Is a wood burning stove in my shop a crazy idea. I don’t need it for full time heat just a little extra warmth on those chilly Minnesota days (you know 7-8 months a year).
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Replies
If you leave the shop unattended I'd think twice about it.
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?lang=e&id=1
Other than flue cleaning and adequate space around it and no huge dust clouds, it should be OK. It's been used by many for a long time. Put a pot of water on to add some humidity back in the shop. Not enough to change the MC on things but enough to add some comfort in the dryer winters.
Since I don't wear suspenders and a long gray beard and have a rocker to sit at round the pot, I'm more prone to suggesting a " Modine Hot Dawg" sealed gas unit with external vent. I lot of people here have them.
http://www3.modine.com/v2portal/page/portal/modine/modineMarketsDefault/modine_com/markets/building_HVAC/market_level_3_content_013.htm
Where I live, it's mostly 50 degrees. July 4 or January 4 so A small oil electric radiator is all it takes. But then I have the cost of paying coastal prices to take the wood scraps to the dump!
BB
If you can put an outside air kit on the stove so that the combustion air comes from outside instead of the shop it should put you at ease.
I have been heating my home for the past 5 years with wood heat and plan on putting a wood stove in my new shop in addition to an electric heater.
I have never had a problem leaving the stove unattended. Newer stoves are very well designed and with the appropriate chimney with good draft you should not have any problems as long as you burn dry wood.
F.
Edit: If you are looking for a good small stove check out the Jotul 602 or the F3 CB. http://www.jotul.com/en-us/wwwjotulus/
Edited 11/3/2009 9:51 am ET by Floss
Very few wood stoves, if any, are designed to use outside air for combustion, and I have never heard of the use of inside air being the cause of a fire.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
Most Jotul stoves, except for the 602 I think, can be outfitted with an outside air kit. Also many others such as Englander and their versions sold through Home Depot and Lowes also offer the OAK as an option. A lot has changed in the world of wood burning stoves and heaters in just the last 8 or 10 years to make them cleaner and more efficient.Modern stoves are a far cry from the old smoke dragons of the 70's and 80's.Just google outside air kit and see what you find.I think that the possibility of fumes from finishing products being sucked into the stove is the issue with insurance companies. As well as fine airborne dust particles.I think most of the fires resulting from woodstoves is either a chimney full of creosote or improper installation with the stove or pipe being too close to combustibles.If you are at all interested in learning more about woodburning then I suggest you visit this site:http://www.hearth.com/go to the forums page and ask around.F.
This is the site I have used for good information about wood heat and it isn't at all impressed with the need for outside air hook ups: http://www.woodheat.org/outdoorair/outdoorairmyth.htmAs for either wood dust or solvent fumes being a fire risk, wood dust has to be so thick in the air before it will ignite that you wouldn't be able to see your hand in front of your face and fumes of the more common shop solvents also have to be at an almost suffocating level before they are a risk. In either case, dust or fumes, if they are at a level where they would ignite from a spark there are plenty of other things like arcing switches, power tool motor brushes, and open pilot lights on appliances that would be a much more likely and common source of ignition. I have lived most of the last forty years in rural Vermont, heated both my homes and shops with wood, and as an EMT and occasional design and safety consultant I take an interest in what causes fires with wood stoves. Except for one incident where a guy blew up his garage when he kicked over a loosely capped can of gasoline in his wood heated garage, I have never heard of a fire in a one man shop being started by either wood dust or fumes from finishing.To be honest, for numerous reasons, I don't care all that much for wood heat in either homes or shops, especially since many people aren't that smart about installing and maintaining wood stoves and chimneys, but I don't think that having an outside air source makes a significant difference.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
I agree about the stove being a source of ignition and needing excessive fumes or dust to act as a source of ignition.I am familiar with the woodheat.org site and John Gulland. Lots of good information there.I mentioned the OAK as a suggestion and a possible necessity if local codes or insurance companies require it.I know a few folks with outside air to their stoves and they have never had any problems. So it is really one of those issues that needs to be determined on a case by case basis.F.
If you want some real nice heat and price is no object, get an outside boiler that will take multiple sources of fuel. Put the water lines in the floor and your whole shop will be toasty warm. Wood heat but absolutely no fires in the building.
It is not a crazy idea at all. It less dangerous than many of the things that you do in your shop. What is required is knowledge and due diligence. Buy a good stove, install it correctly, use it correctly, maintain the system, and burn seasoned wood. If you are willing to do these simple things you should not have any problem. If you are the type of person that likes to take short cuts do not use a wood stove in your shop.
I have used wood as the primary fuel to heat my home since 1980. To me it is less scary than gas.
I have heated my 20 X 20 shop with a small wood stove for 15 years. I also live in Minnesota. On days when it’s above 20 degrees it heats up in an hour or two. If it’s zero or below, I stay in the house. Some days I also light my propane fish house heater when warming up the shop. My building isn’t very “tight” so I’m not worried about suffocating.
