# Outdoor wood stove/boiler



## gillcommander (Oct 19, 2011)

I have a Ridgewood stove. They are built in Hersey, MI. Good stove and excellent customer service by the owner. I've had mine for 3 years. First year I had my house was a brutal winter and we paid nearly $5500 in fuel oil. The wife would literally sit on the couch and cry every time the fuel delivery truck showed up. Now we pay about $800 a year for one truckload about 10 cords a year. It is quite a bit of work from about November till April but worth it. 

Good advice is to get your wood cut and put up before deer season. Also, if you can let your wood season for at least a year you will get better performance and longer burns out of your boiler.


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## davi5982 (Mar 8, 2010)

gillcommander said:


> I have a Ridgewood stove. They are built in Hersey, MI. Good stove and excellent customer service by the owner. I've had mine for 3 years. First year I had my house was a brutal winter and we paid nearly $5500 in fuel oil. The wife would literally sit on the couch and cry every time the fuel delivery truck showed up. Now we pay about $800 a year for one truckload about 10 cords a year. It is quite a bit of work from about November till April but worth it.
> 
> Good advice is to get your wood cut and put up before deer season. Also, if you can let your wood season for at least a year you will get better performance and longer burns out of your boiler.


Thanks, that's actually the stove I'm looking at, they changed their name now to EZBOILER.


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## d_rek (Nov 6, 2013)

Reading this thread makes me glad I went with Geothermal hvac lol! 

I strongly considered a wood boiler but in the end decided with two kids and a full time job I knew feeding a wood burner most of the year was one less thing I wanted to worry about. 


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## brushbuster (Nov 9, 2009)

d_rek said:


> Reading this thread makes me glad I went with Geothermal hvac lol!
> 
> I strongly considered a wood boiler but in the end decided with two kids and a full time job I knew feeding a wood burner most of the year was one less thing I wanted to worry about.
> 
> ...


Im building a new house soon and am curious how it does for you, cost and where you got it from, and whats involved?


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## d_rek (Nov 6, 2013)

brushbuster said:


> Im building a new house soon and am curious how it does for you, cost and where you got it from, and whats involved?


So far we love it. It has kept up like a champ over the winter months this year. On the coldest days the aux. strip heat might kick in but that's only if it's hovering in the single digits for days on end. I haven't had a chance to test the cooling yet but suppose I will get to soon enough. 

Cost was $21k but that included a 3ton Bosch heat pump (furnace), pump station, and labor/materials for tying in all the ductwork in the basement and ground loop install. But we offset that with 30% ($6k) tax credit which unfortunately expired at the end of 2016, so it was more like $14k. The tax credit was a major influence on our decision to go with geo. 

Our installer was local in St. Clair County. If I had to do it again I would have went with a different installer, but that's my fault for not researching subcontractors enough. 

The biggest difference with geo vs propane or wood boiler is you have to be able to install a ground loop that's right-sized relative to the size of your heat pump. Because we are on acreage there wasn't any issues with having enough space to install a horizontal ground loop. But to give you an idea our loop is approx 16ft below grade and 150ft long and make 3 circuits. (about 60ft wide). They can do vertical loops if you are constrained or open loops that work with a pond too. Just depends on the constraints of your property, though I have heard open loops are cheaper. 

The geo is also on seperate meter per DTE and we receive a reduced kWh rate from them for the geo panel. Our electric bills have been $240-275/mo. for the whole house (we're entirely electric household) over the winter but I expect them to taper off significantly as we head into warmer months. I was told the payback will be 5-8 years versus propane but depending on our usage could be sooner. Right now i'm just happy to not have the added responsibility of constantly feeding a wood burner or monitor propane tank levels. And i've seen those propane bills... yikes. 

All in all extremely happy we went with geo. If it's in your budget i'd seriously consider it.


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## swampbuck (Dec 23, 2004)

Curious, did you price it out using 2 well's for supply and return ?


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## d_rek (Nov 6, 2013)

swampbuck said:


> Curious, did you price it out using 2 well's for supply and return ?


For the geo or for a boiler? 




