[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Wood-burning Cooking, Central Heating, & Hot Water: Advice Needed

[Lawrence Lile]

Quite ambitious, Mary.  

I've had various combinations of wood stoves, wood fired hot water
heaters, and so on.  You do spend a lot of time building fires.  

An electric hotplate is an inefficient use of electricity if you are off
grid, I'd recommend a small microwave they use a lot less juice.  We
also resorted to a regular propane stove, the amount of propane you use
for cooking is minimal compared to heating and water heating. We bought
the smallest tank they would sell and filled it up every couple of
years. 

In the summer, you don't want all that heat, which is why we had a
separate heating stove and wood fired hot water heater.  This is also
why people used to have "summer kitchens", screened in areas with a
stove and a work table. 
The wood fired hot water heater was installed outdoors, but had a door
sticking through a wall so we could fuel it from indoors.  Pretty handy,
but it smoked a lot until it started drawing properly. Being in the
house, that was a problem.  All homemade stuff, so you'd get better
performance with a commercial unit.  

We always wanted small kindling for the water heater, you'll want the
same for the wood cooker.  We ran upon a huge pile of wooden plaster
lath left over from a demolition project that made baths for many years.
Willow might make pretty good kindling, since it makes a lot of small
wood, if it was dry. 

Considering everything, the constant building of fires made things into
quite a hassle, and I eventually moved away from trying to use wood for
all my household energy.  
 
 
Lawrence Lile, P.E., LEED AP

-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Mary Bull
- Greenwood Earth Alliance
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 10:59 AM
To: Greenbuilding
Subject: [BULK] [Greenbuilding] Wood-burning Cooking, Central Heating, &
Hot Water: Advice Needed
Importance: Low

MaizeGreetings, Greenwbuilders,

We are seriously considering a wood-burning stove for central heating,
cooking, and hot water. Waterford-Stanley makes several models that do
all
this. There are other, cheaper wood-burning stoves, but we would have to
design our own interface for central heat and hot water (most of the
lower
end woodburning cook-stoves have reservoirs, but that doesn't seem too
practical except maybe to do the dishes).

Evidently, willow is the fastest growing biomass for solid fuel. It
grows
profusely on our land, and we can further cultivate it for fuel
(however, I
don't know, as yet, how much is needed for a continuous supply; nor how
it
should be prepared (does anyone know off-hand?).

The advantages are...

-zero carbon footprint.
-one unit performs all three functions (seems simpler...does this save
money?)
-we could lose the "backup" woodburning stove, which we would have in
case
the power went out--saving space in the small room (note: probably no
$$-savings here as the unit costs as much or more than the woodburning
stove
and a low-end conventional stove combined, but may save on dedicated
water-heating and central heating appliances...?)

The only disadvantage that we can see is...

-the lead-in time to fire up the stove for heat, hot water, and cooking.
(However, we could have a hot-plate for cooking when we are in a rush).

Could this work with a solar hot water unit, do you think? Has anyone
had
any experience with this?

Waterford Stanley also has a compact electric stove with an lpg or oil
boiler that is compatible with radiant floor heating... The advantage of
this is that it is small, and does all three functions. The
disadvantages
are that it relies on fossil fuel for two of those functions, and when
the
power goes out, we have no back-up cooking or heating function.

Note: We are using solar panels to generate our electricity, but these
will
be connected to the grid without a battery back-up (a condition for the
California rebate of half the cost of the hardware)

Thoughts on any of this?

Many Thanks!

Mary

Mary Bull, Co-director
Greenwood Earth Alliance, Save the Redwoods - Boycott the Gap Campaign
252 Frederick, San Francisco, CA 94117 http://www.gapsucks.org
Chalice Farm and Sustainable Living Center, 748 Montgomery Rd,
Sebastopol CA
95472
415-731-7924 - 415-509-1188 chalicenew at earthlink.net



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