My shop is not attached to the house, so my insurance agent isn’t concerned. I have always been able to find free wood, as long as I cut, split and dry it myself. I live about 20 miles from Minneapolis, so there’s a healthy supply of pallets that make good firewood. I usually pick the hardwood ones.
For me it has worked out well. My Dad had a big wood burning stove in his shop for 30+ years.
I used some kind of triple walled pipe where the pipe makes contact with the roof and rafters.
Good Luck,
Bill
I've had one in my shop in upstate NY for years. Just remember to leave enough clearance all around. I had a short triple wall stack. Burn a hot fire and you can burn almost any kind of wood cleanly. Make sure you dust the top of the stove regularly.
How big is your shop? In a small shop (such as mine, ~20x22') a small wood stove took up too much room, due to the clearance needed around it (this was an old stove, don't know if the new ones are different).
I switched to a pellet stove, another oldie, but a goodie. Very little clearance needed around it relative to the wood stove clearance. Disadvantage is, I don't get free fuel (can't cut down trees on the property and feed the stove). Advantages: don't have to cut wood and stack it, which gets harder to do every year. I buy a pallet of pellets in the fall, grab a bag and dump it in the hopper.
Here is a copy of my post from a year ago :
OK I will say it . . . don't burn wood there is enough of an environmental air problem without adding to it. Wood stoves were banned in Denver near where I live and the sooner they are everywhere the better. There may be some other inexpensive ways to heat your shop with less environmental impact depending on : sun in your area, natural hot water springs etc.
Here is the thread with a whole lotta "info"
http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=43764.1
Or the easy answer is Fresh air with lots of oxygen good . . . crappy air full of soot and most of the oxygen in your shop sucked out the flue bad.
But then people smoke cigarettes and expect me to breath all that and smile while I eat in a restaurant with them.
Yuck !
roc
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Wood stoves cannot suck the oxygen out of the shop's air and send it up the flue, it is simply not possible. When wood is burned, the air that is drawn into the stove and sent up the chimney is replaced by fresh air from outside of the building. In exceedingly airtight buildings it might be necessary to make sure there is a source for fresh air so that the stove can draw properly but in almost all cases the normal small drafts around doors and windows is more than adequate.If a stove is releasing smoke and soot into the building, or the outside air, it is almost always caused by either a poorly designed chimney that is not drawing well or because the stove isn't being fired properly. The fact that Denver has a problem because of its geography and dense population doesn't mean that all wood stoves, especially a properly installed modern one, are bad for the environment.John White
Shop Manager for FWW Magazine, 1998 to 2007
I'm willing to bet that my wood stove pollutes far less than Al Gore's private jet. Isn't Gore's energy bill (for his mansion) in the $20,000.00 + range per year?
Bill
It's not crazy at all. I've heated my 30' X 40' shop with the same wood stove for over 20 years. Never a problem. I put it on top of a pedestal made of concrete blocks. I have a cheap box fan mounted to the rafters just above it to blow the warm air back down and to capture lots of heat from the pipe.
Regards,
Mack
"Close enough for government work=measured with a micrometer, marked with chalk and cut with an axe"
Check with your insurer. Their opinion is probably the most relevant.
Don
Everyone, thanks for all the good info. Checking with my insurer makes a lot of sense and a good place to start.
I am using wood as a heat source in my home (wood furnace), shop (wood stove), & wood stoves in our cottage & my cottage shop, here in Atlantic Canada. House & shop since 1977, cottage & shop since 1991. All installations have been inspected (multiple times over the years) by building inspectors, fire chiefs & WETT certified inspectors hired by insurance companies. Goverment regulations, clearances, etc. have always been adhered to & any changes suggested by insurance companies carried out. It is sometimes a supreme pain in the a$$ as insurance companies can dictate what they require (above & beyond federal, provincial or municipal goverments!) & you either comply with their excessive requests or find another insurer. My shop at home takes about 1 full cord (not mickey-mouse face cord measure) of decent seasoned hardwood, plus all my shavings & sawdust from my dust collector, plus the occassional (very rare) mistake. I have always been involved in wood heat (even growing up as a country boy) & still enjoy the the work. I can usually scrounge enough wood for the shop & the cottage & shop, but have to buy 3 cord of larger wood for the house. Saves a bunch of money & is sooooo comfortable.
Yep, what Piker said...woodheat is the only way to go if you don't mind the extra work....I wouldn't even consider anything else as I am only 58 with plenty of steam left. I had difficulty finding an insurance carrier for my plywood floored shop but eventually did. If you are on a slap you will have an easier time I suspect. Radiant heat from a woodstove heats objects in the room and indirectly the air which is a much more satisfying to convective sources. With my biggest woood working tool being a Woodmiser LT 28 mill I have plenty of slabs and wood to keep me warm here in the easy PNW.There is almost no additional danger in using a quality woodstove properly installed and operated over other sources. Folks who say there is are too citified for their own good.Good Luck!Stache
> fresh air from outside of the building.<
Ooooh,
I missed this one, not getting my mail and all. You don't spend much time walking or cycling on a cold night. If you go out side you will discover there isn't fresh air out side BECAUSE IT IS GETTING SMOGGED UP BY THE CRAP COMING OUT OF YOUR STOVE !