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## swampbuck (Dec 23, 2004)

Geo, Just wondering if it's comparable. I have casually looked at doing it some day.


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## d_rek (Nov 6, 2013)

swampbuck said:


> Geo, Just wondering if it's comparable. I have casually looked at doing it some day.


We have a closed loop so it's not hooked up to our well and the loop is filled with a solution (antifreeze) that should never need to be replenished unless the loop leaks. 

I don't have any experience with open loops using well water so can't really comment on if a 2nd well is necessary or not.


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## UplandnWaterfowl (Jan 3, 2010)

On new construction they do 1 well, just double the size. On a house with an existing well you have to drill a 2nd. I pumped mine out to a pond behind the house, liked that because it kept a small section of open water for ducks year round.


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## wicklundrh (Mar 18, 2014)

I used to have a wood boiler at my house. I sold it and put in geothermal and could not be happier!

I too have a closed loop system. No need for an extra well. I live in country on 30 acres. With the size of my house, the math came out to 150 yards for each loop. They run out at a depth of 4 foot and a return of 6 foot. 

I run two hot water heaters (50 gallons each). The first water heater is preheated with geathermal before spilling over in to the other one heated by electric. 

The primary water furnace runs on a 40amp breaker while the backup or auxilary service runs on a 60amp. I put in a 200amp service to the house and then broke 100 amps over to my furnace and can run it with my generac in the event of a power outage.

I run my house at 70 degrees all year long. It does a great job cooling in the summer. It excells on really hot days when a normal AC unit cannot keep up and is running all the time.

Under zero, it will run constantly in the wintertime. A few years back, when the frost got down to a depth of around 40 inches, it seemed like it was running non stop but it didn't effect performance and the cost was minimal. 

I heat about 2600 sq feet and my average electric bil (all inclusive) is around 300 per month. Keep in mind that I run EVERYTHING on electric. Stove, hot water, you name it.

IF I was building a new house, I would install one again. The difference being that I would install radiant in all the floors as well as the concrete in the basement and garage. When asking the contractor he said that it is much more efficiant this way and you get even greater yeilds. I would even consider running radiant in my driveway to keep the snow off.

The cost. I had mine installed in 2009 (November). The total cost was $23k for the excavation, water pump unit, installation etc... Switching over to 200amp service was minimal as I did the work myself. I also purchased and installed the water heaters myself. We ended up getting 10k back in clean energy credits when we filed our taxes so the total cost was just a touch over 14k. The previous owner of the house utilized propane and a standard electric AC unit. The math was around $500 per month including electric and gas (averaged throughout the year).

We love it and would do it again if we built another house. I have tons of wood and have sold firewood for years. I'm always asked why I don't burn it! I make more selling it than saving the money and burning it!!!!


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## d_rek (Nov 6, 2013)

wicklundrh said:


> I used to have a wood boiler at my house. I sold it and put in geothermal and could not be happier!
> 
> I too have a closed loop system. No need for an extra well. I live in country on 30 acres. With the size of my house, the math came out to 150 yards for each loop. They run out at a depth of 4 foot and a return of 6 foot.
> 
> ...


Our setup is very similar, except our home is smaller. We also have two seperate panels but they are 200amp panels not 100 (probably overkill, but whatever). We also run two water heaters - the first is turned off and is for reclaimed/preheated water from the geo. The 2nd is overflow from the 1st and has the element turned on for our hot water. 

What sized generac do you use to run your geo? I am thinking of having two transfer switches installed (one for the main and one for the geo panel) so that way I can transfer power between the two with a smaller genny versus trying to find a portable genny large enough to run both panels.


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## wicklundrh (Mar 18, 2014)

My genny is on demand. Nice setup. Power goes out and inside of 20 seconds, she fires up. Runs on propane (only thing that does at my house). I purchased my own pig and filled it about 4 years ago. We have been without power for a few days here and there over the last few years and I think I am still at 60%.

Generec has it's own dedicated panel. It is fed by normal electricial grid and anything you want to run off the generator is fed to that panel. In the event of an outage, it automatically turns on and will not back feed your normal system.

