I'd work on getting the furnace and all the ducts fixed before worrying about a indoor wood stove. I think of my wood stove as a supplement to my furnace. Also, instead of digging up and replacing the water lines, I'd move that thing closer to the house and use a shorter run of insulated pipes.

Great video. Just a thought. When I had a wood stove at my last house, I called some tree service companies and asked if they had extra wood. They were happy to find a place to unload wood. They just came and threw it over my back fence when they needed to get rid of it. It was green and had to sit for a year or two before I burned it, but it was free.

Hey. I just finished researching a new heat system for our home which has duct work. We looked at everything from wood to gas even the new oil system. What we decided on was a new hybrid system that is SUPPER easy and cheap to run. It contains a -25 heat pump and a new propane backup burner. The propane is only for the extremely cold days. We are in NB Canada so we get some cold weather. I might have an idea for your hot water as well but I don't know how it's set up now. Anyway it's just another idea for you to look into. Good luck and great videos.

Options: 1) Feed the outside unit once per day. Fix the outside setup by moving it closer to the house and using much less underground piping with insulation and fixing the ventilation in the attic (do it now rather than this summer. Trust me.) Fixing the ventilation will fix your blower problem (220V) Guess what else is 220? That water heater... 2) Use that indoor heater. (I have one so I have experience with them) Split, Split, Split, and more Splitting. Feed it a log every hour to keep it at optimum operating temperature. Wake up during the night to feed it again so it doesnt let the temp drop in the house. Yes, Indoor wood is all kinds of warm but there is still a fire in your house. Yes, Its a mess with the extra pieces of wood that drop on the way to the holding area. Constant sweeping needed. My mantra... Cliches are cliches for a reason. Grass aint always greener on the other side. I'd switch to an outdoor unit in a heart beat if I could afford it. I know several people that have them and there's not even a hint of smoke smell in their house and their electric is a tiny fraction of what mine is (back to all those 220v lines being used). (yes mine is drafted properly but its inevitable when opening a door to plop more wood in, you get the smell a little bit). It sounds like you have your mind made up, but I'd seriously take an honest look at the pro's and con's. You're going to have some elbow grease either way.

I think the indoor wood system is a good idea. I thought last year you were using a great deal of wood and having to spend a large amount of time and effort to heat the house. however I would not abandon that system as money and time become available you can work at doing the upgrades to that outdoor system and in a few years time have that as a efficient heat source. I am guessing your plan for that place are long term so keep in mind you have time don't think in the short term. Sit down with the family and create a plan of where you want to be in five years 10 year even 20 years and into your retirement years. If you continue planning season to season year to year you will end up with a large list of things I wish I had done differently and never experience the satisfaction of hitting goals.

We are in southern Oregon and I primarily heat with wood although I do have electric backup. I have a wood-burning insert Quadra-Fire and I love it. I will probably use two maybe three chords of wood and it stays nice and toasty in this 3-bedroom 2-bath home. 30 chords wow that's crazy! Merry Christmas!

Woodstove all the way We are on our original woodstove from 1979, have a winter very similar to your's in MI, and use approx. 3 cords of wood per year.

I agree with Bryan i did that very same thing i moved my outdoor fireplace to 70 ft from my house vs 200 ft and pulled my improperly insulated lines out of the ground rapped them in thermal insulation then feed them into a piece of solid non perforated drain tile then i went threw my whole house and sealed up all the leaks in my duct work which i might add help with my central air system and i paid a company to come in with the little robot duct cleaner and vac out my ducts and last year my wood consumption dropped from 30 cords to 15 cords and 5 of those cords where used in my big shop with a standard indoor wood burner with a blower fan my shop is 40ft x 80ft with 16 ft ceilings and i also added two 105 in industrial ceiling fans in my shop and keep my shop at 65 deg all winter which it has never been so warm so to conclude this post i have increased my efficiency by at least 50% and reduced my wood consumption by 50% and i would think if you set up you maple syrup production in the back if your green house you will have heat in there and beable to cook your syrup in doors.....🤔👍🏻😁 good luck on improving your heating efficiency and i say stick with wood burner and watch your local FB and let it go app’s there are tons of people selling split firewood i bought mine last year and only spent $100 pr cord made a deal with a seller for delivered for all hard wood here in Ohio. And $1500 worth of propane would have be gone in 2 months.

What about using the outdoor wood burner and its un-insulated lines to heat the greenhouse from the ground up?

We originally had a wood furnace side by side with our regular furnace in the basement. Back in 97 we installed a Central Boiler CL40 outdoor wood furnace and have been heating with that since. It was a major plus for us to get the mess of the indoor wood furnace out of the house. If you have anyone in your home that has asthma, they will appreciate it. My problem this Winter is that my firebox in the CL40 finally sprung a leak after 23 years. First thought was to fix it but then my wife and I both have decided because we are at that age in retirement that we've had enough with all the work that goes into a wood boiler that we've decided to call it quits and go to a propane furnace for next year. Keep that in mind, you will be getting old someday.

