interested in building new fires daily which is what alot of the other gasifiers need. I plan on lighting this and keep adding wood all winter. When there is no demand and the boiler is up to temp. it will shut down and then a timer will allow it to self re-light every few hours for a few minutes just to keep the coals alive.


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## Singed Eyebrows (Sep 11, 2010)

mark123 said:
			
		

> I went with a woodgun E-180 with all the bells and whistles. I did a lot of research and for me it seemed like the best choice. I will be hooking it up in the near future so I cannot tell you how it is working but I did talk to several other owners and all liked theirs. I was limited for space so I needed a gasifier with built in oil burner for back-up. Some of the people I talked to said you can fill it and get up to 10 hours of burn time. I am not interested in building new fires daily which is what alot of the other gasifiers need. I plan on lighting this and keep adding wood all winter. When there is no demand and the boiler is up to temp. it will shut down and then a timer will allow it to self re-light every few hours for a few minutes just to keep the coals alive.


 These are nice boilers & should do what you want without problems. I would keep checking the chimney for creosote at first though. I looked at a WG that the owner was burning well seasoned wood in,1 maybe 2 days, without any problems. Good luck, Randy


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## freeburn (Sep 12, 2010)

Went through the same thing a little over a year ago. If you have the coin, spring for the CAddy. If not, well, I went with the Englander 28-3500 because of the window and it's got the firebrick floor, and 575lbs - seems solid enough for the $$$. The window alone is worth it to not have to guess what's going on the the firebox. It heats well.

But then again, I heat with wood to save money, get exercise and be warmer without the bill and you can buy 2.5 Englanders to one Caddy. That was my deal breaker.


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## JustWood (Sep 12, 2010)

Had a Englander 28-3500 for 6 years. Loved the fact that it took LONG wood. But hated that it burned so much and was hard to control and inconsistent heat.For the money its a decent stove but I burned it out in 6 years.Burned 8-11 cord a year. Too much in my eye.
Have had a Wood Chuck for 7-8 and love the consumption, 5-6 cord a year and VERY consistent heat along with very long burn times. Wood have gone with the Super Jack or Hot Blast if I had known about this site before purchase.Love the Wood Chuck but I think there are cleaner burning units to be had.


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## freeburn (Sep 12, 2010)

painstakingLEE said:
			
		

> Had a Englander 28-3500 for 6 years. Loved the fact that it took LONG wood. But hated that it burned so much and was hard to control and inconsistent heat.For the money its a decent stove but I burned it out in 6 years.Burned 8-11 cord a year. Too much in my eye.
> Have had a Wood Chuck for 7-8 and love the consumption, 5-6 cord a year and VERY consistent heat along with very long burn times. Wood have gone with the Super Jack or Hot Blast if I had known about this site before purchase.Love the Wood Chuck but I think there are cleaner burning units to be had.



Which woodchuck do you have? 526 or one of the bigger ones?

By Hotblast do you mean the 1950 (PSG Caddy)?


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## JustWood (Sep 13, 2010)

freeburn said:
			
		

> painstakingLEE said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



526.


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## squish (Sep 13, 2010)

pretty good info here , I wish i would have known about this site before i bought mine too a couple year's ago, Has any one fired up one of those 385 energy king's yet? wondering about the feedback from it.


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## laynes69 (Sep 13, 2010)

I am curious about the 385 EK also. Some things about the furnace make me wonder, but overall i'm sure it burns cleaner than alot of furnaces on the market. Seems like cleaning the secondary heat tubes would be a pain. Also I'm not sure there is enough secondary air for the size of firebox, but I haven't seen one in person. They look like they are pretty stout, but alot of the weight comes from firebrick.


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## freeburn (Sep 13, 2010)

squish said:
			
		

> pretty good info here , I wish i would have known about this site before i bought mine too a couple year's ago, Has any one fired up one of those 385 energy king's yet? wondering about the feedback from it.



What do you have right now? You may have mentioned it in another post.


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## 70marlin (Sep 13, 2010)

Harman SF 1500 good price and what my stove store sold. I hope it works out?


