Have a look at wood gasifiers. Those can be very efficient (up to 94%) and have a very complete combustion due to the high temperatures, so no smoke. I looked at them when my old gas furnace was acting up, but I don't have a ready source of wood available. Most gasifiers do need electricity for the fans and the control circuitry. But a solar-powered battery pack might help there in case of power outages.

Some brands I've found were atmos, [orlan (in Dutch)][] and eta. The atmos machines meet the highest European standard for pollution (EN 303-5 class 3).

I think Mark would like GEK's gasifier experiment kit. Their power pallet could deliver both heat and electricity. The problem is that the need for power and electricity isn't always coupled, and I don't know how versatile this machine is. And I guess you'd also like their biochar machine. What I like is that their designs are open source, and use off-the-shelf parts where possible. If I had a house in the country with a lot of wood, I'd be tempted to get a power pallet. Or use the gasifier to make fuel for a small gas turbine driving a generator.

Those sound interesting, but way too big for us! As you'll see in a later post, I'm coming to realize that as tiny as our trailer is, we need a very, very small option.

It does not only depend on size, but also on how well insulated your trailer is, how warm you want it and if you also want it to heat tapwater. The gas heater for my flat is rated between 6-24 kW.

You can also get a modern wood stove. Those can be up to 80% efficient. But do get a model that takes its combustion air from the outside. Preferably by means of a concenctric pipe around the exhaust, so the exhaust gasses pre-heat the combustion air.

A soapstone stove gives off an even heat long after the wood has burned down, but can still has a hot fire for efficient combustion. They do tend to be heavy, though.

Or maybe a rocket stove mass heater will do?

I'd be curious to hear your take on this page --- http://www.woodheat.org/outdoorair/outdoorairmyth.htm. Do you think the guy's arguments make sense?

I don't agree with his assessment. (a bit long and maybe rambling, it's late and I need to catch some sleep)

When open coal furnaces were common in the Netherlands, there were large numbers of fatalities and hospitalizations due to carbon monoxide poisoning. This decreased somewhat when most people switched to natural gas. But still there were a significant number of deaths and hospitalizations. So at a certain moment open hearts and central heating devices >20 kW were banned. Between 1970 an 2008, deaths trough accidental poisonings in the Netherlands dropped by 23% (source: www.swov.nl, unfortunately CO poisonings aren't registered seperately).

Current hearts >20 kW must be enclosed and get their oxygen from outside. Modern heaters all have forced ventilation for reasons I'll explain below.

I disagree that a passive air supply is useless. If the leaks around windows and doors didn't form a passive air supply, you'd poison yourself every time you lit a fire! If his argument is that a passive air supply doesn't reliably supply combustion air, than how come the normal leak spots in a house are enough?

WRT air blowing into the chimney; normally the weatherhood is designed to prevent air blowing into the chimney. There is however a tension between efficiency of a furnace and draft! A very efficient furnace will have a relatively low exhaust temperature. But a higher exhaust temperature will draft better.

Essentially for a furnace without separate and forced ventilation, the hot exhaust gas is the "engine" that has to pull the air through the gaps around doors and windows and through other leaks into the house and then through the furnace. If the house is relatively leaky, this is quite easy. But the better a house is insulated and people have been sealing leaks, the harder it becomes for the fire to get enough oxygen. Personally I think it is better for a fire to have an air supply directly to the combustion chamber, preferably with a heat exchanger to let the exhaust gases heat the incoming air, and not leave that to the vagaries of chance.

Basically, there are several things you'd want from a good (wood) heater

• high efficiency, which requires
  • complete combustion ("afterburner")
  • low flue gas temperature (you don't want your presious heat flowing out of the chimney)
• low chance of CO poisoning (requires a closed system)
• no indoor pollution (requires an exhaust fan, to create a negative pressure in the furnace)

You have to realize the efficiency thats posted on EPA'S website 63% is default from the EPA. The Caddy made by PSG is higher than 63%. Yes a good woodfurnace is expensive, but many improvements have been made to increase efficiency. We heat a 2400 sq ft victorian home with our Caddy woodfurnace. No smoke enters the home, the burn times are long and the furnace uses little wood over the old woodfurnace that was here prior. What you have and are describing in the article is an indoor wood furnace, thats probably in the 40% efficiency range. A smoke dragon to todays standard. I use less wood than my neighbors heating with wood stoves, and there homes are smaller.

Matt --- Excellent point on the efficiency numbers. I didn't realize that until I started researching efficient stoves in more depth. Do you know of a better source that gives actual efficiency numbers for stoves?

We decided to go with a small, indoor, efficient stove, and have been very happy with it!

You could slap a couple of thermocouplers on the side of your wood furnace and power the fan off them. Free energy. You have your hot side and cold side from the furnace and cold air from winter... Look up TEG modules, and thermocouplers and read up how they work. You'll see that doesn't matter if power goes off, your fan can run just from the heat of the wood you have in your furnace.

David --- Good idea, and timely since we were just talking about thermoelectric devices this week. We've upgraded to a different stove, but our furnace's new owners might be interested.