Hydronic wood boilers and heaters that warm one room AND drive your whole-home heating. Off-grid friendly, increasingly popular for rural builds. We supply the Wiseliving wood-fired hydronic range.
A hydronic wood heater is a wood or pellet heater with a water jacket (back-boiler) around the firebox, so it warms the room it sits in while sending heated water to radiators, underfloor or skirting heating through the rest of the house. Outputs run from 6–25 kW. AHHAC supplies and installs the Wiseliving wood-fired hydronic range and European pellet boilers, usually paired with a thermal store so one evening burn keeps the home warm overnight.
Reviewed by the AHHAC Technical Team — licensed plumbers & hydronic engineers, NSW Lic 262528C.How we write & review
A hydronic wood boiler includes a back-boiler that captures heat from the firebox and transfers it (via heated water) to your hydronic network — radiators, underfloor or skirting heating throughout the house.
Pairs beautifully with a thermal store for buffering — load the firebox in the evening, use the stored heat all night. AHHAC supplies the Wiseliving wood-fired and solar hydronic range alongside European pellet boilers.
A hydronic wood heater behaves differently from every other heat source we install. A gas boiler or heat pump stops making heat the moment you switch it off. A loaded firebox keeps going for hours, and if the pump stops during a blackout, the water jacket keeps heating with nowhere for that heat to go. Designing for that is the first job.
Approvals and fuel matter too. Many councils require approval before a solid-fuel heater goes in, and we install the appliance and flue to AS/NZS 2918. Well-seasoned, dry hardwood burns cleaner and leaves far less deposit in the flue and jacket; pellet auto-feed units take the guesswork out of fuel quality altogether.
Wood suits rural and semi-rural homes with a reliable wood supply, households that are home in the evenings to tend the fire, and sites where grid power or gas is limited. It suits less well where everyone is out all day, where local rules restrict wood burning, or where nobody wants to handle firewood. In those cases we often pair a smaller wood unit with a heat pump through a shared thermal store.
See our wood and pellet burner hydronic heating service, the thermal stores and buffer tanks that make it safe, and how we approach cold-climate homes on our Blue Mountains hydronic heating page.
Written from on-site experience by the AHHAC Technical Team.
AHHAC's in-house design and service team — licensed plumbers and hydronic engineers (Lic 262528C) who have designed and installed 2,400+ hydronic heating, cooling and hot water systems across Australia since 1998.
We only specify equipment after a heat-loss and system-compatibility check, then supply, install and commission it with our own licensed plumbers to AS/NZS 3500 (plumbing) and AS/NZS 5601 (gas), register the manufacturer warranty and service it for the life of the system.
Yes — a hydronic wood heater with back-boiler captures heat from the firebox and circulates it through your hydronic network to radiators, underfloor or skirting throughout the house. Output range 6–25 kW, depending on the unit and your home's heat loss.
Compliant hydronic wood/pellet units are emissions-tested to AS/NZS 4013 and installed to AS/NZS 2918. Pellet auto-feed systems burn even cleaner than logs because they meter the fuel precisely. Both have lower lifecycle carbon than gas.
Annual chimney sweep and ash clean-out. Pellet units need the hopper auger checked and gasket inspection annually. We offer service contracts that include all of this — typical $250–$400/year.
"AHHAC delivered our 22-zone underfloor system on time, on budget and to spec. The crew were tidy, the documentation was thorough, and the commissioning was textbook."
"We've worked with AHHAC for 17 years. They've installed and serviced our hot water plant across three commercial buildings — and they pick up the phone on weekends."
"Three mobs quoted us; AHHAC's design was the only one based on a proper heat-loss calculation. The system runs beautifully — the others would've been oversized and expensive."