Converting gas forced air furnace to Outdoor wood Boiler?

[beretta]

How hard would it be to convert a gas forced air furnace to a forced air system using an outdoor wood boiler? Also what would I be looking at spending? I am looking at buying a new house and dont really want to pay a lot to heat it....plus I just plain old like wood boilers, good exercise, good cheap heat. Any suggestions, tips or experience? Thanks!

[sparkydm]

Check out a Mn company called Central Boiler. An air exchanger goes into the furnace plenum, hot water is then pumped through it and now you have hot water heat! I would like to do this at my house too, I've looked into it some, but not so far as to get pricing. I believe you can buy all the parts through a dealer and do the install yourself.

[beretta]

PERFECT! I live a hlaf hour from Central Boiler. THANKS!

[jerkbait]

Aquatherm would be another also. That is what we installed in our last house in Becker. It was throught the forced air furnace also.

[jltimm]

I just installed a Central Boiler 5036 this year and have been loving it ever since. Heating my 3000 sq ft home easily! It's 75 degrees in here as I type this!

[sparkydm]

Mind if I ask about cost?

[jltimm]

Don't mind at all. I purchased the 5036 this March for a little over $5700.00. This was with a $1350.00 rebate they had at that time. I think with all the parts and also having the Domestic Hot Water heated with the boiler the total was around $8500. Feel free to ask if you have any more questions.

[sparkydm]

Overall, was was it pretty easy?

[jltimm]

The only thing I hired out was the heat exchanger installs. Everything else was fairly simple, must of been because I did it...LOL! If ya have any questions about the install i'll try to answer them. There is also a great HSOforum that has some info and experts to answer questions as well. It's sounds like harborist site dot com but doesn't have the H.

[Eelpout08]

All you need to do is put a hot water heating coil in your supply air plenum, which will probably take a litle bit of sheetmetal work. if your not comfortable with sheetmetal you can talk to a good plumbing and heating shop and have them build the parts for you or install it as well, they can also get a coil. or if your ever around hutchinson i can build it for you. you will also have to hook the furnace up so just the fan(not the furnace's burner) comes on when the t-stat calls for heat. depending on the furnace you may need more parts for that. I put one in my dads house about 10 yrs ago and it works awsome, i wish i didnt live in town so i could have one! always toasty warm and plenty of hot water too. the guys at central boiler are good to work with and i am impressed with their boilers. dads was at least 10 yrs old when he bought it and it is still going strong.

[furnace man]

just like he said put a water coil in and hook up the stat. If you are on the north metro I can give you a hand just let me know.

[JumpStart73]

you can heat your domestic water by a heat exchanger also(something to keep in mind)

[WaveWacker]

Since I was gone deer hunting basically all of Nov. and my wife expecting I didn't fire mine up until this week. Holy smokes. Every year I fire it up, I fall in love with it more. Mine heats the hot water, the to the furnace and on the return it runs through the heat coils in the garage heater.

BTW...mine is a central boiler as well.

[jltimm]

Funny thing.... The Local energy company called today and was wondering if their off peak meter was out of wack because I've been heating my hot water with the boiler. I called them back and told them I now have a boiler to heat my household water.