November 10, 2010

Outdoor Furnace

For years we had a little wood stove. It was in the dirt basement and we went up and down (what can loosely be called) steep steps 4 or 5 times a day to keep it stoked. I recon almost 2 hours a day was spent working on keeping a fire going down there. The last fire we had in it created a chimney fire which could easily have burned this old dry shack to the ground.

What is a chimney fire your may ask? Resins, creosote, flammable oils are created woods are burned, and over time, they build up and combust. It is worse with green or wet wood and a smoldering fire. Burning potato and orange peels helps reduce creosote. Unchecked, the chimney, up to the roof, is lined with creosote and when it burns you have a chimney fire. I can not tell you what it is like to watch the chimney in the center of your house shoot up flames and sit afraid that the walls will catch fire at any moment. There is nothing we could have done to stop it. By the grace of God, no harm came from it, but it was too close.

After this, and seeing the creosote dripping down the outside of the chimney we vowed never to have a fire in the house again. It was a really big investment for us, but we bought an outdoor furnace. Waterlines are hooked to the furnace, taking the heat to our house, running under the floor and with a little radiator keeping us very warm.

We fill the furnace box every 12 hours with 4 or 5 pieces of split log. This is 1/2 the amount of wood and 1/8 the amount of effort. It is very efficient, as it almost goes out (to conserve heat), then a fan comes on and starts it going again.

We grow the birch and larch, we burn to keep us warm, in our wood lot. It is very sustainable because birch comes back 6 fold when it is cut down, ie 6 saplings (approximately) grow up for each one cut down. The harder the wood the slower it burns, the more efficient it is. Cedar starts burning hot quickly, but too soon it is burned up. Birch bark also has a "flammable" component to the bark (paper) which makes it great fire starter too.




9 comments:

  1. Rose I'm so excited for you! We read up on these last year and have pretty much decided that's what we are going to use also when the time comes for us to make our move. Enjoy!

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  2. I bet having the radiant heat under the floor is so nice. What a scare you had with the chimney fire.

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  3. I can se your furnace is outside. There's a even a waterfall and tree near it!. ;) Seriously, sounds a good system.

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  4. There is a law here that every chimney needs to be cleaned by the chimney sweepers, so people don't get these fires, or even worse, CO getting beck to the house.
    It look as your new furnace is a good investment! People here usually burn hornbeam or ash tree for heat.

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  5. This may sound strange but I have never heard of this before and just finished reading all about how they work. Now I am really interested as we also worry about chimney fires and actually had one a while back...pretty scary stuff. Thanks for turning me on to this alternative heating method.

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  6. It has been wonderful, warm and worry free! I have never heard of hornbeam before, (yipee another tree to learn about, now I am growing or have seed for 30 different trees which produce food or fruit in my zone). Mike I will post more pictures and a couple links for what to look for when buying one. It is labour (Canadian accent, eh) intensive, but we hired a machine to dig for an hour $65, it was worth it. Hope you are all as warm as I, am off to take down my concord crop today (then a batch of wine and tons of juice to freeze), the grapes are 3 weeks late and they still aren't properly sweet but frost is getting too hard to gamble any longer - Peace

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  7. This is our first year heating with wood, the new house and all. We have not yet had to fire it up- it has been so mild and the passive solar plus 8 inches of concrete in the walls are doing their jobs! Perhaps this weekend...

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  8. Ruralrose .. can you direct me to a post about grape growing? I'm interested in planting grapes next year. Hugs,

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  9. Scary! I hope to never experience a chimney fire! Thank the Lord you and your house survived!

    I am looking up hornbeam too.

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