Given the factors, sounds like a smart choice. I have heated our house with an outdoor wood burner (Wood Master 4400) since 2004. For years, I would spend my summer (about 5 weeks of it) gathering wood for the winter. Typically we wood go through 12 - 15 cords of wood. Getting wood is no longer an option, so I have it delivered (cut but not split). Even with the cost of delivered wood of about $120 to $150 a cord, it is significantly cheaper than propane. I am, however, completely tied to the Wood Burner for 5 months of the year, which is a significant use of time. Even from my experiences, I would say you are making the right choice. End of day, you can only gather so much wood! Love your channel!!

I can't believe this thing was installed with uninsulated lines! You're paying to heat dirt. A rough calculation based on a ten litre per minute flow rate and a ten decree centigrade temperature drop in each direction indicates you are loosing as much as 16kw of heat into the soil! That's more than the heat loss of an entire averagely sized and insulated family home. Roughly 4kg to 5kg of wood per hour is being burned just to keep your grass warm. Whoever installed that thing should be thrown in during the next burn.

Just saw your video by accident and am miffed by the amount of wood that you burned. I had a Central Boiler wood burner and heated a 3000 foot log home on just over 7 full cords of wood. That even included domestic hot water all year long. I found that if it would go into the stove it would burn. My wife kept the house at 76 degrees all winter in Vermont and the stove had no trouble heating our home. We did have base board hot water heat and a sidewinder on a hot water tank. Our pipes were insulated under the ground but less that a foot down. Never had a melt line over the pipes. One time in February I loaded a couple of large pieces into the stove with my tractor bucket and we went away for four days and the stove was still burning and the water temp was still 170 which was our set point. We did have a propane backup on the outdoor stove and it could come on if necessary but all the time we had the stove it only come on when we turned it on. The stove regularlly loaded once in the morning and once in the evening no matter how cold it was. I also very seldom split the wood. Most of the wood on our property was beech, maple and birch and they all burned well. Hope this helps someone who is on the fence about a water stove. They do work.. I also had 3 hot water heat zones and the log home was three stories.

I throw 5 logs in my indoor wood stove in the morning and have one of those induction fans that sits on top to push the heat around better (uses no electricity and works amazing ). Gets up around 80 degrees and lasts until evening. I now use propane furnace as back up. I wish I had hooked it up last year when I got it. I love in northern Michigan by the way and used mostly aspen (poplar) and was shocked at how little wood I used. Saved me a ton in propane costs.

In addition to insulating your lines to the house, also consider adding foam board and some sheet metal around the base of your boiler. We did that to our NCB-250 and noticed a considerable difference in heat loss compared to an exposed area under the boiler.

How about spending some on insulating and air sealing the attic and boring the walls to blow in some insulation. I'm betting that's the most bang for buck and will cut your usage at least in half. Then you can save for a new lineset that is insulated and use that outdoor boiler until its dead, Jim.

We used about 6 cords in the wood cook stove 😉👍in northern Missouri

Burn the softer wood in fall and spring, save the high BTU burning for dec, jan & feb

Thanks for the reply. Yes I agree. I sold wood by the face cord for about 12 years. In Michigan we usually sold it my the face cord and called a cord of wood. Of course it wasn't really a cord. But I understand. Ron B Michigan

Just a thought: I used to burn wet western hemlock and in doing so for a 1200 sq ft house fairly well insulated I would burn 12 to 13 cord per year. When I got my wood shed up and amassed enough inventory to cure the wood for a year I burned half that amount. I used a circulating pump to run a coil in the stove down to a storage tank in the basement which kept it warm also. So half your problem is in burning green wood. Moving the source close to the use only makes sense and then insulating. It is just fighting physics to have a source inefficient or not a hundred and fifty feet away. Your wood pile out in the open is going to be a long long time curing as well. Even a couple of sheets of tin roofing over it would have helped. Take care. Doug

I have an indoor wood stove and couldn't wait till I got my outdoor one going. No more mess in house and its lot of mess. Smoke dust bugs wood stacked up. And with my outdoor one it does my house garage hot water and looking this year to tie my pool into it. Invest in good insulated lines to house and that'll make world of difference. Just my thoughts! Good luck

I run a wood master outdoor stove to heat my home, it's 3500sq ft. I burn on average about 12 full cord of wood and I live in northern Wisconsin. Last winter was a colder then average and I probably burned about 15 cord.

I highly recommend a wood burning furnace (Clayton model now made by USStove so hopefully still good). Make sure it has a forced draft blower that turns on by a normal wall mount thermostat. I have a water coil for mine but never hooked it up. Mine is in the basement next to an outside stair which isn't great for carrying wood. Dad used his in three different houses and his last house he put in a shed next door to the house. Of course he had to run duct work to/from which wasn't very pretty. Still the best way to heat a home IMO. I believe Tractorsupply carries these but now come with 2 blowers instead of a single large blower (I think). Message me if you want more info.

