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I intuited this as well, which is why I stayed with gas heat. These days I'm even wondering if wood heat with a high efficiency furnace makes sense. There are

I intuited this as well, which is why I stayed with gas heat. These days I'm even wondering if wood heat with a high efficiency furnace makes sense. There are so many dead trees around me. The carbon is going to go back either way. In the case of decomposition, there may be other negative effects of leaving it on the ground compared to burning it. I haven't given much thought to a way to capture the heat in a way that can be used later. Ideally I can build some giant container of sand with some cinderblock, run some copper through the sand, and heat both using the wood being burned. Then, I could pump water through the copper which is being passively heated from the sand into my existing hot water baseboard, but it's unlikely to be hot enough - oh well. -- I actually looked at some old quotes I found for mini split installs before and after the tax credits Massachusetts introduced and *big shock*, the price of the installs increased about 90% of the tax credit.

rascul 4y ago
> Ideally I can build some giant container of sand with some cinderblock, run some copper through the sand, and heat both using the wood being burned. Then, I could pump water through the copper which is being passively heated from the sand into my existing hot water baseboard, but it's unlikely to be hot enough - oh well. Is that a similar idea to the sand battery in Finland? It was on HN last year. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006791
throwaway4aday 4y ago
If you have hydronic heating anyways then why not get a wood fired boiler? They're extremely common where I am. Why would you need to store the heat? A wood fire isn't instant on but it doesn't take that long either plus you get the heat from the stove itself well before the baseboards heat up.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  Not OP, but biofuel combustion is not necessarily better than gas from particulate air pollution or climate metrics.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  I have a pretty high efficiency tankless boiler so it would be expensive and wasteful to switch at this point. It is possible to buy a wood fired boiler and hook it up to the house to supplement the tankless but I'm skeptical that makes financial sense.
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    I'm a bit confused since I thought you were talking about hooking up a wood fired furnace of some type. Putting a solid fuel boiler in line with an existing system is pretty common and doesn't have any impact on the system as a whole efficiency wise except for a tiny bit of heat lost to the length of pipe in the boiler when it's not in use but if you don't mind turning valves on and off you can avoid that with some simple plumbing. When I say boiler I'm talking about the heating part of the unit btw, the tank itself is generally separate if you have one at all.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      my understanding is that a wood furnace is meant to be used with wood pellets or properly seasoned wood. using random rotting decaying dead wood outside probably wouldn't be a great idea - I'll need to look into it more.
      - throwaway4aday 4y ago
        Ok, yes that's true, if you burn wet, green or rotten wood it's going to make a lot of smoke. Wood really begins to rot after the first year if it isn't cut, split and properly dried. If you have deadfall around you that you want to use then you need to process it into firewood as quickly as possible and store it somewhere it won't stay wet.

rascul 4y ago

> Ideally I can build some giant container of sand with some cinderblock, run some copper through the sand, and heat both using the wood being burned. Then, I could pump water through the copper which is being passively heated from the sand into my existing hot water baseboard, but it's unlikely to be hot enough - oh well. Is that a similar idea to the sand battery in Finland? It was on HN last year. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006791

throwaway4aday 4y ago

If you have hydronic heating anyways then why not get a wood fired boiler? They're extremely common where I am. Why would you need to store the heat? A wood fire isn't instant on but it doesn't take that long either plus you get the heat from the stove itself well before the baseboards heat up.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
Not OP, but biofuel combustion is not necessarily better than gas from particulate air pollution or climate metrics.
endisneigh 4y ago
I have a pretty high efficiency tankless boiler so it would be expensive and wasteful to switch at this point. It is possible to buy a wood fired boiler and hook it up to the house to supplement the tankless but I'm skeptical that makes financial sense.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  I'm a bit confused since I thought you were talking about hooking up a wood fired furnace of some type. Putting a solid fuel boiler in line with an existing system is pretty common and doesn't have any impact on the system as a whole efficiency wise except for a tiny bit of heat lost to the length of pipe in the boiler when it's not in use but if you don't mind turning valves on and off you can avoid that with some simple plumbing. When I say boiler I'm talking about the heating part of the unit btw, the tank itself is generally separate if you have one at all.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    my understanding is that a wood furnace is meant to be used with wood pellets or properly seasoned wood. using random rotting decaying dead wood outside probably wouldn't be a great idea - I'll need to look into it more.
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      Ok, yes that's true, if you burn wet, green or rotten wood it's going to make a lot of smoke. Wood really begins to rot after the first year if it isn't cut, split and properly dried. If you have deadfall around you that you want to use then you need to process it into firewood as quickly as possible and store it somewhere it won't stay wet.