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## squish (Sep 14, 2010)

I have a energy king 480 as of right now, and I really need to get a smaller unit, kind of learned my lesson ,used to think bigger is better,might of worked out if i added on to my house as planned but decided not to,and is pretty tough to keep smaller fire's for what i need heat wise.I learned no matter what ,you cant load 3 or 4 smaller logs in a  firebox that big and keep flue temp's decent . Hopefully i make sense here. I have a lot of creosote problem's trying to keep it dialed down.Hopefully I will take care of that by going with the caddy",which is a smaller furnace" that most likely, be purchasing in the next couple week's in less someone here changes my mind.


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## freeburn (Sep 14, 2010)

squish - Did you find a place to buy the CAddy? If so, where and did you get a price? I'm in the LaX, WI area. Just curious on difference in price in the middle of the state.


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## squish (Sep 14, 2010)

Yeah there are a few places to get them down here,"top hat" is right in Madison and priced pretty decent plus they have a sale on everything I believe right now till the 25 of this month ,and they also have a store in baraboo .It's a pretty cool place to check out plus they carry all my fav's lopi,jotul,psg,.another place is called "the fire place" and that is in Milwaukee.I believe price's where anywhere from 2500 to 3500 depending on what you want.


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## 70marlin (Sep 14, 2010)

squish said:
			
		

> I have a energy king 480 as of right now, and I really need to get a smaller unit, kind of learned my lesson ,used to think bigger is better,might of worked out if i added on to my house as planned but decided not to,and is pretty tough to keep smaller fire's for what i need heat wise.I learned no matter what ,you cant load 3 or 4 smaller logs in a  firebox that big and keep flue temp's decent . Hopefully i make sense here. I have a lot of creosote problem's trying to keep it dialed down.Hopefully I will take care of that by going with the caddy",which is a smaller furnace" that most likely, be purchasing in the next couple week's in less someone here changes my mind.



 Your Energy king 480 looks a lot like my Harman SF-A 1500 except my unit will only take a 16" log also my Auto draft control is set up a little different.


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## squish (Sep 18, 2010)

Free burn ,did some more price checking ,I am going to purchase the caddy through sunburst sales ,talk to greg ,they are located in ripon WI.they also have a website just google sunburst sales,he was by far the cheapest around 2848.oo after all said and done for the model with the blower  model pfo1000 wood and electric opition,I called all over for prices and I would say I saved myself about 400 to 700 by going through him.IF your looking for one he's the guy to call hope this help's.


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## 70marlin (Sep 20, 2010)

squish, I just had my first burn on the Harman SF-A 1500. It really wasn't cool enough for the unit, but after the effort that it took to get it ready. I just had to fire her up! Everything worked as it should of. I had lots of heat, sunny and 85 in every room in the house.  By the way what you’re paying for the one you’re looking at is about what I gave for mine, that’s a good price!


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## squish (Sep 20, 2010)

Same here I fired up mine yeserday also,I am kind of undecided on the the furnace now and the reason I say this is i bought a draft rite gauge for cheap on ebay and got to use it for the first time . I used to not use a barometric damper on my furnace and also used a cast damper,so anyways fired it up and got a decent fire going and inserted the gauge and found out it was at .08 to .10 !then dialed in the baro and got it set at .06 and it seemed to to moving back and forth quite a bit, so im just wondering now if i was to stay with this now would i save a lot more wood ? and if i do, would it still be worth to get the caddy?or would the baro add a lot more cresote?


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## laynes69 (Sep 20, 2010)

You will save more wood with the baro, but you will probably find yourself cleaning it constantly. If the unit doesn't burn clean the baro can increase deposits a bit because of cooling effect. But having a baro will allow for a more constant heat. Slowing the draft allows for more heat to be extracted from the furnace as well as better combustion. If you are happy with the furnace then I wouldn't change. But upgrading will save wood, burn much cleaner and you will be able to control the heat better in the home. I know your current furnace is oversized. Theres alot to think about.


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## squish (Sep 20, 2010)

Thank's laynes,If there is anything else u can think of please let me know ,I am ready to pull my hair out!I would like to give it a shot this year by running it this way but if i am not happy then the tax credit is gone, a lot of the dealer's I have called have been pointing me to max caddy  and then some are saying either the max or regular caddy< one thing is for sure that I want to make sure that I will have a big enough furnace that will heat in the near future because I do plan on adding on at some point .I will be finishin the base ment and add on a three car garage that i would like to heat here and there also,and plus I would like to get burn times of at least eight hour's or so or at least last the time of my work day and i would like to heat my hot water with it also and i dont think the caddy has that opition but the max doe's but then is the max going to fall into the oversized category?


