Why We Heat with WOOD | Outdoor Wood Boiler | Wood Burning Fireplace 

My friend outside of Orono Maine put his Wood Boiler inside of a metal shed, big enough to contain the Boiler, 10 cords of wood, his Riding Mower, and all of his Wood Cutting equipment and Garden Tools. It keeps the wood and stuff completely dry, warm enough to start right up, and the boiler has practically no rust on the outside or internal doors. The Vent Pipe goes right out the wall which is metal, no chance of fire...

We've been using an outdoor boiler for about 9 years, and love it . I haven't bought any wood so far, I've gotten all the wood I need from blowdowns. I want to warn you though be very, very careful when loading wood into your stove!! I read all of the warnings and cautions and was careful, however after about 6 years of using my stove I got complacent and almost cut off my middle finger on my right hand. Though I have a different brand stove then yours, the front door lip is exactly like mine and if you aren't careful it WILL hurt you!

Hey great video I am a Portage & Main dealer and glad you like the boiler. They are great boilers and will give you many years of service. It was unfortunate you had a leak in your pex in your new home. I did notice you used Shark-Bites to connect your heating coil. I recommend you solder / sweat on permanent pex fittings. When you shut the system down with the cooler water temperature they can leak because of the expansion and contraction of the water it will stretch the fitting over time. Just don't want to see you have to cut into your drywall again . All the Best with your new boiler Sean

I live in North Dakota. For the past 30 years my parents have used one of these. We would fill it in the morning and again at night. They are very nice. Many up here use them.

This is fascinating. Lived in Texas my whole life and never heard of this. We hope to build our own place some day, and I’ll keep this in mind.

It’s always so interesting to see American homes place their finances in the attic, as a Canadian 🇨🇦 it’s hard for me to get used to seeing haha but it works!

Awesome! We heat with a boiler as well and wouldn’t have it any other way. What a heart-breaker with the leaking line! I’m so glad that I installed it myself so that I can troubleshoot issues as they pop up. It’s not all work, we’re heating our hot tub with it as well! Happy heating.

Been running a OWB in the snow belt of the Great Lakes. Fantastic solution for heating a house and separate workshop and the in floor heating we have is quite lovely in winter (especially my wood shop). First year was a learning curve - second year I built a covered woodshed and a separate awning in front of the stove and built a wood cart. What a dream to load dry wood in a blizzard. Now I cut ‘wife size’ wood per the advice of my elders 😂 - turns out it is also kid size! The OWB gets better and better as the years go by and the kiddos get bigger. Well done sir!

Thank you for sharing this. We have always wanted an outdoor boiler as my husband is a woodsman so this offered another perspective to educate us on the benefits and process. Thank you!

Great to see you Cam！ Canning and gardening brought me to the channel, but great to see the work both you and Becky are doing. Fantastic content! I imagine you fee a great sense of satisfaction to have the system up and running:) Always love to watch others trouble shooting (helps me to smile and be patient when inevitable problems arise on projects). Thanks for your hard work and willingness to share your work with us.

Your heating solutions are right on! 👌

Love the video. Just an idea: stack the wood on the other side of the furnace so you don’t have to walk around the door every time?

We have been researching wood burning boilers for our new home in SW Virginia. Thanks so much for this - it helps in our decision making.

Just got a new efficient fireplace insert. Love it! Childhood memories cutting splitting wood with my Dad. And still cutting every fall together!

We heat exclusively with firewood....I absolutely love it! Plus it's instilling a work ethic in our kids...

Great video and explanation. We just have a large wood stove in our house, but upgrading to a outdoor broiler and retrofitting to our central air may be something we do in the future. Thanks for sharing the video!

Good job, Cam 👏👍😁 I enjoy your videos and your family so much. Have a great day

You guys really do your research for all your projects. Your home looks so warm and cozy. I could feel your frustration in having to tear down a new wall. We have had annoying problems like that too. So frustrating in a new house with new walls. I would love to be as self sufficient as you guys. Maybe one day. Thank you for taking us along on your journey.

I would love you to a house tour of your new home, it's absolutely stunning.

your videos are so inspiring. love you guys

Nicely done!

