RE: [GBlist] burning wood, no heating/ backup heat

[Brian McMaster <bmcmaster@swrpc.org>]

I think John D. just made several very good points: that masonry heaters are among the cleanest and most efficient ways to burn wood, and that with good design and attention to tightness and insulation, a building can need very little to no supplemental heat.  

Back to the earlier thread on the question of backup heat, I think its important to remember that underfloor radiant heating is not a way to make heat, but a way to distribute it.  Ideally the water would be heated or at least pre-heated with solar thermal panels, but then boosted as needed to the proper temp. with some kind of water heater or even a boiler.  Your floor and perhaps a storage tank of solar heated water are your heat sinks/ thermal mass.  A good system, no argument.

However, if we start with the assumption that a masonry stove will be the primary heat source aside from passive solar gain, then some big decisions have already been made about arrangement of thermal mass.  The whole point of a masonry stove is to serve as a big thermal mass radiating into your living space.  Although I can imagine a house big enough that one would want to move that heat around with a lot of plumbing in addition to the direct radiant effect, that's probably lot bigger than my 1300+sf.

My point is that both in-floor hydronic, and masonry heater systems are  great but expensive to set up, (yes, you can save $ doing your own work on either)  and that each relies on a very different arrangement of thermal mass. Although not mutually exclusive, it seems to me that backing up a masonry stove with a hydronic system is just buying two complete heating systems for one house.   My money's still on a propane-fired (direct vented of course) space heater to take up any slack between passive solar gains and the wood-fired BTU's once the masonry stove is up to temp.

-----Original Message-----
From:	John Daglish [SMTP:john.daglish@vnumail.com]
Sent:	Friday, January 25, 2002 5:55 AM
To:	dlambert@grasshoppernet.com; List, Greenbuilding
Subject:	[GBlist] burning wood, no heating

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