I'm in NE Wis and I kept a 20' geodesic dome I built with a 1,300 gallon aquaponics system warm through two of the harshest winters. I no longer have the dome and we live in an apartment where it's a real food desert of dead soil and lush artificial NPK pesticide/herbicide grass! I heated the dome with a DIY RMH which I had to rebuild numerous times the first winter and once the second winter. Each rebuild had to be finished in a day before dark. The coldest temp I recorded was -22 F and the dome that night was a nice 73 F and just a 6 mil between me and freezing! Yes, I had to feed the RMH, but I learned do much by doing so. It was also calming at time I really needed it. I have many ideas for you to try for both your house, greenhouse and the maple syrup boiler. The amount of wood your burned would have been enough approximately 10 -15 years of using a RMH. RMHs are way more efficient than that atmospheric heater you are currently using! LOL 90 percent of the energy goes out the smoke stack. Yes, they are efficiently converting 10 percent of the energy to heat providing everything is insulated. Don't waste your time updating that design. Simply use it for secondary heat. I was touched by your video of starting a church. YT keeps suggesting your videos to me probably because we have so many things in common. Do you have a video on how you were able to purchase a farm? I'd be happy to share information with you. Rj - Beyond Harvest Veganistas a fb group

I vote you fix the leaks in the attic and insulate the duct work.

A new Hardee outsIde and lp furnace in with buried lines in basement floor , antifrerze, installed was about 10k in my new house. Woodshed is 12x18 and cost about 300 for delivered, unsplit hardwood butts from a veneer mill. The shed is over full and wood came piled hi in 18 yd truck.furnace is maybe 20 or 30 feet from house. I absolutely love the setup.

We had a Avalon wood burning stove and it supplemented the heating in a 1150 sq ft home. We still had to run the furnace over night. I think best wood stove would be like LUMNAH ACRES on you tube. Talk to Al and see if that would work. He lives in New Hamphire. We have a new home using a would pellet stove. Love your channel!!!!! LORD BLESS YOU AND THE FAMILY ❤️

We purchased a Quadrafire Explorer III to heat our 2000 sq ft home ... we go through about 5 cords a year ... down side is that it is located on the first floor so we also use electric heat in our basement. Nice thing about the Explorer III is a cast iron cook surface should we lose power in a storm.

I think you would see big improvements just upgrading your insulation (PEX lines) and ductwork runs. My neighbor has one of those things with a proper force air system and he has to open the windows in the winter sometimes cause he can’t turn it down far enough. If you use a indoor wood furnace with an inefficient system, I don’t see how it’s really going to help. And you’re gonna have to buy more propane.

Many people have shared a lot of great ideas. After reading most of them this is my suggestion. 1. Call insurance to find out how much your homeowners will go up. 2. Get 3 estimates on fixing HVAC ducts / maybe upgrade option too if it's older than when addition was put in. 3. Get 3 quotes on the piping from the outside wood burner. After all that make a good educated decision. Maybe you should sell the wood burner to put toward HVAC. Then buy a burner in the future. There was mention of geothermal. Maybe a couple quotes on that too. I believe it would tie into the HVAC system maybe, but if an HVAC upgrade is included and you can get some money in return from the government it might be the better bang for the buck. Just my thoughts. Best of luck!

We have been using a wood stove in our house for the last 40 years now. Our house has electric baseboard heaters, we used them when we first moved in and the electric meter spins like crazy, and our heads when we seen the bill. The only thing is you need to have a way to regulate the heat in the house, we do it by opening windows up stairs when it gets over 80 or 90 deg up there. We have a 2 story and keep our bedroom windows cracked open, the stove is down stairs in my shop, it gets well over 140 deg in the shop, we mostly keep the door open when we are up. I put cast vents in the floors of all the rooms to let the air move through the house. We looked at an out door furnish and went this route. If you put a stove in your basement and do the vents in the floors you will like it. I grew up on a farm in PA. it was 3 story and that's the way it was heated.

Also I might add that you really need to fix the attic duct work first, weather you use propane to heat the house or your outdoor wood burner. That is like throwing money out the window. Tighten up the heat loss in the house first. Everything else will fall into place. Your propane furnace might heat better than you think, once you close off all the heat loss from your duct work. Hope this helps.

Ive been heating with wood for years with an indoor stove. I wouldn't want to do it any other way. I think in your situation I would possibly do a combination of things. I would install an indoor wood stove.. Forced air wood furnace would be best but given your duct work situation that may not be an option. I would also consider moving your outdoor boiler closer to the house and fixing your underground piping best you can. I would also modify the boiler slightly perhaps add more fire brick and a secondary air system to up the efficiency as much as possible. My insurance company does not require any additional insurance costs as long as the flue system was professionally installed by a certified installer. The stove can be installed yourself just not the flue. Ive never had an issue. If you go with a wood furnace you can just use your basement as access to wood (kinda like the old coal shoots) just bring the wood in directly into the basement then you have no mess in the house. Good luck!! Keep living the dream

This was my first winter using using a wood burning stove and I loved it. But that being said, I used it to supplement our gas furnace on cold nights. To me, it would be a significant amount of work to keep an indoor stove fed fulltime to keep our house warm. But burning 30 face chords of wood is crazy. A lot to consider. Wish y'all the best.