I'm only running a 5000watt so what I do is have a breaker setup to run to the 60amp aux pump on the furnace. I usually run it only at night when I am not utilizing much other in terms of power.

I run my hot water heater, well, microwave circuit, refridgerator, freezer, living room lights, garage door, master bed and bath power on it. I could put more on it but don't really need much else when the power is out.


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## d_rek (Nov 6, 2013)

wicklundrh said:


> My genny is on demand. Nice setup. Power goes out and inside of 20 seconds, she fires up. Runs on propane (only thing that does at my house). I purchased my own pig and filled it about 4 years ago. We have been without power for a few days here and there over the last few years and I think I am still at 60%.
> 
> Generec has it's own dedicated panel. It is fed by normal electricial grid and anything you want to run off the generator is fed to that panel. In the event of an outage, it automatically turns on and will not back feed your normal system.
> 
> ...


Nice. I was debating going this route but the on-demand genny's are considerably more expensive. Also if I store propane on my property I need to pull a permit for that as well, so that's another hurdle to jump through. But that is definitely the cat's meow setup.


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## wicklundrh (Mar 18, 2014)

d_rek said:


> Nice. I was debating going this route but the on-demand genny's are considerably more expensive. Also if I store propane on my property I need to pull a permit for that as well, so that's another hurdle to jump through. But that is definitely the cat's meow setup.


If you "store" propane? What does that mean exactly? Can you not have a propane pig (say 500 lbs) or a propane grill with 20 lb tank? Excuse my ignorance. I've just never heard of something like that before. But, I also grew up in and still live in the country too so I am not familiar with some zoning laws and such that some places dish out.


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## d_rek (Nov 6, 2013)

I think what dictates pulling a permit is the size of the propane tank on your property and if you need to run pipe somewhere. It's pretty rural by me but when we built I remember the GC saying we needed to pull a permit if we were running propane into the house.


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## wicklundrh (Mar 18, 2014)

d_rek said:


> I think what dictates pulling a permit is the size of the propane tank on your property and if you need to run pipe somewhere. It's pretty rural by me but when we built I remember the GC saying we needed to pull a permit if we were running propane into the house.


Never heard that one before! Nice part about the Genny running propane is that you don't need to run it into the house. So that might bypass that. My propane tank sits about 20 feet from the generator box. I have a regulator on the tank and another regulator before it goes in to the generator. This was recommended by a good heating and cooling guy I know and trust. 

Great setup really. If my property wasn't so enclosed where the house is (by trees) I would consider wind or solar and a battery bank but the cost really wouldn't offset with the minimal amount of energy I could generate. Getting ready to build a cabin on the backside of my property and I'll be adding solar to that one. Will see how that project turns out!


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## wicklundrh (Mar 18, 2014)

By "run it in to the house" I am referring to running any piping in to the house. Obviously, wiring gets run to the house!


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## sNeAkYpEtE11 (Feb 7, 2011)

I have a question for you guys with the geo thermal. If you had natural gas at the street, but had to pay 10k to have it run back to the house, would you still go with the geo thermal? I'm breaking ground on my house in June and am having a hard time swallowing that 10k bill just to run the pipe 1000ft. Thinking maybe geo thermal would be the route to go. With all things considered, they will be pretty close in price depending on what tax credits are available. I'm curious what your thoughts would be on this. Thanks


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## d_rek (Nov 6, 2013)

I'm not sure what the payback for natural gas would be vs geothermal. If we had it available at the road and cost was cheaper I might have went natural gas... but that wasn't an option for us. 

I can't imagine natural gas will stay cheap forever, but it might for the next 10-15 years. Geothermal is only ever going to be as expensive as the electric you need to run the system, so there's that. Comparing kWh used to nat. gas. volume consumed might be tricky, but you can probably figure out what the payback would be. 

Serious question though... is your house really 1000ft from the road? You should also be worried about what the electric utility is going to charge you to run electric service to your house, along with the cost of your driveway, and crap that's gonna be a lot of grass to mow!


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