Just got off the phone with their local distributor. Don't know about these outdoor units. It'd be nice to not be dragging wood inside and making a mess with it, and the outdoor unit wouldn't eat up as much floor space inside the building.
But apparently the BTU ratings on these are just at the firebox and it sounds like you'll only get about half of those BTUs into the building.
$7300 for the 500k BTU model that burns both wood and fuel oil, $6300 without the dual-fuel option. That's before heat exchanger. I didn't ask the price on the exchanger.
Because of the kinds of prices I'm looking at, I'm leaning toward an indoor wood-only furnace (plus the other heaters the building will have). I don't know yet how much these run but am thinking it's a safe bet they're less than $6300 and put more than 50% of the firebox BTUs into the building.
Talked to the local fuel/propane supplier this morning. He said Propane is about 89 cents per gallon right now, #2 fuel oil (diesel) is $1.16 and kerosene is $1.88. Information I'm finding on the net confirms my suspicion that there are more BTUs per gallon in oil than in propane, and unless a particular furnace insists on kerosene or #1 fuel oil (which the local folks don't sell), I'd get a lot more bang for the buck out of fuel oil.
He said he's only got a few customers with oil furnaces and all of theirs run fine on #2 fuel oil.
So I was initially leaning more toward propane for my other heat sources (besides wood and used oil) but am starting to lean toward fuel oil. The downside of that is that there's lot of natural gas out here and IF the company with the lease ever does drill for it, I'll have free natural gas (plus royalties on what I don't use), but that looks like a really remote chance. However, if it did happen, a propane heater/furnace can be converted to natural gas with a simple nozzle change. Not so with a fuel oil furnace, is my understanding. Completely different kind of machine.
Edit: I just remembered I've got an old but smallish wood furnace I bought at an auction a couple of years ago. I think I've just decided what my project will be today since I'm on programming hiatus today: Drag that thing into the workshop and see if I can get it to run. Have no idea what condition it's in.
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