Heat...Sort Of

We finally got the furnace hooked up.  It took the guys about four hours to run the pipes up through the ceiling. hook them up to our existing ducting, and install the return air vent box.  Tom lit a fire in it right away even though the temperatures have been in the 60's and 70's this week. 

I guess this week is not a real test of the furnace's ability since it's been so warm outside, but it does heat the house adequately so far.  The reviews that Tom read said we should be able to keep the house warm enough by burning just three pieces of wood a day.  I don't know how that is possible because right now, we're burning at least that much every few hours.  Supposedly, we'll learn to regulate it just right so that it burns hot, but not fast.  I don't know.  Seems impossible to me.  And we're having to get up at night to add wood or we'll wake up to a cold house.  That is not fun.

One thing I was extremely disappointed about is that it is NOISY.  One of the reasons I thought this furnace was a good idea is that our regular heater, installed in an inside closet, is very loud.  I thought having the furnace outside with little fans would be very quiet.  Wrong.  It's horrible.  Another thing one of the reviewers said was that you don't even need to install the fans.  I think that's wrong, too.  If there were no fans blowing, the heat would barely come out of the vents.  The way to get optimum heating is to run the furnace and the inside heater fan, which I really, really don't want to do because that's a double-whammy loud.

My opinion of this thing so far is...not worth it except for the savings in propane costs.  Maybe I'm just a whiner and need to get over the noise aspect and be grateful that we have heat.