I see windshield of -50 F and much worse for months. I converted my woodstove to diesel drip. Best thing I ever did. Keeping a fire with wood or pellets was over my head in work. Best regards.

I have an indoor wood furnace and i would love to change over to an outdoor boiler. Having a wood stove indoors creates more dust as well as bringing the mess inside(bark, dirt, snow, and bugs). I feel that you also have to feed it more frequently, at least ever 4 hours. If i was in your situation i would invest the time and money in fixing your duct work and move the boiler closer to the house(if zoning allows). Ny states they must be 25ft or more from the house i believe. Also that pipe should be at least 4 ft below the surface and heavily insulated. This will also cut down on the amount of wood needed. Also i feel that with a bit more planning you can get what hard wood you need split and stacked before winter. Either way good luck with you decision!

I have my woodstove in my basement. I love it there. Much easier. Though we have milder winters here in VA we do get a number of below zero days. This winter was brutal. It was enough for me to go out to get the wood to bring it in. I just believe it's more efficient for me to be inside. OBTW there are INDOOR woodstoves that do heat your water. An indoor stove is a good investment, will buy you time while you save to replace the outdoor stove. My insurance wasn't more with the indoor but I'm not in Michigan either.

LOPI !! Very wise choice and you’ll be happy! I heated my 3700 sf house with 9 face cords of wood.. I love my lopi freedom.

I have both an outside boiler and an indoor built in wood burner, been doing it that for 14 years now. A big help to me was upgrading my tractor, 16hp Kubota to a 35hp Massey Ferguson. Instead of making three trips back now I make one. Front loader tractor is the way to go with a 3-point hitch on the back.

i agree with alot of the comments ive read. I grew up with wood heat and love it and you can use it to cook with if you get a old kitchen style stove. A good inset fire place is good for just heat and very efficient, both kind of messy but its a life style. I would move the outdoor boiler closer to the house and greenhouse use the old line and insulate it and use it for both and have a inset put in. and it shouldnt be to bad for insurance as long as its certified. and ya fix the furnace up at least so its not leaking lol and then your propane will be more efficient as well. propane is a good backup. power goes out throw a log on the fire, always warm.

Indoor wood systems are great way to heat a house. I use a harman tl 2.6 I love that stove. It runs a secondary burn and i get 8+ hrs of heat. It was also really cold here in New England I burned 4 cords total.

I burn propane and I thought it got expensive, but dang 15 chords is ridiculous. A wood stove in your basement would be a huge change for the better. I built a greenhouse attached to the south side of my house. It heats the house on sunny days in the spring and fall.

A good rocket mass heater is the opposite end of this spectrum. I made one out of two 55 gallon drums with plaster of Paris ,perlite and sand insulation. Wrapped half inch copper pipe around the contained stack. It heats up another 55 gal gravity feed barrel that you have to mix cold water because it almost boils! I feel mine up once at night and a few times during the day. The clay bench (ground clay and Portland cement) holds the heat and keeps it warm long after the fire goes out. While I might not have the square feet this guy has a couple could easily heat a large house plus hot water for 1/20th the wood... I respect all aspects of efficiency living and do respect this type of heat its just too much work and wood. The pain with rocket mass heaters is you have to make smaller log sizes but they do last a while because only the ends are burning while maximizing the heat efficiency.

Look into a top loader harman wood stove. I had one and it was nice to load the wood in the top instead of the front door. We still had the front door with glass. It cost us more but it was worth it in the long run, my wife could even load in the top. Also, I started to use 5 gallon buckets to hall the wood into the house.

I couldn't imagine getting rid of an outside working wood boiler. I'd definitely be looking into redoing the overall engineering aspects to make it more efficient. Also storing your cord wood in a better way to keep it dry is incredibly important. The jumbled up mess tossed next to the shed was part of the problem. Not having to worry about chimney fires is a major plus to an outside wood boiler. KZfaq has a ton of amazing ways to utilize this stove in an off-grid way.

It was the cold winter in a Long time and it is just beginning the sun spots are not the same as it was a couple of years ago. WE are do for cold weather for awhile.

It depends on how much you value your time. I had the cord wood boiler, switched to the pellet/corn/cord boiler, it was the best investment. Pellets and corn are sooooo much cheaper and lighter, for me it was about the time difference. 4 pallets of pellets and 8 bags of corn lasts me all winter, still under a $1000 bucks.

