Pacific Energy secondary burn question

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There are a few outdoor wood boilers that have secondary combustion nowadays. You wouldn't get the view of the fire, but some nice heat from hot water baseboard. Not sure if there is one small enough to meet your needs though. What you need is a miniature masonry heater, but that would also eat up space. Yea, if you want to heat with wood, you'll have to crack some windows, not such a bad thing all in all.
 
Just for the heck of it was searching for sites that purport to tell you how many BTU's it will take to heat your space based on volume, insulation amount/quality, and temp rise you want to get. I now have estimates ranging from 5000 to over 50,000 How crazy is that?!?
 
5k seems high for the space, 50k is insane
 
Hogwildz said:
5k seems high for the space, 50k is insane
Click to expand...
Really, even 5k? Maybe I should just get some candles. May put them under terra cotta pots like in this youtube

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Few of these and a ceiling fan might be actually be enough?
 
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That "tending the fire every couple of hours " gets old pretty quick . Did you say if this was to be a primary source of heat ? Woodstock makes a very small gas stove that looks very much like a wood stove . I know you want to stay away from fossil fuels but if you are to have a small propane tank for heating hot water it wouldn't take much more to set up a DV small propane wood stove, plus no expense for a chimney . I think they run without power as well............ check them out .....
 
Mainely Saws said:
That "tending the fire every couple of hours " gets old pretty quick . Did you say if this was to be a primary source of heat ? Woodstock makes a very small gas stove that looks very much like a wood stove . I know you want to stay away from fossil fuels but if you are to have a small propane tank for heating hot water it wouldn't take much more to set up a DV small propane wood stove, plus no expense for a chimney . I think they run without power as well............ check them out .....
Click to expand...
So direct vent means no fan or blower to drive air into heater?

By propane wood stove do you mean burns either or that it burns propane and looks like it a wood burner? All new terminology to me
 
Direct vent usually means The exhaust pipe can just plumb horizontally out your walls. It doesn't need any vertical pipe or chimney. It would be just gas or propane, no wood.
 
The suggestion in that article of burning a good compressed wood product instead of wood is an excellent idea for a small stove in a small space. Something like a NIEL or HomeFire Prest-Log will burn at a steady rate for long enough that you will have warmth and a couple hot coals in the morning. These would work well in a Jotul F602CB, or similar small stove by Morso, or in the VC Intrepid II.

Whoa, post #50K.
 
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I can't fathom 50k, how many years that take? You definitely are a well rounded problem solver on here, good job!
 
Thanks. It's been almost ten years now. Time to get a life. ;lol
 
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Just found a "greenhouse" site w/ a calculator that figures building surface area, R-value of insulation, lowest outside temp, and temp you want to maintain inside. It came up w/ a bit over 3,300,000. Yes, that's 3 million! HAH!

Hobbit stove I have looked at. Basically it is iron version of the Gray Stove or the Gray Stove is the steel version.

Found the gas stove referred to above here (broken link removed to http://www.woodstove.com/mini-franklin)

Another thought I just had is that w/ the insulation quality, lack of thermal bridging, etc. I might be that w/ insulated drapes on windows, couple hours of wee wood stove burn in evening would hold temp long enough to make it till morning. So 2 fires/day mostly and just let them burn out. The bigger stove though would allow for fresh air. Fresh air!!!
 
That small, and if tight enough, I bet a light bulb or two could heat the place up.
 
Took more of a look at that Woodstock propane heater and it puts out, on LOWEST setting, almost as much BTU's as the Blaze King claims for its highest setting, 27k and 29k respectively. The BK advert claims that damped to lowest setting it produces 12-13k
 
Just got this email back from one of the earthbag building pioneers and teachers Owen Geiger of
http://www.earthbagbuilding.com
Your two best options as far as I know are:

1. rocket stove heater that's designed to accept vertically fed wood poles (automatic gravity feed). http://www.permies.com/t/10419/a/3097/RMH 70 deg.jpg

2. propane boat heater like you see on tiny house videos http://tinyhouseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/stove.jpg (broken link removed to http://www.dickinsonmarine.com/propane.php)


You might want to have both so you have backup heating. Maybe there's an extreme cold spell or let's say you hurt yourself or get sick and can't feed the stove. You could turn on the gas heater and not have to worry.


Your house R-value will be off the charts using what you described as long as you detail the doors and windows correctly. Most heating dealers can't even comprehend this.


Be sure to read the scoria bag building details used on the Scoria Casita project (it's on our blog). He shows how to stabilize the bags to keep them from shifting.


I'm researching the details now for a blog post. Here's what I've found so far:

Permies.com discussion about gravity feed mass heaters: http://www.permies.com/t/10419/rocket-stoves/Rocket-stove-slide-burning-foot

Best video so far:
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very good stove, just add a chute like the drawing I sent to guide longer logs
Click to expand...
 
Small pellet stove might work but using non-stop electricity all night to power it would be very hard on solar battery bank. There are a couple gravity fed and no blower pellet stove but one is much too big/hot and the other from small company, not approved or certified in anyway, and actually designed for hunting camp and tent use.
 
Woodstock has two different gas stoves . The smaller stove called the Franklin Cottage stove has a rating of 18.000 to 23,000 Btu's . If it runs at about 77% that might fit your area to heat . It has very low maintenance, requires no electricity , takes up a small area & has a nice flame .............
 
(broken link removed to http://www.woodstove.com/cottage-franklin)

They are on the pricey side .................
 
Lopi has the Northfield gas stove rated at 22,000 BTU max input which puts it at about 18,000 max output & can be turned down . Using a thermostat, it would only run when heat was needed , burning a wood stove sounds as though you might be wasting a lot of heat/energy or again, frequent loading of the stove................
 
I'm with begreen in that i was going to suggest a 602 also. Its a great little stove that has a reasonable burn time, burns well when shut down and since you may have power outages, can be used as a cook top. You said your place is or will be well insulated so that i would think that if you loaded it and even if it went out in the wee morning hours you still should be warm. I had one running in a split level we had long ago and when the power went out during an ice storm, it was our sole source of heat and cooking for about 5 days. granted, you have a small space but the option of different flue placements helps with the footprint. I still have the stove and am thinking about hooking it up as a garage heater. another thing, its not that heavy. I can pick it up and move it by myself. check it out if you have a minute...here is the link. (broken link removed to http://jotul.com/us/products/stoves/Jotul-F-602) and here is a link to a used one from e-bay....not recommending dealer, just pointing to relative pricing....(broken link removed to http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/371225938245?rmvSB=true)
good luck
 
Double check those numbers, the Blaze King says it will damp down to around 12K BTU and the boat heater I linked runs from 3.2K to 4.5K which I think much closer to being what I will need. As mentioned in the email from Grieger posted above, and based on my experience visiting folks in earthships, strawberries, etc. no one who has not lived in one can comprehend the amount/effectiveness of the insulation and lack of unintended drafts.
 
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