|
| I'd seriously consider going with an outdoor unit -- I have an outdoor forced air unit. This is the same as an indoor unit but sits in a box outside while the hot air is piped inside. I grew up with an indoor for additional heat -- works great, I always thought it was the slickest thing. Then I get my own house, got a corn furnace. (SAR furnace that goes in the basement) Had it overfire once, no harm done but sure scared the crap outta me. The bad part with a solid fuel furnace is it can overfuel, chimney fire or malfunction. There is no "shut off" like with gas or electric. With and inside unit its hold on and hope she makes it. On my outside unit -- if it overheats or theres a power outage, my cabinet temp gets to 400F and it melts a lead hold down for a heat dump. Firebox cools off to a safe temp pretty quickly when its right at 0 outside I had this happen in an ice storm a few years back, glad it was outside -- no worries. Also have had a chimney fire -- no big deal if its not connected to the house, internal chimney and it could be game over. I have 5 sections of the insulated stainless solid fuel chimney. My dad calls me a chicken, but got a wife and 3 kids under 10 -- not something I want to deal with. Mine is a Shelter brand -- got it from Menards online, I think $2000. Works good. I can burn wood or coal -- never tried coal but would like to for overnight. I go thru 3-4x as much wood as my dads inside unit -- but I use it as an add on source, and I dont care cause I feel its safer. Got a couple friends that burn some wood and have had close calls, follow codes and be safe. I think a boiler would be best, but for me in was about 10k for one of those.
My forced air unit sits 10 ft from the house, is hooked into hot air ducts, and cold air comes from returns in house -- even though its that close my insurance doesn't care. As far as their concerned it doesn't exist - I even made them come out to look at it. | |
|
Best wood stove?