It's an educational for me ......I'm learning new things......

Very cool system. Thanks for sharing :)

Loved this video!

I feel your pain about the wall. Time will heal, or someone will throw a baseball through the wall there and it won't be such a big deal! I'm impressed you found the holes in the pipes. Good job.

I do the same. Well insulated homes can be heated by a single hi-tech fireplace. We plant two tree saplings for anyone we cut.

We live in Canada and do the majority of our hearing with a Vermont Castings wood stove. We love it! It’s so cozy and such a nice heat. We do have a natural gas furnace that kicks in at night if the fire goes out. We also sometimes use the fur case fan to distribute the heat better throughout the house.

Great idea

no need to despair patching drywall - it generally patches good as new; great video !

very cool!!!

I love it 👍

How awesome!

As a little girl I have to go 3-4 times in the woods (weekly),with my grandparents from my mom side ( not in winter time),to bring wood in our backs,for cooking ( to cook on the stove the best food),also to warm up the rooms,wasn't much money to buy the wood, maybe some people will said poor girl, wasn't bad,just part of our life.

That was a really good video.

I have a boiler that heat water for cast iron radiators and for the shower. I installed that in the garage because i don' t want to go out to fill the fournace. I burn wood 4 feet long and I made many iron frames to move them with the tractor and the transpallet in to the garage. The stove doesn'have any fan, he has a pump that push the water in to a reservoir of 400 gallons.

Hello I'm your new subscriber,and I'm from Philippines 😊

I love a wood burner

Good Man.

hi there nice show john

Beautiful property! Where are you located? We live in northern Indiana and have used an outside wood burner to heat our home for 15 years. The savings are considerable if you have access to wood. Congratulations on your beautiful home.

I am on my 7th season with that same boiler and am happy with it. When I hooked up all the plumbing I used Shark bites because the seamed easy to use. I only have 4 of them left in the system because they leaked when heating up and cooling off. It is all crimp rings now.

Good presentation. I see so many channels about wood boilers and almost all split wood down so small, and I don’t know why? Sensibly, you use larger pieces that take longer to burn. Hope to see more! Len (Devon 🇬🇧)

I would love one of those for a snowmelt system for my driveway and sidewalk.

My brother has an outdoor wood stove. I’d actually classify it as an incinerator. It’s tremendous. We live in upstate NY and he heats his 5000 square foot house and garage. He also has a concrete driveway that’s heated by it so it’s the one place he doesn’t have to plow😂… additionally it’s connected to his central air and water heater. Runs his entire house! He happens be a contractor so he did everything himself and has an endless supply of wood…but I envy his almost non existent electric bill! It’s awesome if you can do it that’s for sure.

I'm a licensed HVAC/R service contractor. That is a nice residential application boiler system. I like the versatility of the design, in that it is used to heat air and potable water. I'm assuming there are automatic safeties and manual safeties built into the boiler, such as high pressure safety switches on the water vessel portion as well as low water level and high water level safety switches and high temperature safety switches for the water vessel and for the combustion chamber. That is how gas-fired boilers are designed Some safeties require a manual reset to get the boiler back online; other safeties automatically reset themselves once the alarm conditions no longer exists. However, for gas-fired boiler ignition systems and for gas-fired furnace ignition systems, typically, three attempts to ignite the gas will be allowed. If no combustion is obtained by the third attempt, the ignition system goes into a "hard lockout" which requires a technician to come out and do a manual reset. This feature forces a technician to have to come to the scene to troubleshoot what led to the failure to ignite within three attempts. Again, that's a nice system you have and the redundancy tbuilt in to back it up is well thought out.

Yeah I'm about 3 hours from portage you should put their link down in your description or in the comments area. I'm telling you right now northern Maine people are the most kindest people ever. We help each other no matter what

I seen something like that in Lithuania - old farm homes. People built them.

This was very interesting to watch; I've never heard of an outside boiler before. Quick question - since you use felled trees for the boiler, do you intentionally plant new trees on your property to rotate the trees and ensure you will have trees in 15-20 years? Thank you for these videos, btw. I've been quite inspired!

