That is exactly what I have at my home. I installed the furnace outside - about 30 feet from the house and built a room around it - attached to the house. Has a virtually fireproof chimney built to Canadian specs instead of U.S. Canadian specs require a much more burn-out proof and better insulated chimney.
By having the room and furnace attached to our house - we never have to go outside to load it, we can store two full cords of wood in the room where it gets very dry, and we even hang our wet clothes in there in the winter and they dry very fast.
This setup that I built has exceeded my expectations. It is hot air for heat - with hot water coils hooked via thermo-siphon to an 80 gallon storage tank. That storage tank is hooked in series with a 30 gallon propane heater. The wood makes more hot water than we can use all winter. Summer we have solar hooked to the 80 gallon pre-tank. So, the propane heater rarely comes on.
Hot air heat ducts are 8" and 10" insulated flex-pipe - stuck into hard plastic corrugated conduit (culvert pipe) where they are buried underground to several areas of the house.
This room and furnace are installed at ground level - NOT in the basement. The original part of the house was built in 1830 and I added a two-story addition that's larger than the original house. So, the house sprawls a lot sideways and is not easy to distribute heat in. As you can see in the photos - there's much I did not completely finish. No siding on the furnace building, for one thing. I build all myself - no help from anyone - and also have a little kid with me all the time - so things go slow at times and I often switch projects, back and forth.
The only downside to this furnace hookup is the electricity the blower uses. With a wood furnace - in the winter - the blower runs just about 24 hours a day when the fire is hot. It has to - unlike an oil or gas furnace that comes on and off. We are on a solar 5400 watt grid-tie electric system so we don't pay anything for electricity - at least not by the month. Having solar is kind of like paying all your future electricity bills all at once. But, with prices going up - we're making out. I have a total out-of -pocket investment in the solar of around $20,000. More half of the total cost got payed for by State and Federal incentives.
Our electric consumption goes from 275-300 KWH per month in the summer - to 600 KWH per month in the winter - and much of that increase is due to the furnace blower running all the time. In our case, we still make more electricity overall - then we use so it's no problem.
Keep in mind the chimney. It's kind of a "corporate kept secret" in the U.S.A. that most companies that make stainless steel pipe - make a U.S and a Canadian version. Very little price difference - but the Canadian pipe is far superior. Takes a lot of jerking around to get it though - when you are a U.S. citizen. Luckily, I live near the NY/Canuck border.
I also suggest that if you plan to have your hot-air furnace heat your domestic hot water - do NOT use a circulator. It's a total waste. Since a wood fire runs constantly, slow and steady - it will make more hot water than you can ever use with just a thermo-sipon hookup.
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Today's Featured Article - A Cautionary Tale - by Ian Minshull. In the early 1950s my father bought an Allis Chalmers B and I used it for all the row crop work with the mangolds and potatoes, rolling and the haymaking on our farm. The farm and the Allis were sold and I have spent a lifetime working on farms throughout the country. I promised myself that one day I would own an Allis. That time event
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