Using wood to heat your home might sound old-fashioned, but it’ll never go out of style. Modern designs for residential furnaces that burn wood for heat are a lot more advanced than the old wood stove. These outdoor structures stay separate from your home, but allow you to heat all of its rooms throughout.
Whether you’re trying to save money, save the planet, or just save yourself from a cold winter, there are many advantages to a contemporary wood-burning furnace. Here are just a few of the most obvious.
- CostWhen you have access to your own wood — either by cutting it yourself or getting it from someone else — an outdoor wood furnace can make your heating bills disappear. Almost any type of wood, from scraps to branches to brush as well as logs and lumber, can be burned efficiently in residential furnaces. Over the course of a decade, that means lots of savings for building owners: as much as $10,000 to $50,000, according to some estimates.
- ConvenienceThere are around 200,000 outdoor wood burning furnaces being used today, and with good reason. Unlike traditional indoor wood stoves, an outdoor furnace can be used to heat your home using existing duct work. Keeping the burning wood in a safe and separate structure outside the home also protects you and your family from fire hazards. In general, most outdoor residential furnaces only need to be loaded once or twice a day for ample, thorough heating.
- ReliabilityThe outdoor system is a reliable way to heat your home throughout. Its design allows you to use as much as 25% to 70% less wood than a traditional wood furnace. It’s also far more efficient than most other fuel or heating sources. Instead of one very warm room with a wood stove and a drafty house throughout the rest, outdoor residential furnaces distribute heat evenly so that your entire home is comfortable throughout the coldest of winters.
With just a bit of scrap wood, you can stay safe, warm, and comfortable, no matter what Mother Nature throws at you. Wood burning furnaces aren’t a relic of the past — they’re the heating wave of the future!