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In-floor heating, or underfloor heating, is a form of central heating which uses heat conduction and radiant heat for indoor climate control, rather than forced air heating which relies on convection. While there are higher installation costs (unless a gas powered system is already in place) this method of home heating can be a great alternative for those who have issues with severe cold extremities (i.e. feet and legs).
Burnrite can set up our outdoor wood furnaces to provide the heat energy to such a system. By tying the heat exchanger from a Burnrite outdoor wood stoves into your in-floor heating system, we can keep your feet warm and happy!
Interested in using your Burnrite stove for both domestic water and in-floor heating?
Normally, the Burnrite outdoor wood stove is plumbed to a heat exchanger. This allows the outdoor wood furnace to heat a tank of potable water, which in turn can provide domestic hot water and floor heating.
When using the outdoor wood furnace for just hot water, the water from the outdoor wood stove to this heat exchanger flows 24 hours a day in a closed loop, making the heat exchanger "continuously active" (i.e. always hot). Whenever needed, the storage tank draws heat from the heat exchanger and maintains a constant tank temperature. The advantages of a continuously active heat exchanger loop are twofold:
- the pipe from the outdoor wood stove to the house can be buried in a shallow trench (normally about 1 ft.), saving a lot of labor and/or expensive excavation costs (obviously, with constantly circulating hot water in the supply and return lines, freezing is impossible), and
- by keeping the water in the outdoor wood stove constantly circulating, the temperature of the water is even throughout the system.
When you are using the outdoor wood stove for both hot water and in-floor heating, it will not run as constantly, as it will shut off the circulator when the in-home heat hits the point set by the thermostat. So, what this means is that if you want to run a radiant system directly off your wood outdoor wood stove, always bury your supply and return pipes below the frost line. As explained above, the water to and from your house will only be flowing when a radiant zone calls for heat. And because many outdoor wood stoves are 30 to 100 feet away from the home, a lot of water can be sitting in a cold trench for a long time. If that trench is above the frost line, you could have frozen and bursting pipes.