My grandparents liked using wood in their furnace during the depression. Coal was too pricey. Wood gave a moister heat than coal. The trees on their farm were bountiful in those days. Corn cobs were burned in their stove for cooking.

Some people in my area who built houses with floor heating put those outdoor wood burners in after they started getting their heating/gas bills.

In Germany you can buy water-bearing fireplaces for example from the company Brunner A mix of a fireplace with a lot of mass (to store heat) and your wood boiler in one The heat exchanger is built directly into the fireplace and with it you can also operate radiators or floor heating and also certainly your hot water for the shower etc.

I'll stick with my woodstove. It heats a 1200sq' cabin really well

This is pretty cool. For myself, I wonder if I can keep that kind of labor up when I’m in my golden years? Hauling, cutting, and splitting wood would become difficult for someone when they get older (maybe I’m looking too much into it). But I still think it’s neat, especially your two other back up heat sources.

Get yourself a pulp wood hook grippo made in Canada great tool if you cut a lot of wood and for loading stove run a central boiler for 13 years now for my new house

We've been getting hosed by the local propane company and are now looking into a similar setup. We have plenty of our own wood too.

I'm thinking bout one if it helps heat up a private runway!!! great video and Im gonna be getting one as soon as I move to my new place in a couple weeks. Upstate NY..

check out heatmor boilers. im on my 18th winter with mine. clean out is an auger and very easy to go into a bucket to cool. no shovel or slide bin to worry with

Can you figure out some way to use the hot ashes to heat an outdoor bathtub ?

My wood stove is in the basement w/ an awning over the sliding glass door where I back my trailer up and a woodshed along side my house.. I stay dry getting wood all winter.. Mine burns wood or coal, wood burns at 500F, coal 1500F, when I add air the Temp. doubles.. I could forge metal in my woodstove, but I never need it that hot... I can't use coal till the Temp. drops below 20F or I have to open windows to let out the heat - It happened twice.

They have been around for a long time. Way back at least 1970s.

Awesome video Cam, I could listen to the dulcet sounds of your voice talk about cutting and burning wood all day long. 😂 Can you burn unseasoned wood in your boiler? I had issues burning unseasoned wood my first winter in our fireplace and got a good amount of creosote build up. I’m trying to plan better by splitting my wood a year in advance to make sure it’s seasoned well.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Thanks, would love to heat with wood but my wife is allergic to wood smoke. Our 1971 house, on our half acre, is all electric; so propane is my next choice. God Bless and stay safe.

How much wood does it take in a season? Seems like a cool off grid thing to have. But i imagine you'll need more than a couple trees to get through a winter.

wow very interesting to hear your reasons for choosing a wood boiler! I'd never heard of such a device, but after hearing your logic, I agree that it's the best option especially because of your free fuel. I don't know how big your land/forest is, but I'm curious to know the growth rate versus your burn rate. Thank you for all the information you share with us!

I've been heating with a water stove for 11 years, Hicks Water Stove, Mount Airy North Carolina. Highly recommend. In addition to the 99000 btu coil in my air handler, there's 125000 BTU hot water heater. Four packs coming and going from stove to house. When you fixed that leak did you scab in a section of PEX or did you wrap in epoxy, rubber gasket material?

HAVE HAD A PORTAGE AND MAIN WOOD BOILER FOR SEVERAL YEARS. WE'VE HAD OTHERS BUT THE PORTAGE AND MAIN USES LESS WOOD THAN THE OTHERS WE'VE HAD. GOOD DESIGN I GUESS. ARTER 30 YEARS OF USING OWB. I STILL DON'T LIKE GOING OUTSIDE FOR THE LAST FILL OF THE NIGHT WHEN IT'S BLOWING SNOW AND 20-30 BELOW ZERO F. NICE VIEO

We have had a central boiler sense summer of 2006 saves thousands of $$$$ each year. Only thing I seen I would of did differently is run the underground through the foundation. Less heat loss that way.

when splitting wood with an axe try put the wood in 2 or 3 old car tires. that way you split the logs and dont have to pick em up again for the next split.

Looks great, i'd hate carrying the wood around the door, personally id keep the wood on the other side

At the beginning, you are sharpening your chainsaw. Can you please do a video on how to maintain a chainsaw? Thanks!

