Wood furnace vs. pellet furnace

[JRHAWK9]

Well from what I read about them do they really work as well as they say? No creosote and long burn times? Also is the VF100 to large for my 2000sq ? And want to know if their furnace will work with my application. I have a furnace room off my garage and it ducts into the house from there my

Short answer, yes, yes and yes. They are not a gimmick.

Having said that, IMO, installing one in a garage is not ideal and may (probably) be frowned upon by your insurance company. You will not see the results you want by keeping the furnace in an un-heated space which is not below that of the heated space.....like in a basement.

 

[brenndatomu]

Well from what I read about them do they really work as well as they say? No creosote and long burn times? Also is the VF100 to large for my 2000sq ? And want to know if their furnace will work with my application. I have a furnace room off my garage and it ducts into the house from there my

Is that 2000 ft ground floor only...no basement?
The 100 certainly would not be too small...the smaller VF 200 may be a better fit once they offer those again.
Need more info about your garage install...not ideal for sure.

 

[brenndatomu]

And yes, no creosote and long burn times are 100% real...

 

[Highbeam]

He said a furnace room off the garage. Might be a great place for a furnace, might be nothing more than a closet in the garage.

 

[woodey]

do they really work as well as they say? No creosote and long burn times?

I can testify that mine works as advertised, probably better than I had hoped for,burn times are awesome and thru 4 years of using it no creosote issues just a little brownish-black ash in the pipe and chimney at end of season. As far as your setup I will leave that to members with more knowledge on the subject.

 

[JRHAWK9]

Here's my chimney after the first year of burning. This was after the burning the whole winter with wood that was 20-25% in MC. It's all flyash.





here's what the inside of the heat exchanger looks like after about a winters worth of burning.




Here's the inside of the firebox looking up at the round collar you see in the photo above:




Here's a thread I made with some data. Keep in mind I have a speed controlled blower based on plenum temps, so my curve will be flatter than those who have the standard blower.

Kuuma Vapor Fire 100: Supply and Stack Temps vs Time over 20 hours

I decided to buy a -GATEWAY- for my Thermoworks Smoke which I use to monitor my supply and stack temps. This sends temps to the cloud every minute or so and allows one to export the data to a CSV file to play with in a spreadsheet. Supply temps are taken in the plenum, but the HVAC probe I...

www.hearth.com

Here's a post I made about getting 21.5 hours of blower runtime off a single FULL load of black locust.

Kuuma Vapor Fire 100: Supply and Stack Temps vs Time over 20 hours

I decided to buy a -GATEWAY- for my Thermoworks Smoke which I use to monitor my supply and stack temps. This sends temps to the cloud every minute or so and allows one to export the data to a CSV file to play with in a spreadsheet. Supply temps are taken in the plenum, but the HVAC probe I...

www.hearth.com

 

[Erichomeowner]

Is that 2000 ft ground floor only...no basement?
The 100 certainly would not be too small...the smaller VF 200 may be a better fit once they offer those again.
Need more info about your garage install...not ideal for sure.

2000sq two story no basement garage is fully insulated and drywalled just like rest of house and the furnace has its own roomin garage on house side. And from there chimney goes straight up

 

[Erichomeowner]

Here's my chimney after the first year of burning. This was after the burning the whole winter with wood that was 20-25% in MC. It's all flyash.

View attachment 259199

View attachment 259200

here's what the inside of the heat exchanger looks like after about a winters worth of burning.

View attachment 259201


Here's the inside of the firebox looking up at the round collar you see in the photo above:

View attachment 259202


Here's a thread I made with some data. Keep in mind I have a speed controlled blower based on plenum temps, so my curve will be flatter than those who have the standard blower.

Kuuma Vapor Fire 100: Supply and Stack Temps vs Time over 20 hours

I decided to buy a -GATEWAY- for my Thermoworks Smoke which I use to monitor my supply and stack temps. This sends temps to the cloud every minute or so and allows one to export the data to a CSV file to play with in a spreadsheet. Supply temps are taken in the plenum, but the HVAC probe I...

www.hearth.com

Here's a post I made about getting 21.5 hours of blower runtime off a single FULL load of black locust.

Kuuma Vapor Fire 100: Supply and Stack Temps vs Time over 20 hours

I decided to buy a -GATEWAY- for my Thermoworks Smoke which I use to monitor my supply and stack temps. This sends temps to the cloud every minute or so and allows one to export the data to a CSV file to play with in a spreadsheet. Supply temps are taken in the plenum, but the HVAC probe I...

www.hearth.com

wow not what mine looked like at all after 7 days even

 

[JRHAWK9]

2000sq two story no basement garage is fully insulated and drywalled just like rest of house and the furnace has its own roomin garage on house side. And from there chimney goes straight up

Aside from the insurance possibly being an issue, that -may- be fine......not ideal, but it may work out as long as you connect the return air ducts. I'd probably leave that furnace room door open, that will heat the garage with just the radiant heat off the wood furnace.