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## 70marlin (Sep 20, 2010)

squish said:
			
		

> Thank's laynes,If there is anything else u can think of please let me know ,I am ready to pull my hair out!I would like to give it a shot this year by running it this way but if i am not happy then the tax credit is gone, a lot of the dealer's I have called have been pointing me to max caddy  and then some are saying either the max or regular caddy< one thing is for sure that I want to make sure that I will have a big enough furnace that will heat in the near future because I do plan on adding on at some point .I will be finishin the base ment and add on a three car garage that i would like to heat here and there also,and plus I would like to get burn times of at least eight hour's or so or at least last the time of my work day and i would like to heat my hot water with it also and i dont think the caddy has that opition but the max doe's but then is the max going to fall into the oversized category?



I'm not sure what my burn time is. But first time with only a 3/4 load of wood in to the fire box it burn't for almost 6 hours though it wasn,t very cold out 40's. my harman came with a heating loop for the water heater or what ever you wanted to use it for. *" little devil say's heat a hot tub with it!"*


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## freeburn (Sep 20, 2010)

Squish - just a thought. If you are going to add on and your current furnace is too big. Aren't you already set with what you have or do you just want the EPA cert furnace and get the credit?


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## laynes69 (Sep 20, 2010)

Yeah if you got the Max Caddy, you would still be oversized right now and maybe even after an addition. I don't know what else to say. You can save alot of money by sticking with what you have. If you have concerns about burning too much wood, or creosote, too much heat, etc. then theres alot to think about. How much wood did you burn per winter with the 480? You have alot of legit concerns, which is good because they are things that need to be thought of. How warm do you like your house in the winter?


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## vvvv (Sep 20, 2010)

considered adding firebrix to make the firebox smaller?


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## squish (Sep 20, 2010)

Thank's for the advice everybody.I was really after getting the epa furnace ,to reduce wood consumption,cleaner chimney,and also the tax credit to do this cheaper.I am going to add a three car garage on hopefully within the next two years or so but really would only need it to be 65 degree's or so.I usually keep my home at 69 or 70F with the wood heat.I should really take some more time and think about what i amgoing to be adding on exactly.I called the psg to day and talked them and they thought the caddy would be just fine even if i did add on the garage/workshop.  I asked them about the water coil for the caddy and they said there has been some talk about making one for that unit.I think a few of u guy's said u were heating 2000sq or more with the regular caddy so i think that would be the right unit to buy,most of the dealer's must be thinking about the coin more then anyhting sometime's.Blimp u said adding fire brick to reduce firebox size, any idea's on how to do it?


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## laynes69 (Sep 20, 2010)

I was thinking even if you added on, the Caddy would work. I know some people want their house 80, but we keep ours around 72.  I'm heating a 2400 sq ft home with 10' ceilings thats 150+ years old. If your really thinking about it, I would take advantage of the tax credits.


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## vvvv (Sep 20, 2010)

squish said:
			
		

> Thank's for the advice everybody.I was really after getting the epa furnace ,to reduce wood consumption,cleaner chimney,and also the tax credit to do this cheaper.I am going to add a three car garage on hopefully within the next two years or so but really would only need it to be 65 degree's or so.I usually keep my home at 69 or 70F with the wood heat.I should really take some more time and think about what i amgoing to be adding on exactly.I called the psg to day and talked them and they thought the caddy would be just fine even if i did add on the garage/workshop.  I asked them about the water coil for the caddy and they said there has been some talk about making one for that unit.I think a few of u guy's said u were heating 2000sq or more with the regular caddy so i think that would be the right unit to buy,most of the dealer's must be thinking about the coin more then anyhting sometime's.Blimp u said adding fire brick to reduce firebox size, any idea's on how to do it?


got a pic of the firebox + airflow description? increased mass in firebox would heat & cool slower. main concern would be to not bust the brix when loading the furnace.