How often do you load the wood?

Don’t forget a forth time: when you stack it.

What do you use for domestic hot water in summer months? You are so blessed great set up

Very informative. Thank you for your time. We are looking to hear a commercial premises in the U.K. but the industry of wood burning is small here. What brand and model is the unit please? Will see if I can get anything shipped here. Thanks in advance 😊

The wood boiler is cool. I like that it doubles as a water heater. I don't get how hot water is made in the other seasons though. Conventional water heater? Propane/Electric?

We have one of these :)

Portgage and Main! that's a famous intersection in Winnipeg, Manitoba! (Winterpeg). I used to live there. anyway, carry on.

Interesting. Never heard of this - it sounds very efficient. I wondered if you considered green options for energy, especially since you were building from scratch? PVs or geothermal heating for example?

I was going to get an outdoor wood boiler, but my state has some ridiculous requirements for getting one. I have a neighbor who is within 200 feet of me, therefore i can't install one of these. But I have a wood stove and that's totally fine apparently. Go figure.

You have probably figuren that yourself, bit i were you I would have buildt a shed or something around that boiler. Could work as heat source for a greenhouse or likewise

As a daughter of a lumberjack you need to wear ear protection, face screen, and you need to wear chaps that will protect you from the blade and steel toe boots. Because I'm going to tell you this right now your family needs you and you need your body. Please be more protective because my father was cutting down a tree and it kick back and it cut him. And this is back in the late '70s. Everyone I know up in northern Maine where is protection so please wear protection

I totally understand boilers , north of St.Louis. For people in their teens through their early forties. But Iam in my mid sixties. And this running out twice a day in below freezing temps to stoke wood is for the birds Do yourself a favor and install a Geo Thermal system now! While it's cheap. The price ain't going to go down . It will pay for itself in 12-15 years.

Curious as to why you had the insulated pex pipe come out of the ground outside the house and then in through a wall? Wouldn't it be more efficient if it went under the slab and up through it directly into the house? That way the pipe is within the envelope of the conditioned house and not exposed directly to outside air even if it's only for a few feet.

I see them all the time up here in Canada. How long are they rated to last?

Does the boiler have a catalytic converter ?

Contact your local Dpw tree department and ask if they could deliver downed trees they clear off the roads as they take up a lot of room in the town dump and they usually are overjoyed at a local resident who wants and heats with wood.

Where did you get the plenum piece for you furnace to make to boiler water go through it?

Great vids. Just found you and subbed. I have a video coming out on Wednesday that probably every boiler user should see. Been burning since 2014 and first time I started my adjacent wood pile on fire. Be interested in your comments on why. Thanks. Nebraska WoodSTR

How long doe's those three logs last,before you have to refers the boiler?

I may have missed it, but does the wood boiler also heat your water for showers and sinks? Thanks

Looking good boss. But don't forget to install cameras and buy yourself a nice shotgun for protection👍

I knew it was possible in the way that one knows far off places they’ve never been to exist, but I’ve never seen how a chain saw is sharpened. At least that’s what I assume was happening at the beginning. Maybe I’m wrong.

Hi, Cam, You say that wood comes free. Do you own some part of the forest there, or how? Would it be cost-effective if you were to by that would? And do I get it right that there is no need for the logs to get dry? Nice set-up anyway Glad for you

Outside wood stoves are stupid. You have to go out when it's freezing to add wood. I use to heat with wood coal and oil, 4 years ago I got geothermal total cost $15000. All I have to do now is just change air filter. I no longer have to carry coal, and then the ashes, not more cutting wood, no more oil. Cost about $50 a month to heat my house in the winter and I live in western NY. Best investment I ever made.

New to the channel. Why don't you have any insulation in your stud bay?

What happens if you get hurt or are unable to cut your own wood? This looks like a young persons job. Did you consider geothermal and heat pumps as other sources to heat and cool?

Just a tip. Don't leave the ash pan in the boiler. Just open the door and push it in. It's like a shovel.

How do you heat your water in the summer (out of season)?

Are you cutting trees for fuel or are you using just trees that have fallen.? Do you track your costs for all expenditures and actually know what you expenses are?