Thought I had posted this before (another senior moment) so if two show up I apologize in advance.

We are looking for information on the outdoor wood furnaces. (Could not find and old thread on this).

Does anyone have one? Are they efficient? Do they burn wood faster than a conventional wood furnace. Because they are outside, do they burn more wood?

Any information would be helpful. Thank you in advance.

-- Cordelia (ckaylegian@aol.com), November 12, 2001

Answers

We have a Taylor Water stove, this is our second year with it. They do use more wood then an indoor stove but they heat all your hot water and home, very efficient. If you have a source for free or cheap wood they are the way to go.

-- Bruce Burdge (comfreybruce@richmond.com), November 12, 2001.

We have a hardy and it is great the heat is real dry, we can't run out of hot water, and no mess inside it is the only way to go.

-- vickie (vduffys@cs.com), November 12, 2001.

How does it heat your hot water source and can it be installed easily?

Can you give me some names so that I can go to google and check them out?

-- Cordelia (ckaylegian@aol.com), November 12, 2001.

Try: http://www.woodheat.org/technology/outrickperth.htm or http://www.woodheat.org/technology/outdialogue.htm

-- Brush Farmer (brushfarmer@hotmail.com), November 12, 2001.

From what I have seen, those suckers are EXPENSIVE. I could buy a new woodstove every month for 24 to 48 months and still come out cheaper than an outdoor burner. And, hot water can be generated in an indoor stove as well (or even fire place, as I witnessed in a mountain cabin in PA a while back) as an outdoor. Mess or no, I'm for indoor wood all the way! And who can resist a lovley cast iron wood stove lighting the living room, and besides, you can cook on it, too! Also, to make an indoor stove much more efficient, cold air should be piped to the intake, from the outside, instead of using warm indoor heat (which then allows cold air to seek into the house).

-- Kevin in NC (Vantravlrs@aol.com), November 12, 2001.

www.hahsa.com -Take a look.I don't have one but would consider it someday.Dave.???

-- Dave.??? (duckthis1@maqs.net), November 12, 2001.

We found a big wood furnace that's supposed to go in a basement as an add on to the existing heat pump. We put it outside on a cememt pad and Steve built a metal shed with metal studs for it. It is very large and holds allot of wood. We found it for 400. New costs about 1500 or so. It has a thermastat on it that kicks on and off. It uses just a squirrel cage to blow the air.

It blows in hot air in the bedroom window, and the air goes around the house, and then pulls it back out in the backroom sliding glass door. We got those insulated ducts, 25 feet, like arms, and are putting them into aluminum ductwork to protect them. Our house is long, not square, so it works.

We don't use near the amount of wood we did before, and all that dirt and smoke are outside. You can take down the flue and clean it without the fire having to be out. It is so great, I'll never have one inside again. When our other stove was inside, we had to let it go completely out to take down the flue and clean it and we froze for hours before and after.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), November 14, 2001.

I have a Mohoney Outdoor Furnace. Built in Pa. I have used it for 7 years now and have had to replace the water pump 2 times. I only run the furnace in the winter months, even though it heats my house and hot water. The pumps went bad, probably because of lack of use for several months. They froze up. Others that I know, have had no problems with their furnaces. I have lots of land and cut my own wood. The furnace is great if you have free wood. I paid about $2200 for mine in 1994. They are much higher now, I hear about $4000. I might not invest in one now because of the higher price. I have hot water heat in my house and it was an easy system to install and maintain.

-- jb (imjb101@hotmail.com), December 24, 2001.

Wow, this post brought back some memories. About 12 yrs ago we purchased a brand new taylor wood furnace for our old country farm house thinking w ewould get more heat efficiency. Well...... they were fairly new at the time and the dealer we purchased it from had little knowledge, albeit they were a hardware store and did plumbing and electrical work. We got it in the late summer. We lived where it was really cold, in western NYS and so we hoped this would help heat our house better. We also used it for hot water too.

Well.... the furnace was working great, but then we noted we had some troubles near Christmas time, see.... this is where the memories came in. We noted it was not producing a smuch heat and the blower stopped working. Hmmmmm so then on New years day it died on us. It was really cold, about -10 wind chill and about 5' of snow. Of course this happened on a holiday so we had to call them at home. the dealer was really great about coming out to give us a turbo blower, a propane one to heat the house. i recall that in the kitchen and was so leery. They took the furnace apart and discovered that they were responsible for 2 problems with it. they had neglected to pre treat the inside of the furnace as directed by taylor and they also didn't hook the electrical unit up correctly so it shorted out, good thing we didn't get zapped. So they sent the stove to taylor in NC, they were furious that their dealer blundered so badly, we ended up getting another brand new furnace (by the way, we paid 5,000 for this) and the dealer tried to make us pay for re installing the new one, had to take the dealer to court, taylor stood behind us and we won, didn't ahve to pay charges, but oh what a mess! That furnace is still going strong to this day as I see it out there still working 12 yrs later.

Other than that horrible experience I think the outside wood furnaces work great. We also noted that it burned slightly more wood, but then if you are using it as we did for water, etc then it will. Again, that was 12 yrs ago and they were fairly new at the time.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), December 24, 2001.