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Using an outdoor wood
furnace can be a rewarding experience, help free us from foreign
oil, and be healthier for you personally. However you should follow
the recommendations listed below.
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Be smoke conscious. Breathing wood smoke has
been shown to be hazardous to peoples health. This is not only
true for the person who tends the fire, but for the people and
neighbors that surround it. This is also true for campfires, but
most people do not keep their campfire going 7 days a week.
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Never buy a outdoor wood furnace if you live
in town. This is true whether or not you town has an ordinance
against them. As of this writing there is not any manufacturer
that makes a furnace that never smokes. Depending on wood used,
heat being drawn, and the local atmospheric conditions all wood
stoves will smoke at times and cause you problems with your
neighbors.
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If you have a neighbor within 500 feet of your
stove, be sure to add enough chimney to get above the roofline
of their home.
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Locate your furnace so that it is convenient
to get wood to, but if possible out of view of other homes.
Realize you are always going to have piles of wood around it,
buckets with ashes, ect. You do not want to have this out where
everyone see's it and complains about the mess.
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Please realize that wood stoves are good at
doing what they are designed to do, burn wood. Some people buy
stoves with the impression that they will only be filling it
every couple days, or that they don't hold anymore wood than an
inside fireplace. This simply is not the case. You will be
filling it 2 times a day most of the winter if you size it
properly. Depending on how well your house is insulated and how
much you are heating, you might use 5 pickup loads a year
or even up to 30.
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Use good dry seasoned wood, the larger the
chunks the cleaner they will burn. Yes we know a lot of dealers
will tell you these furnaces will burn green wood. Yes they
will, but if you use green wood you will burn more wood, by as
much as 100-150% more wood. When you burn more wood you are
going to create more emissions. The best wood has dried for 2-3
years before being burnt.
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Never burn trash, building debris, pallets,
rubber, plastic, or anything else that is not recommended by the
manufacturer. I am always asked why not burn pallets. When
loading a stove with pallet wood you have a lot of small pieces
of wood with a large amount of surface area. The wood tries to
burn all the way around each piece, which starves the fire for
oxygen. This makes the fire burn cooler to the point it
cannot get enough heat to burn up the smoke so it exits the
chimney un-burnt. This causes low efficientcey, and excessive
emissions.
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If you do not have a good supply of good wood
do not buy a outdoor wood furnace. These stoves can save you a
lot of money, but if you have to pay for your wood it will take
a long time to recover your expenses. If you have to purchase
your fuel, consider a coal or corn furnace, as these can be more
economical to use in these situations.
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Using your furnace for hot water only in the
summer may sound like a good idea, but it is not in most
situations. The smell of an idling furnace on a warm humid
summer day is not what most people want in the middle of the
summer. The exceptions to this are if you are also using it to
heat a pool, or hot tub, or large amounts of domestic hot water.
In most situations if the furnace is working hard, it will not
smoke as much.
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If you would like more information on our furnaces or parts
please fill out the form below or give us a call at
800-571-7002 or email us
at
rsd@wdheat.com
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