I'd also go with the VF100 in that situation. That's just me though.

 

[Erichomeowner]

Aside from the insurance possibly being an issue, that -may- be fine......not ideal, but it may work out as long as you connect the return air ducts. I'd probably leave that furnace room door open, that will heat the garage with just the radiant heat off the wood furnace.

I'd also go with the VF100 in that situation. That's just me though.

Insurance company has no problemwith this I looked into it when building house. Also when I did have that hotblast installed the return air was hooked up also I did leave the door open and yes it did heat the garage nicely. I also keep the door from house to garage open

 

[Gearhead660]

Well from what I read about them do they really work as well as they say? No creosote and long burn times? Also is the VF100 to large for my 2000sq ? And want to know if their furnace will work with my application. I have a furnace room off my garage and it ducts into the house from there my

Is the rectangle duct up against the wall the return, and the periscope round duct the supply?

 

[Erichomeowner]

Is the rectangle duct up against the wall the return, and the periscope round duct the supply?

Yes it is

 

[JRHAWK9]

Keep in mind though the Kuuma (or any EPA wood furnace) will not have the raw BTU output of the Hotblast. I don't forsee the VF100 (or even the VF200) not heating that new, well insulated of a house, but it's something to keep in mind. The EPA furnaces provide lower levels of more consistent heat over longer timeframes. IOW, they don't blow their load over the first few hours...lol

 

[Gearhead660]

Yes it is

Any way to get the supply to go up and then horizontal? Potential issue with it going down. if it has to go down, would want to add a heat dump to prevent an over heat situation.

 

[Erichomeowner]

Any way to get the supply to go up and then horizontal? Potential issue with it going down. if it has to go down, would want to add a heat dump to prevent an over heat situation.

Not sure I understand your question. Here is another picture of where it connects into propane furnace not really any other place to duct it into

 

[Gearhead660]

Keep in mind though the Kuuma (or any EPA wood furnace) will not have the raw BTU output of the Hotblast. I don't forsee the VF100 (or even the VF200) not heating that new, well insulated of a house, but it's something to keep in mind. The EPA furnaces provide lower levels of more consistent heat over longer timeframes. IOW, they don't blow their load over the first few hours...lol

With your tight house and a correct set up, should have no issues heating no matter which burner you choose. Many good choices of efficient furnaces with users on here to help with their hands on knowledge. Do some investigating on the different choices, and make an informed decision.

 

[Gearhead660]

Not sure I understand your question. Here is another picture of where it connects into propane furnace not really any other place to duct it into

Odd...plenum is under your A coil and furnace? Seems upside down to me. Is that the supply going up next to furnace. Cant tie in there and add a damper?

 

[brenndatomu]

Not sure I understand your question. Here is another picture of where it connects into propane furnace not really any other place to duct it into

Is the LP furnace a downflow?
What ever you put in you'll need more/bigger pipe to hook into the ducts...Kuuma specs 180 sq inches minimum for supply ducts...that would be (2) 12" round ducts...the Drolet furnaces will be about the same.
I agree that an emergency heat dump door would be needed if that is the only way to hook in...going down like that...

 

[Erichomeowner]

Odd...plenum is under your A coil and furnace? Seems upside down to me. Is that the supply going up next to furnace. Cant tie in there and add a damper?

the plenum for the propane furnace is above the propane furnace see picture. And then ducts into crawl space in house. Maybe I’m missing something I’m not a hvac guy this is new to me

 

[JRHAWK9]

With your tight house and a correct set up, should have no issues heating no matter which burner you choose. Many good choices of efficient furnaces with users on here to help with their hands on knowledge. Do some investigating on the different choices, and make an informed decision.

Agree. I just felt it needed to be said after a couple of recent threads on atypical installs which did not work out as the owner expected.

 

[brenndatomu]

Odd...plenum is under your A coil and furnace

It must be a downflow furnace...

 

[Erichomeowner]

It must be a downflow furnace...

am I going to have a problem with running my heat duct downward from the furnace?

 

[JRHAWK9]

Can't you install a Kuuma in series? Use the blower from the LP furnace.

Reason I say this is one of the very first people I called and talked to when doing my research on the VF100 6 years ago was a guy who installed his in series using a downflow furnace with a DC motor. He loved it and recommended I install mine the same way. The supply duct out of the LP becomes the return air of the Kuuma.

 

[brenndatomu]

installed his in series using a downflow furnace with a DC motor.

Ha...and here I thought I had the worlds first speed controlled wood furnace!

 

[Highbeam]

Super long burn time I keep hearing for the kuma which is correct compared to other furnaces but not to woodstoves. Maybe some real world examples? I hear of normal reload times of up to 12 hours. You need to burn fuel to make heat right?

30 hours from my much smaller woodstove or over 40 hours from the now unmanufactured blaze king apex wood furnace are what I would call long burn times but even those are reduced when you have some of those horrible cold snaps and need more heat from the appliance.

The drawback of the kuma is very high price and no window. The folks that own them almost always seem to really like how they run.