This is the Easiest System for Self Installers!
Basic Installation Instructions for the Water-Less Wood Furnace
It is simple with NO COMPUTERIZED parts of circuit boards!
We help you every step of the way!
Over 80 - 90% of our customers install this outdoor wood furnace themselves!
You will NOT void the warranty by installing the furnace yourself!
Every furnace comes with a complete detailed manual with lots of pictures and diagrams!
If you have any technical questions or need any help whatsoever, please call 828-683-0025
Installing an outdoor wood furnace can be broken down simply. The parts needed will usually cost about $650 if the outdoor furnace is 50 feet from your home, including pre-made pre-insulated Pex pipe:
1- Pour a 4" thick concrete pad to support the furnace because our smallest furnace weighs almost 1600 lb empty and about 2400 lb (over a TON) filled with water!
It will take only 1/2 yard of concrete for a nice concrete pad (approx 4" thick), that can be mixed in a wheelbarrow, giving you a nice place to stand and load wood.
You can also use SOLID concrete blocks or railroad ties - anything that will be stable and support the furnace.
2- Dig a trench, making sure it's below the frost line, to prevent excessive heat loss and freezing. This is the maximum depth to which frost will penetrate the ground during the worst of winter. This depth varies from area to area but is usually just 12" or less in our area (WNC). See this frost line map or call your local building inspector's office.
Putting the Pex lines below the frost line (click here to see map) is not mandatory but it will save a lot of heat loss and limit wood use. The ground temperature below the frost line is 50-55 degrees, even in winter, so heat loss is minimal. It's like laying the pipe on the ground on a spring day. Otherwise, the ground can be well below freezing!
Trenchers, ditch-witches and small backhoes can be rented inexpensively allowing you to dig the trench yourself with little effort, avoiding $40-60 an hour charge from your local landscaper or septic tank installer.
A local plumber will often do it as well (but you don't need them to connect the Pex water lines because you can use simple push-to-connect SharkBite fittings.)
You will be placing insulated Pex pipe, which has two 1" PEX pipes plus two 3/4"Pex Pipes (one doubles as a fill line, to top off the furnace) which are wrapped 3-5 times with insulation and are put inside a 4" drain tile type of pipe. You will also bury a 12/3 110V wire in a 4" or 6" PVC pipe. The pipe is placed in a trench, from the outdoor furnace to the house.
3- If you are connecting a hot water heater you will need another pump ($99), mounted indoors, on your hot water heater tank. This also supplies water to fill your outside furnace! See info and picture below. A picture of insulated Pex pipe is at the link below.
4- Install the heat exchanger in the furnace's output plenum ($150 up - U.S. made). We have well over 40 different sizes of heat exchangers to fit your plenum so that little or no metal work is needed! We can even have a heat exchanger custom made - in the U.S. - for as little as $202.
(If hooking it to a boiler, you will install a water-to-water heat exchanger DIAGRAM HERE).
5- Connect the 1" PEX pipe at the furnace and at the heat exchanger. We use simple compression fittings or SharkBite™ style fittings, so a plumber is not needed! SharkBite type fittings are simple push-on fittings.
6- Connect the 3/4" PEX pipe at the hot water heater, again using simple SharkBite fittings (push on by hand). No expensive side-arm heat or plate heat exchanger is needed - since potable hot water is circulated directly from the hot water heater through the built-in domestic hot water heat exchanger furnace. It goes back to your hot water heater already heated up! This can save you $30-65 a month!
This also saves you about $300 on a side-arm or plate heat exchanger and tempering or mixing valve. You will never run out of hot water again!
7- Install a new 15A circuit breaker ($8-15) in your breaker box and connect the 110V wire to the breaker and out at the furnace. You can also get a power source from an existing wall plug, etc. (You wire up the back of the furnace including the light - which is shipped in the firebox, so it doesn't get damaged.)
You can use a 12/3 wire to power up the furnace, so that the pump runs on demand, instead of 24/7, like with other furnaces. The third wire in the 12/3 wire is used for the pump instead of special thermostat wire, so that it only runs when your furnace fan (or boiler pump) is running.
8- Install a simple 2-wire thermostat ($15-20 at Lowe's) and hook it up to your existing thermostat. This allows the fan to be turned of and on as heat is needed, without turning on your furnace. This way, your existing furnace will come on automatically as needed, as a backup (if you has a snowstorm and couldn't get home, for example).
9- Fill with water. Start a fire!
10- You have started saving money!
Remember, this is just an overview. You will get a comprehensive 71 page manual with lots of pictures and diagrams to make it super easy for you! Over 85-90% of our customers install the furnaces themselves! That's how simple it is.
Insulated Pex pipe and very other part that you may need
...shipped in nice neat kits so that you are not running around asking for parts that no one knows about!
Ted’s website and insulated Pex pipe page is at: https://outdoor-wood-furnace-parts.com/Insulated-Underground-Pex-Pipe.htm
Please call Ted at Abbott Boiler Parts 828-687-4074. He has every part that you will need including your heat exchanger and Pex Pipe. He offers no sales tax and the lowest guaranteed prices in the country! He was always calling me to change his website and lower the prices. I asked him why and he said he got a better deal from his suppliers and he always wants to pass it on to the customer, instead of keeping it for himself. That is rare these days!