Looking for wood furnace suggestions

[Wood1Dennis]

Skibender, I will be interested to see how you do.
We are in a similar situation. We are breaking ground this spring on a 1700 square foot ranch plus an unfinished basement with windows on two walls. It will be very well insulated with 1" foam plus fiberglass in the walls, R50 attic, good windows, etc. I have decided on the Caddy (not the max.). Backup will be LP furnace. I like that the local contractor who is doing the rest of the HVAC is a Caddy dealer so I have one stop shopping for everything. If there are any issues there won't be any questions about who to call.

Dennis

 

[joes169]

Skibender, I will be interested to see how you do.
We are in a similar situation. We are breaking ground this spring on a 1700 square foot ranch plus an unfinished basement with windows on two walls. It will be very well insulated with 1" foam plus fiberglass in the walls, R50 attic, good windows, etc. I have decided on the Caddy (not the max.). Backup will be LP furnace. I like that the local contractor who is doing the rest of the HVAC is a Caddy dealer so I have one stop shopping for everything. If there are any issues there won't be any questions about who to call.

Dennis

It doesn't get much better than that!

I had done a lot of research 2+ years ago when I decided to have my Caddy installed. I'm in the trades, and had a good friend that ran a HVAC business. THere was a lot of head scratching between the two of us to figure out the best, code-compliant way to get the thing installed. All said and done, he & his crew did a great job, but there's nothign like having an HVAC contractor who's done a few of them already.

We bought mine directly from The Fireplace LTD, along with the stainless flue liner. I won't release the actual price, but the discount they gave the HVAC contractor whas extremely generous IMO. Also, they have a reg. Caddy in use in their warehouse if you want to see one in action (make sure you go in Winter....). I can't mention what the unit cost, but they gave a VERY generous contractor discount to my contractor, who luckily passed it on to me as well.

Best of luck.

 

[Wood1Dennis]

It doesn't get much better than that!

I had done a lot of research 2+ years ago when I decided to have my Caddy installed. I'm in the trades, and had a good friend that ran a HVAC business. THere was a lot of head scratching between the two of us to figure out the best, code-compliant way to get the thing installed. All said and done, he & his crew did a great job, but there's nothign like having an HVAC contractor who's done a few of them already.

We bought mine directly from The Fireplace LTD, along with the stainless flue liner. I won't release the actual price, but the discount they gave the HVAC contractor whas extremely generous IMO. Also, they have a reg. Caddy in use in their warehouse if you want to see one in action (make sure you go in Winter....). I can't mention what the unit cost, but they gave a VERY generous contractor discount to my contractor, who luckily passed it on to me as well.

Best of luck.

Joe,
Yup, I am getting the chimney installed by the same contractor too.
I just googled The Fireplace LTD, on Silver Spring, right? I might stop in there on my next trip to Milwaukee. My local guy gave me a couple of references who spoke very highly of the Caddy furnace.

Dennis

 

[joes169]

Dennis,

Yes, it is just off of SS at 41/45. I wish I could remember the name of the gentleman I usually talk to, as he certainly was more knowledgeable than the others I have talked to there. I do know he worked in the "contrctor/commercial" end of the business though.

After 2+ years of burning, I'm happy with my Caddy. We're at ~2.5 cords of wood so far this year, used 3.5 last year, and our home (~1500 sq. feet) is much more comfortable than it was before. The biggest benefit is that our basement (my office, a bthroom, and kid's play room) is just as warm as the first floor. The Caddy has been relatively easy to operate, and it gets easier to use once you get over the learning curve. If I could just get my wife to understand that the thermostat has to be calling for heat before she loads wood, it would be almost flawless.

Joe.

 

[JRHAWK9]

We too have a Caddy dealer within 15 minutes of us. Back when I was looking at wood furnaces I had them come out and take a look at what we have. I wanted him to give me an estimate on installing a new 40' chimney up through the inside of the house and complete installation of whatever furnace I decided on, including ductwork. They sent me an estimate for a Caddy (I inquired about a Max Caddy but they said it would be WAY too big for the house. Little did they know the heat load of this place...lol Never asked about what we used in the past for LP or anything, just assumed based on the size.

Long story short, I decided on the Kuuma and they would not return my calls about whether or not they would install the Kuuma. They also insisted because we had 12" O.C. TGI trusses there was not a support box made that would fit in between the trusses without having to "box out" them in order to get their 14"x14" support box in with whatever clearance they said they needed. I thought they needed almost 20" or something crazy. I ended up finding a certified place about 1.5 hours from me who sells/installs Excel/ICC chimney and their support box was 12"x12" and did not require any additional clearances so after some very minimal massaging of the trusses the support box fit just fine. Excel also makes a metal roof specific flashing which actually looks good, so they didn't have to bastardize normal flashing.

I ended up spending -less- than what the local dealer's estimate was using the Caddy and I got an easier to operate/cleaner burning furnace, better/safer chimney (it's Canadian spec) and seeing I did the actual install of the furnace I have it wired and have the ducts dampered better than if they would have done it. I had a local HVAC guy do the plenum and connection to main supply line for cash.

I understand there are some of you on here that would have done the whole install themselves, unfortunately, I'm not that handy when it comes to houses and there was NO way I was going to try getting up on a 12-12 pitch metal roof!

 

[STIHLY DAN]

You 3 be neighbors. Wood furnace GTG in conson. 12 12 metal, pfft, Id walk that all day long, even in winter.

If it was on the ground.

 

[mwk1000]

Boilers can heat you home through your central duct work with a water to air heat exchanger. This is what I use. Love my boiler, it also heats my domestic hot water. Like the guy said above. "Get a boiler then you will have something."

I agree, I have been running 6 years this way very happily, I have a propane furnace inserted heat a exchanger and an extra relay to drive the blower from a separate thermostat. Now the boiler runs 99% of the time but I have a perfectly functional propane furnace set to 60 degrees if we want to take a vacation or get lazy. I have water storage and lite a fire once / day. Also with a High efficiency furnace setup your water will produce usable heat down to 100 degrees ( 110 in below zero weather ).

 

[SteveGH]

Hello all,
I'm putting together the final design plans on a home my wife and I will be building this year. I've been reading this forum for awhile now and I'm looking for suggestions on which wood furnace I should consider.

Skibender, I agree with dogwood in that a gasifier is the way to go. Way more efficient, no smoke, burns all that creosote and unused fuel that usually goes up the chimney. I have a Garn 1500 myself that I have been using for 5+ years to heat up our 2,600 sq ft and have been very happy. I have plans to use it to heat my DHW and hot tub.