Hey buddy, I just want to say I love your channel and watch all your videos. I learned a lot and it helps me from making mistakes, thank you! I have a Channel of my own, it's sort of like yours mostly me messing around in my backyard doing cool stuff, from melting aluminum, bunch of gardening, and chickens, even gold prospecting. But anyway you're probably really busy taking care of your wonderful family, you got that no matter what. Thanks again have a good one

I say spend the money to get the outdoor unit upgraded/replaced. I use a fireplace insert to heat my house and it works, for the most part, but there are parts of the house that really do not get heated. That does not bother me as I do not really spend much time in those places. You have a couple of options which I will put in my order of preference if I was in your spot: 1. Fix, or replace if really need be, the outdoor stove, and lines going into the house 2. Indoor stove hooked into your forced air system 3. Indoor free standing wood stove. Anything you can route through a forced air system is going to be much nicer to deal with in the long run. Fix the forced air furnace where it is leaking and not insulated, you will need to if you go with either of the first 2 options; and probably should do anyway since you have propane as a backup. From what I have read/watched you should be looking at no more than 1 degree drop per 50ft if everything is properly insulated. Also, while good hard wood (ash, oak, hickory, hard maple) is always good to have the more important factor is that it is seasoned. (blog.hawkenenergy.com/). I have a few friends with outdoor wood burners and they rarely burn more than 10 cord a year to heat 2000+ sqft houses pretty much all the time. I would imagine that if you get your OWB dialed in and your problems inside figured out you could almost halve the amount of wood you are burning.

There is something wrong with the install of the boiler. only need fifty feet from house here in MN and there are mods to the fire box to burn wood better.Insurance for a indoor wood burner mite make fixing the boiler cheaper plus heat the green house.

I burn 25 to 30 face cord as well in Wisconsin. I have insulated lines. And only 40 ft run to the house. Big thing I found is havijng a good deal on your door gasket...if the gasket leaks air in, it will burn your wood out prematurely and you will use more...I keep a wire brush by the stove to keep thbe door gasket clean of soot... seems to help...But outside boilers will keep you busy cutting wood...no doubt...

I plan on using thermagreen block on my house for a R82 insulation rating. Also for my out buildings. I think things will work great.

Sounds like a good decision. I have a wood burning stove in our basement with a blower. It heats the entire basement and a lot of the upstairs. Unfortunately we live in a residential area and they have just passed a burn regulation which limits our use of the stove.

Never heard of a "face cord" before. A cord of wood is usually 4x4x8 or any combo giving you 128 cf. As a young teen my brother and I processed about 8 cord of mixed hardwood for the family home and I later used about 5 cord. A lot of work for sure any way you measure.

I am not sure how my dad did this. their house had base board heating with different zones, he somehow hooked a hot water heater into the furnace and it supplied all their hot water. They could regulate different rooms to be warmer or cooler depending on how it was used. The furnace still worked and all it just didn't run as much. they live in Michigan. Good luck i will be interested to see how you solve this issue.

move it closer to the house. mine is 30 ft. from my back door. i use 7 cords and live upstate New York

I have a Hearthstone Homestead Wood Stove, only used 4 face cord all winter winter to heat. I can't imagine using that much wood!

I installed a pellet stove and keep my 2000 sq/ft home 75 degrees warm all winter for the cost of 3 tons of pellets at about $250/ton. The pellet stove requires a daily cleaning & filling. Being a bit of a SHTF prepper I admit in addition to the pellet stove I would love to have your outdoor boiler rig. If the doo doo ever does hit the fan my pellet stove would be useless without the pellets while with your rig you could scavenge wood and keep warm & have hot showers.

The wood supply issue is a serious one. It sounds like you want to use alot of wood for various things. I feel that if $$ is a premium- the best thing to spend it on is insulated pipe. I can't believe anyone would install it that way. Wow. Like others have said move burner close to house. I don't think your boiler is inefficient at all. It's the lines. And also fix the duct work that is blowing hot air into the attic or funneling cold air into the house. That could be a free fix depending on the problem and will pay HUGE dividends. My brother uses insulated pipe and looses less than 1 degree over 150 feet to the house. Dad looses none at 60 feet.

Sincerely, it is a good thing you recognize this. -You are trying to heat the outside! I hope you can work a way to afford to fix these issues. You don't want to burn all of your own property wood till you have to. Unless you have hundreds of acres of woods you are burn far more than growing it.

I had 2 wood stoves going 24/7 and it was killing me...just spray foaming the attic right under the roof and sealing the attic made a huge difference....for my a/c too.

Here is my opinion: Move the Wood Boiler next to the house and eliminate the 100-150 foot water lines, where as now you can have insulated lines installed for way less money, or even do it yourself. Next, your furnace is way outdated, but doesn't really matter if your just using the blower motor to circulate air. I would highly recommend a ECM Blower motor replacement, It will cost you around $400-$500 installed, or you can install it yourself for about $250 (ECM motors are energy efficient motors made to run long amounts of time). Also, get rid of that 1" air filter and cut the duct work open to fit in a 4"-5" filter. You will get much more airflow and more air filtration. Next thing which is optional, you have a boiler with only 1 heating radiator at the furnace. Install some baseboard radiators in the basement or around the house in places you don't need a thermostat or care if it gets to hot (put them in an unfinished basement and the heat will radiate up thru the house floors to keep it warm and keep the furnace blower from running excessively on thermostat). Doing all of this will more than likely cut your wood supply in half. Info about me: I am an HVAC Service tech, worked on many of these boilers, and never seen anybody use that amount of wood except when they heat the house, barn, and other fixtures from 1 boiler. About your indoor wood stove: don't forget that when the exhaust air is vented thru the chimney, your stove requires outside air to replace lost indoor air, and now you have to have a combustion air intake, and the air coming into your house will be cold and will need to be heated also. This why most wood fireplaces and stoves are not energy efficient, unless they have their own combustion air intakes.

i was thinking the boiler was the dream i heat a small house with a wood stove and the mess worry about chimney fire processing wood bucking splitting kindling relighting a fire every morning moving the wood multiple times to get it inside but each person has there own situation so do what you think is best.

