Home Wood Heating Applications

Wood is an economically viable and ecologically friendly alternative to high cost fuels such as fuel oil, propane or electricity.

When choosing home heating systems, you have two basic choices, a wood fired boiler, or one several wood stove designs.

Boiler systems, which use the heat from wood to warm water which is then ciruclated through pipes to baseboard radiators, radiant floor systems, or heat exchangers, which convert the heat stored in the water to the air, which is then forced throughout the house using a system of ducts.

Boiler systems can either be located in your home, or in a remote building nearby, which reduces the risk of fire and improves indoor air quality.

Traditional Wood Stove, which heats the area immediately surrounding the stove by convection and radiation. Traditional wood stoves are widely available, simpler to install and less costly than boiler systems, however unless airflow is carefully controlled and warm air ducted throughout the house, there are generally wide temperature variations in different areas of the house – too hot near the stove, and too cool in rooms on other floors.

Non-traditional Wood Stove, such as a masonry, thermal mass stove. Masonry stoves are also called Russian, Siberian, and Finnish fireplaces. A short, hot fire heats the bricks or stones which store and radiate the warmth back to the home slowly and evenly for many hours. Masonry/Mass stoves work by pulling the heat out of the exhaust using a series of baffles.

Masonry stoves are very heavy due to the mass required to store the heat making the cost of transportation very high.

Also see: