New Outside Wood Burner

New outside wood burner WOOD STOVES/FURNACES Wood Stoves/Furnaces (20L) 16-6-16 "It's the best-built, most sophisticated out-side wood furnace ever built," says Chuck Dahlgren, president of Acucraft, Inc., manufacturer of a new wood furnace that he says is designed to eliminate many of the problems that have cropped up with other wood burners on the market. "Outside wood burners have become increasingly popular over the past 5 to 10 years but now that many of them have been out there a while, people are starting to have problems such as cracked welds, corrosion, waste of wood when no heat is needed, and so on. We set out to solve all the problems we heard about and add many new features never before seen on a wood burner," says Dahlgren, noting that Acucraft has been in the wood heating business for 13 years with its popular masonry fireplace. The Acucraft furnace is elliptical in shape with domed end sections which Dahlgren says reduces stress on welds as compared to square or cylindrical units. The company also double welds all joints. The firebox is surrounded by a 1,000-gal. water jacket, the outside of which is covered with 3 in. of urethane insulation and a metal housing. One feature that makes the furnace unique is that it's the only wood burner on the market that automatically self ignites when heat is called for and shuts down completely when no longer needed. Most wood burners burn slowly at a "maintenance" level when heat is not needed to keep the fire going. "Savings in wood are tremendous and because of the huge capacity of this furnace (the 1,000-gal. water jacket can store up to 350,000 btu's), in many cases it will only burn an hour or so a day and then shut down," says Dahlgren. The fire is ignited by fuel oil and fed by a forced draft fan. When the thermostat calls for more heat, a fuel oil burner kicks in to ignite the wood. A 30-gal. fuel oil storage tank is built into the furnace. Another unique feature is the furnace's secondary burning chamber. Outside air is fed into the upper chamber where smoke and other gases gather, causing them to ignite. "As a result, the furnace produces almost no smoke and we capture heat which would otherwise be lost, nearly doubling the efficiency of this unit as compared to other similar-size wood burners," says Dahlgren. The fire chamber has a heat exchanger built into it to transfer heat to water, which is then pumped to buildings being heated. The Acucraft water system is equipped with an external expansion tank which allows no oxygen to enter the water jacket chamber, eliminating corrosion problems which have plagued many other units. It also reduces the need to frequently add water. The only water loss is evaporation through the small stand pipe on the expansion tank. Heating capacity of the new furnace is at 750,000 btu/hr., which means it's capable of heating a single home or several farm buildings totalling up to 30,000 sq. ft. Depending on the area being heated, it will only burn as much wood as needed. "We're only making one model because we wanted a unit that could handle the needs of most farms. Also, due to the design of the unit, it would not cost that much less if we built a smaller model," points out Dahlgren, noting that the stove has been undergoing extensive tests the past two winters. He says one prototype, installed on a 7,500 sq. ft. shop in Minnesota, burned an average of just 1 hr. a day last winter and was shut down the rest of the time. "The savings in wood and labor, as compared to other units which burn continually, is tremendous." Sells for $6,500. For more information, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Acucraft, Inc., 20100 West Highway 10, Big Lake, Minn. 55309 (ph 612 263-3156).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.