The Citizen, 2008-10-16, Page 15THE CITIZEN. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2008. PAGE 15.
After two years of operating their
outdoor wood furnace, Ian and Sarah
Caldwell love it.
The Caldwells used to heat their
Belgrave-area farm home with a
woodstove, backed up by an oil
furnace.
“It’s nice to know when I have to
go to work that the fire isn’t inside
the house,” says Ian who has an off-
farm job.
“You don’t have to put all that
wood (and dirt) inside your house,”
says Sarah. There’s also no need to
have storage space for wood inside.
Outdoor furnaces look like a
small shed that’s located near the
building that will be heated. The
furnace has a large firebox that only
needs to be filled once a day, an
operation that take two or three
minutes, estimates Ian.
The fire heats water that is then
pumped under ground in an
insulated pipe (about the size of a
field-tile with two waterlines
surrounded by insulation) into the
house.
There a radiator sits in the air duct
system of their former furnace and a
fan circulates the air that’s warmed
by the radiator, throughout the
house.
“It’s nice,” says Sarah. “It’s on a
thermostat. Sometimes a wood stove
gets so hot and you can’t regulate it.”
As well as area heat, the furnace,
while it’s in use during the winter
months, also heats their hot water.
One disadvantage over a simple
wood stove is that the outdoor
furnace requires electricity to run the
water pump, so if there’s a power
failure, they’re out of heat. However
the amount of electricity required for
the pump is small enough that a
generator can easily provide it, Ian
says.
If the fire in the furnace should
happen to burn out, the heat stored in
the water will continue to warm the
house for some time.
Growing caution on the part of
insurance companies about wood
stoves was part of the incentive for
the Caldwells to look at an outdoor
furnace. They were able to get one
from a neighbour who was moving,
giving them a considerable saving
from the normal cost of about
$12,000.
Wood heat is particularly
attractive to the Caldwells because
they have their own woodlot, but Ian,
who also sells wood, says it’s an
economical way to heat even if you
have to buy wood. He mentioned
that he recently sold someone an
entire winter’s fuel for $1,000.
As well, he says, wood doesn’t
fluctuate in price the way furnace oil
does. There are also a lot more
people offering it for sale so there’s
more competition to keep prices
down.
“I think we have to look at
alternative ways to heat,” says Ian.
“We have no control over prices.”
An added attraction of the
outdoor furnace is that wood doesn’t
have to be cut in as small blocks to
be put in the stove.
Family heating their home from the outside in
Check out our
new
Equipment Rental
Store
MCGAVIN COMPACT EQUIPMENT
519-887-6365 Walton 1-877-887-6365
NOW AVAILABLE
20 ton towable gas powered
wood splitter
Outdoor heating
The Caldwell family has made the switch to an outdoor
wood furnace — and loves it. (Keith Roulston photo)
By Keith Roulston
The Citizen