A lot for you and your family to consider. Loading the outdoor furnace with slab lengths should last 24 hrs if you can find that resource. That you have identified heat tubes not deep enough for your area and not insulated is certainly a big project to correct. But the house should be buttoned up no matter what system you choose. You may find standing dead hardwood in the fall that people in your area are happy for you to take. This is a good time to scope out those options. I read that only 7% of our country heat with wood or pellets. 2-3 generations ago we all heated with wood. Best wishes.

I have an indoor wood stove, it's an Avalon. I keep my house around 80-85 during the winter. I have a walkout ranch home that's 28' x60' I go through 4 cords for the entire heating season. I burn Oak and Ash. I decided against an outdoor boiler because #1 they use electricity. #2 I heard too many people tell me they are very wood hungry!

i love your content. thanks for sharing. you can never know too much.

indoor wood stove is a great idea. when you install it make a n air duct that pull air directly from outside to feed the fire. because when you burn a fire inside it creates a vacuum in the house which will pull cold air in from and crack or hole. but if you put a vent directly to the fire your whole house will stay warm.

Go for the indoor heater. You can get a really efficient model in the basement and you will be amazed at how much heat it puts out. If you really want to get into it, there are ways to heat your water using an indoor wood burning stove.

I heat my house 2100 st ft ranch style with an earth stove. Large model. I never use my backup electric. We don't leave the house unattended for more than 24 hrs during the heating season we burn 5to7 cords a year. Mixed soft and hardwood. We live in northern colo. No severe cold but will go below 0 10 or more days a year. A well built house with wood heat works but takes constant attention and regular chimmney cleaning. I know this and have used wood heat for 40 years. Worn out two stoves and saved thousands of heating dollars most wood comes from tree company's in area

Did you get the indoor woodburner and how'd it turn out? How much more did you pay for insurance? Thinking of woodburner so just curious. Thanks

Hi , my suggestion is to redo the supply pipes with correct depth and insulate correctly . Fix the ducting in the house and make sure insulation in roof is adequate.

Indoor wood stove is the way to go. When we got our place it had electric base board heat , electric water heater, stove, dryer all electric. Before moving in I installed a wood burning stove up stairs, a pellet stove in the basement and added a propane tankless water heater and a propane stove. Now the base board heat is only used when we leave town.

I'm with Buckeye Brian on getting the indoor system buttoned up. FIRST! Secondary, I wonder how much coal would cost to burn in the outdoor system, after moving it closer to the house of course. As for duct work, taping and insulting is fairly cheap, and since it's in the attic, spring or fall is best time for that kind of work!

Also, I use the same stove. 2400 square foot farm house with poor insulation. Also heat my hot water. I use only 15 facecord a year. I use good seasoned 20% hardwood also

I have burnt wood in the past nothing worse than being a slave to your wood stove I have since went to Natural Gas what a blessing propane was costing me $3,000 a year I dropped a $800 a year great video thanks for keeping it real keep them coming

I cant compare to a outdoor boiler as I've never ran one. But I do love my indoor wood stove. I use it as a supplement to my fuel oil furnace. I keep the thermostat set down low at 56F for when I'm gone and then come home and heat the rest of the way with wood. My house is an old OLD building that was at one time a one room schoolhouse. It has small addition on back but is still a small, simple home. Wouldn't want my heat any other way. SE WI.

About time! Wood stove is much better. We burn about 3.5 full cord (we don’t measure in face cord here in mass). We are heating about 2000 sq ft perfectly, and having the wood stove near the water heater helps keep down the cost of heating that as well.

suggestion, if you do decide to move the wood stove into your house. check your local saw mills, to see if they have slab wood. the bark cut offs or end cut offs. it's thin and thick pieces, but for burning it's great, and cheap. well, where i'm from it's cheap. $15.00 a bundle. a bundle last us a week. If that's the only wood we burn. we also burn split wood but normally save it for the nights. it burns longer. i'm not sure if your area sells it. still might be something worth looking into.

Been heating with wood for about thirty years now. Also, used to install woodburners for a living. I know most of the major brands and their idiosyncrasies. Moved to a 2000 sq. ft. ranch house fifteen years ago. After seeing the gas bill (Gas forced hot air, older, poorly insulated house), we shot the moon and went for what was, at the time, the top-of-the-line soapstone stove (The Fireview) from Woodstock Soapstone Co. (Woodstove.com). They're NOT cheap. The whole installation, floor and wall protection, stove, chimney, permits etc., ran us just about 5k$. Obviously did our own installation. It paid us back in two winters, everything since has been gravy. In a bad winter in South Jersey we'll burn three cords a year. When we installed, there was no extra charge on our Homeowner's policy but we DID have to notify them and show the signed-off inspection and building permits. The stove is the perfect size for our house, no need to overfire on cold nights. No problems doing an overnight burn. Load up twenty minutes before bedtime, turn down the air & go to bed. Get up eight, ten or twelve hours later, open up the air, by the time yer back in the house with an armload of firewood, the stove is full of glowing coals. Throw the wood in, whoosh, instant fire. Even if you let the fire die out completely, the soapstone continues to radiate heat for hours. So far, our record for one continuous burn that we can restart without kindling is 22 hours. I have NO connection whatsoever with Woodstock, I make no money from endorsing them. But I really believe that they're the best, cleanest, safest, most efficient woodstoves on the market today. I can't recommend them highly enough. Although they now have even more efficient models, all their stoves are made in N.H., they happily give factory tours and, believe it or not, actually answer their phones with a human being as opposed to those Goddamned IVRs that everyone hates. They also cross-train their people so that when you call, the person who answers can usually answer any questions immediately. When I called to order our stove, I asked the woman about whether they carried chimney kits. Turns out that they do. And of higher quality than I can obtain locally. I (Rather stupidly) asked her to connect me with someone who could determine my chimney kit needs. She said she'd do it herself, gave me her name, told me what measurements to take and to call her back. She'd installed her own stove and was more expert than I was with chimney parts. Sold us exactly what we needed and not six inches of extra pipe. Cautions and suggestions: The stoves are HEAVY. Ours was 485 lb. It is NOT a one-man lift. My stove and many of the older models have catalytic converters that greatly aid in producing extra heat and keeping crap out of the air. But this means NO SOFTWOOD. EVER. The best idea that came out of our project was my wife's insistence that the finished height of the hearth be two feet higher than our living room floor. I thought she was crazy (Not for the first time) but it turned out to be a superb idea. No need to kneel on the floor to load or de-ash or clean the stove, no small consideration now that I'm 66 and have a bad back and worse knees. I politely suggest that you check them out. Great company, superior products, awesome people. Good luck. One last thing. These stoves last forever. They don't rust or fall apart. Your grandchildren are gonna fight over who gets the stove.

I heat with a hot blast furnace in the house it’s down in my basement and it’s tied into my duct work and I only burn like 6 maybe 7 face cord of wood but it is a little messy for sure I have my wood close to the house under a carport to stay dry and the snow off it and it’s next to a small window in the basement so the mess stays to a small area but I love it I’m like you I love working in the woods and I also sell nothing but oak and cherry for wood nothing else at all and I sell it for 95 bucks a face cord here in Michigan north Michigan that is we get like 6 foot of snow at times but most of the time we have 3 foot on the ground at all times

Buy yourself some large kits of spray foam, dig up those lines and dig under them a bit spray some foam down lay the lines into the foam and spray over and around them. Using rebar chairs (wire supports) to hold the lines up would work well. Be sure to give them clearances from each other also. Patch the duct work (in the attic) that is leaking and spray around that too if it is metal ducting. Air seal all your leaks. Put a cold air return in the basement close to floor level even if it is only 10inch vent/duct.. Install cold air drops from the 1st floor of the house and into the basement you will be surprised with how much cold air will fall into the basement just from natural stratification of the air. This will change the comfort in the 1st floor drastically making these changes. At 150 feet from the house another option would be to move the boiler closer to the house allowing you to rebury those pipes at 3-5feet like they should be.. But even with that normal ground temps +-50F below the freeze line will still pull heat from the lines you will have to insulate them either way but $3,000 NO WAY you can do it for $800 (for every thing) even if you have to rent a mini excavator. If you don't understand what cold air drops are look on the internet it is basically a chimney acting in reverse of a normal fireplace/woodstove chimney or flue. You install a cold air DROP (or more if the house is broken up a lot) into the floor on the 1st floor and make a plywood tube dropping into the basement down to say 3 feet off the floor of the basement. This in conjunction with a 10inch or bigger cold air return to the furnace from the basement will change everything. Once you have all that done and winter is on check the temperature differential incoming to out going of the air to water heat exchanger. You may find you need a multispeed blower fan for the furnace to extract more or less heat while running. If you find that is the case you can have it wired into a switch for summer and winter mode/speed changes. The boiler itself should be inspected by hand to see if it is properly insulated you may find it has inadequate insulation and can make some gains there with a little housing modifications to add some insulation of remove fiberglass and go with spray foam for that as well. Most people that go with a outdoor boiler do it for safety and cleanliness reasons don't give up your want of that safety so easily. Hope any of that info is helpful or it even reaches you. Have a good one and stay warm their fella!

We purchased a efficient furnace a few years ago and it was a GREAT investment. We had to remove our wood stove because it raised the insurance cost as much as we were saving. Why work your butt off and not move forward. IF you do continue to use the stand alone wood burner move it closer and this time install it correctly (I know you did not install it the first time). No matter how good your install the farther away it is the less efficient it will be. Could you incorporate it into your greenhouse and then the heat it gives off that is normally lost form the outside of the burner would heat the green house?

