Heating system for a new house
I am building a new house which also includes my existing house in the design.
The (new) main house is a Timber Frame 1344 sf plus loft. 8″ SIP panel roof and 6″ SIP panel walls, full basement, ICF block with 2.5″ of insulation inside and outside, the existing house, 750sf is milled cedar log, it will be covered with 5″ SIP panels and a truss roof with batt insulation. It will also sitting on an ICF foundation which will be an underdrive garage. The two houses are joined by an entrance way under which the utility room will be located.
My current plans for heat include Infloor radiant (Water) heat in the new basement, floor warming system in the garage and floor warming in the master bathroom on the main floor of the new house. I was planning on two furnaces so I could heat the older house portion separately from the new house as it won’t be used much except when my wifes girls or friends come to visit.
As I am located on 6 acres with plenty of ‘free’ firewood I want to install a fireplace in my new house that can be tied into the furnace ductwork for the new house. I have looked at one or two that include blowers, thermostatic controls on the firebox air source and automatic dampers that control the rate of burn. What I would like is anyone who has any experience with this sort of system to give me their opinions, and the fireplace/manufacturer they used.
Robert
Replies
I'm not an expert on this but I've sort of done my homework on the subject. The problem with wood furnaces is that they start out relatively cold when you first light them, then get very hot, then the heat output drops off unless you tend to it often. Instead of all the blowers and thermostats, essentialy two systems, why not consider thermal storage? The storage would allow you to use the wood burner even on moderately cold nights by storing its large heat output and delivering it to the house evenly. One of the best and most compact systems I've heard of is eutetctic salts. These are special salts designed to melt at a good temperature to deliver heat into homes. Their great storage capacity is due to the great amout of energy necessary to convert the salts from a solid to a liquid. You could circulate the same water used for the Infloor system through the wood burner to heat them and then just curculate the same water over them to heat the floor. No extra equipment necessary.
I did more homework and found this. It could easily be incorporated into your floor design. The beauty of this system is that the floor would be your heat storage medium. Hope this helps.
http://www.teappcm.com/underfoor_heating.html
Pretty interesting stuff, but not quite what I was looking for, and I'm betting it's not cheap to install either.
I have found a few fireplaces whose burn rate is controlled so that they do not experience the large swings in heat output you mentioned, they do this by controlling the air supply to the fire box, supplying air as required to maintain burning within a certain range of heat output. One place I talked to claims that a load of firewood will burn for 10-12 hours maintaining a consistent heat throughout. I wanted to find out if anyone has experience with these systems, and whether they work as claimed.
Robert
"I have found a few fireplaces whose burn rate is controlled so that they do not experience the large swings in heat output you mentioned, they do this by controlling the air supply to the fire box, supplying air as required to maintain burning within a certain range of heat output. One place I talked to claims that a load of firewood will burn for 10-12 hours maintaining a consistent heat throughout. I wanted to find out if anyone has experience with these systems, and whether they work as claimed."
The ones Vermonters all installed in the 70's didn't, though they made the same claims. Don't live there now, don't know how the designs have changed since then.
I haven't read through the whole thread.
You mention a good source of firewood.
Have you considered a Russian style masonry heater ?
Not the Tulkivli or whatever it's called.
The big monster masonry structures.
An excellent article detailing the contruction of one was in FH a number of years ago.
More recently, there was another article on a unit with a flue passage that runs underneath the floor. A "Kava" maybe ?
Alan