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## FyreBug (Oct 20, 2010)

I work for PSG and by the sound of it, I have to agree with everybody the Max Caddy would cook you out of the house. It's a great furnace but it needs the house to go along with it.

On a side note we have done something neat with the Max that we hope to port to the other Caddies eventually. The Max has a 6 speed blower that automatically adjusts according to the plenum temperature. What this means is on high fire the blower will go faster and at the tail end of the fire it will reduce the air flow to a minimum. This means the temperature coming out of your register remain constant, but the velocity of the air changes. It makes the furnace a lot more efficient and on low fire doesn't cool down the fire box too much (thus reducing the chance of creosote formation). 

The computer keeps track and adjust the air damper, plenum temperature and blower speed.


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## trailhound68 (Oct 24, 2010)

I bought and installed the Seton and am very happy with it. Glad I did not get the Greenwood from what I've learned here. 
Large feed door and NO splitting. I've become accustomed to the fact that it smokes when loading and has no ashtray, not a problem.
Installation was easy, she's heavy though. I'm considering some mods to clean the heat exchanger, I don't think it will be too difficult.
I was able to find replacement insulation no problem. Natural draft is to my liking also. 
Overall it's a good fit my situation heating the garage it is in and the house which has baseboard heating. 
Did I mention NO splitting, traded my splitter for a log truck load, almost a year's worth of fuel.
I was looking for an indoor boiler because of close neighbors not to mention regulations.
Love the boiler and the fact that it is easy to maitain, alter and should last a lifetime with maintenance and upkeep.


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## johnsopi (Oct 24, 2010)

I have the Yukon Big jack. This will be the 6th winter we love it. Easy to start and heats the house very well. Plus I uses the fan with my A/C to push the air in the summer


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## woodsmaster (Oct 25, 2010)

I bought a biomass 60 boiler. I got it becouse it was cheper than the tarm, garn, and woodgun and seemed to be quality boiler. I like the peep hole in the gassifacation door. I also like that it will burn corn on the cob,
 50% wood chips, 50% coal and cord wood mix and cord wood. I probably could have gotten by with a 40 but liked the 30" long fire-pot on the 60 and I'm going to have storage so the larger size I believe will make
burnig more convienient with less filling. Oh ya my wood was already cut to long for a 40 and didnt want to re-cut.


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## OldStoneHouse (Nov 2, 2010)

FyreBug:

This sounds really interesting!  Do you think it might be possible to retrofit to existing installs?  I've got a Caddy and that is one of the things I really liked about the Max Caddy.  

We put a Caddy in last year and this year now that we have the fuel situation worked out (read: dry enough) it's working very well.  I'm heating a 2500 square foot, 160 year old stone house and it holds its own quite well.  I don't think we had the space to get the Max Caddy in because the basement ceiling would have been too low.  For us (in Canada), Newmac was the other choice but it has an 8" flue where the Caddy has 6".  Getting the 6" liner in was hard enough!





			
				FyreBug said:
			
		

> I work for PSG and by the sound of it, I have to agree with everybody the Max Caddy would cook you out of the house. It's a great furnace but it needs the house to go along with it.
> 
> On a side note we have done something neat with the Max that we hope to port to the other Caddies eventually. The Max has a 6 speed blower that automatically adjusts according to the plenum temperature. What this means is on high fire the blower will go faster and at the tail end of the fire it will reduce the air flow to a minimum. This means the temperature coming out of your register remain constant, but the velocity of the air changes. It makes the furnace a lot more efficient and on low fire doesn't cool down the fire box too much (thus reducing the chance of creosote formation).
> 
> The computer keeps track and adjust the air damper, plenum temperature and blower speed.


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## ddad (Nov 10, 2010)

I have a Harmon SF 1500 furnace.  Usually use wood and I am happy with it, although I think a boiler or soapstone would mean less work with the system holding the heat longer.


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## Akgasser (Nov 12, 2010)

I have a Seton 130 and wouldn't buy another one. Installation guidance was a joke and it took me a month to figure out how to seal it up properly and keep the overtemp valve from dumping water in my garage every night. The load door and damper door gaskets had to be replaced immediately as the factory ones are worthless if they're even there. Calls to seton were never returned. Go with something else.


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