I love my wood boiler, it's just that I bought a heatmaster MF7000E and it is far too big for my needs. It heats 7000 sq ft and my house is 2800 plus 1500 sq ft shop. I am in Ontario and burn more than you, but all hardwood.(40 cords min last year) I am only 25 ft from each building, so that makes a huge difference. I vote that you invest in another boiler and get some insulated pex pipe. It's going to cost abit, but consider how long it will take to pay for itself. I am rural, and have propane back-up and propane here is very expensive, so for me, it's a no brainer. Plus I keep in shape cutting and splitting wood. Sounds like allot of your problems are the existing forced air system in the house though. If you sucking in cold air, your taking 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.

Indoor wood burners are great, I've been using one for 26+ years. But you have to haul wood into the house, which is a lot of work too. An indoor stove will require more splitting and shorter lengths. Leaving the wood large and having it outside is labor saving. You might only use 15 cords in the house with an indoor burner, but then it might be twice the amount of work.

Why. OT move the unit closer to the house and insulate the pipes. The duct work in the house can be fixed with some sheet metal and ducteing tape (not sure what it’s called) and then you can insular the ducting. You will still have hot water and the heat. And you could of course still get a stove it would burn less and only run that unit when needed. Just a suggestion not sure if that helps

You can get indoor wood stoves that will heat hot water for you. I imagine the plumbing retrofit will be fun for that. Otherwise, a woodstove in your den would be a good idea. Call the insurance company first though. It still might be a better idea to move the outdoor much closer to the house, insulate the shorter lines, and fix the ductwork.

I have a wood/oil furnace that suites my need at a pretty reasonable annual operating cost. Use less than a tank of oil a year as the oil side only kicks on momentarily usually during the night or as a backup if I run out of good wood.

How about checking out a mini split heat pump, I love mine!

Outdoor wood boiler reduces the risk of fire and is an efficient way to use wood if setup properly. I would start by fixing the duct work and stockpiling wood to season for two summers burning propane for one winter until you can get the proper tubing ran to the boiler and have seasoned wood so your not burning water. The best of luck to you and your family in making these tough financial decisions and gods blessings to you

Move the wood boiler to fifty feet of the house, less cost to replace lines. Then concentrate on revamping the air handler. Maybe go with radiators with fans. As far as an inside stove that heats water I'd go with the pioneer princess wood cook stove. It has a water coil to heat water and will heat a 2000 sq ft home. I want the pioneer princess myself. I plan on having a apartment size propane cook stove as backup for summer cooking. If you retire the old boiler, how much would you take for it?

Move the water heater as close to the house as you wish and the insurance agent allows. Insulate the now shorter pipes to the house. Put radiation devices in the house. Skip the forced air radiator because they require hotter water temp. If you have plenty of radiation in the house you can run the water temp 140-150 and as you know the lower temp is allot more efficient for wood use. It's hard for you to see that because 140-150 water temp in the winter would blow cold air from your hvac. But 140 radiators are hard to touch . You can use most anything for radiators. I use a wood fired water heater to heat my lumber dry kiln/2000sf shop/2000sf house and I use about15cd per yr. Next project is to install 4 sticks of 3/4"dia copper 5' long as a radiator inside the chimney of the water heater to pickup exhaust heat and send it back to the heater/system. Good luck jim

Go for the indoor stove it works fine for us and don't look too good but put a couple fans on each side of it you heat a big room buddy real quick as you cooking your houses nice and warm now that the kids are all grown up but I think you would make the right idea whatever you come up with go with your heart love you videos

Not for the house but for the green house, a compost pile could do the heating for you with zero wood to burn. There's many videos snout this topic on KZfaq. Shortening the distance of your wood burner to the house and insulating the pipes just makes better sense.

I think you should invest with the water lines Incase of an emergency 2nd first I would invest in a wood stove also and as you have money fix the other problems. Insulation in the attic goes along way to retain heat

Use the indoor wood stove in the basement attached to your duct system. Heat rises and you can do the maple syrup in the basement. That will give you time to fix the issues if you decide to. Surely there's a window for wood and piping the sap if you don't have a door. Good luck.

If u burn good seasoned wood! thats cured good if it's hard or soft will burn way longer and more efficient prolly half the wood u used and it will put out more heat and like the other comments said move it closer to the house and insulate the pipes cuz thats enough stove to prolly heat 2 houses and get ur duct work repaired is cheap diy things u can do and great video!

Sound like a well thought out idea.

Tear out the uninsulated lines and use the central boiler insulated lines. They are awesome! Expensive but worth every penny!!

When we heated out 2400 SF log home with inside wood stove, we used 4-6 full cords each year using seasoned pine. We did not heat our water however. You will figure out it out I'm sure. TK

As fare as the under ground lines i would dig them up and support them up with Wire off the dirt and maybe dig down a bit further then Spray foam in the hole with the Large tanks of insulation expansion foam they sell at home depot. then put some plywood or boards over them to stop frost from going down in the ground.