Outdoor wood stoves

I have an Inspection on Sat. that has an outdoor wood stove. Anybody have any information on these?

First and foremost, Disclaim it! I usually will give general knowledge and conceptual information on these, but it is too difficult to tell past maintance, present working order (or future working order) or capacity to heat house, water and outbuildings. Highly recommend a pro go over it, especially if that is the only source (or primary source) of heat in a house. They must have a good feel for how to operate it, and maintain it. If a 60-year-old widow is buying this place, maybe they should not use it.

Side note, there are a lot of brands out there, and a hence a lot of salesmen who are not necessarily pros.!

Someone else have anything else to say?

I have one. But I’d certainly disclaim it if I inspected a house with one. Things you may wish to look for:

  1. Check wiring at unit and make sure it is appropriate type (if visible).

  2. Check any exposed water lines at unit…are they protected from freezing (if you live in such a climate).

  3. My house has 2 systems and 2 thermostats. One for the outdoor boiler and a separate thermostat for the heat pump, which is my auxiliary heat source. If a backup system is *not *present, you may want to point out the downside (getting home from a long weekend and the house is cold and it will take it 12 hours to heat up).

  4. Most boilers also supply hot potable water. See if the water heater is off and if water is hot.

  5. There should be a check valve somewhere in the supply line to the boiler water jacket (mine is at the boiler) to prevent backflow contamination of the drinking water system. Extermely important whether or not you disclaim the system in my opinion.

  6. It would be nice if all valves were labeled (mine aren’t).

  7. The HVAC system blower should be automatically controlled by the thermostat…not run continuously.

8 - A fan on the boiler should be automatically controlled by a thermostat measuring the water temperature in the water jacket (when the water temp. gets low, the fan comes on to stoke the fire).

  1. Water lines in unconditioned areas (crawl space/basement) should be insulated to conserve heat.

  2. If it’s on, does it blow hot air? :slight_smile:

I dont know much about them but I do know a guy that is making his own!

I bought one of these from ChimneyHeaters.com . I installed and it works fine. Heats my 2000 square foot house. I have the pump connected to a UPS but I am not sure how long the pump will run if the electric goes out. I had it installed all winter and did not have to turn on my Electric heat once which saved me about 200 euro a month here in Romania.

The Electric is not stable here so I had to rush to take out the fire a couple of times because the water pump had stopped and the pressure valves were going off. The UPS will solve that but I dont know how long a UPS will keep my central pump going. I will attach a pic of what chimney heaters are in case you are not familiar with them. The pump is a Grundfos and has three speeds.

If it’s possible I would have the current homeowner explain to you and your client how they operate the system. They most likely have a primary heating source that is tied into the wood boiler. There appears to be many different opinions on the best way to hook into your current system. Like others have said, disclaim it but try to learn more about it. Chances are it is now shut down for summer unless they are only heating the hot water/pool, etc with it. Just look for the obvious issues that you can see.