Cycle that through the "system" a few times allowing that most of the oxygen available in a winter area is being generated by the sea , Colorado is a long way from the sea, and you will begin to have a glimmer of what you speak.
Or perhaps you are speaking of the air blowing by from your neighbor's who are also burning the oxygen out of the air be it sucked up by nautural gas stoves or wood or coal or the millions of automobiles in the general area.
Huge difference in the quality of the air near the ground winter to summer. Weak people die because of this every year. Lets make it worse for no reason shall we ?
In addition you will find in all but the most drafty of buildings a negative pressure because the air is flowing out faster than it can seep in around the weather seals etc. Yes the attic is vented and the crawl space is vented. How well are these shops we are talking about vented ?
You might have me there but the other I experience first hand for six or seven months a year. Spring with its life giving oxygen after a winter of deprivation is quite a marked difference. Yah I can snow shoe for eight days in winter in the mountains but I sure wouldn't want to try that at night through the city. Gack.
roc
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 11/29/2009 8:15 pm by roc
Great question, thanks for bringing it up. I too had planned on having a wood stove in my uninsulated workshop when I realized that the amount of space it would take (shop is the size of a one-car garage) would be too much and that the pipe would be expensive. The locals around here (VT) told me I should have a rennair gas heater but that the space would have to be insulated before installing. Looks like I could have a "Hot Dawg" in the uninsulated space? Meanwhile an acquaintance lost his entire workshop due to a fire that happened on his lunch break - he figures a spark landed in sawdust.. leading me to wonder about dust collection systems. I suspect he didn't have one...
Turn off your main breaker and let your town go dark, you are killing us with the pollution from your coal fired plants. I can't even eat fish out of our mountain lakes because you selfishly demand to have light and heat.
Look here.
................................................
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.~ Denis Diderot
I had a small DEQ approved airtight stove in my shop for a few years, they take a long time to get the heat up. I'd forego my time in the shop because it took too much time to get the thing started and the shop heated. It also needed a big footprint even though it was a small stove.
I installed a 5KW ceiling mounted heater with thermostat.
Footprint is my problem also. I just can't give up that much space.
................................................
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.~ Denis Diderot
Don't try to play the environmental one up with me; you will loose.• Both of us stopped driving our two cars when the Iraq war started partly in solidarity with the troops (no war for oil ) and for environmental reasons. Global warming is out of control. Before that we used the autos for trips outside of town for the most part, vacations and to take care of my folks who passed on long ago.• I work in a business that facilitates and promotes people getting out of their cars.• We don't use a drier using clothes lines exclusively.• I work wood almost exclusively with hand tools.• We never use christmas lights inside or out.• We wouldn't dream of going to Las Vegas for the reasons you present ( doesn't count but i had to sneak that one in).• We make it a solemn duty not to leave outside lights on any longer than necessary for guests.• We dress in two and three layers in the house and rarely have the temp above 63° F• We pay more in rent to have a well insulated rental.• We walk daily or cycle to work and the stores year round. I have done this every year since my first job in 1976. Working two part time jobs by the way, one at night.• We take a cut in pay to live within walking/cycling distance from both our jobs.Now . . . you go . . . no fuggin' Santa knows . . .Thanks for the link by the way.: )rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )
Edited 12/1/2009 4:45 pm by roc
Wow, I thought I was green but nothing like you.
Tink
Roc,
I'm impressed, all the time we have been sending stuff back and forth I knew you care about not abusing this planet. I just didn't realize how much effort you put into it.
I tip my hat to you, both. How do you deal with the winters where you live without a vehicle?
We try are best to do what we can, but we could not survive without two vehicles where we live, and work.
Taigert
>How do you deal with the winters where you live without a vehicle?<Thanks both for the kind words. My mentor was enthusiastic in this way so I grew up thinking this is the way to live. Mel said earlier that I was "passionate" about what I said about the ruler sharpening thing.My mentor had a lot of energy and was passionate about a lot of things so I picked that up to but when I express myself I think some times I come across the wrong way.Any way how do we deal . . . well first off when asked that, I think of all those people on the ski slopes that would ask me that and then go sit in a lift at temps in the teens, in the wind, dangling way up there helpless to move if the lift stops. Then hurdle down hill with not much for brakes or bumpers at forty plus miles an hour in the same teens weather.Lots of snow, lots of potential for falls or getting run over/sliced with metal edges. Hitting buried rocks or hitting trees.Doesn't sound like my thing though I have done it enough to say I can do it.I picked my part of town for nice routs to work and stores. I/ we knew we have work in this same area. We seldom go out of the area to the crazy part of town that is bustling and no alternate routs to the express ways. Some times we make like big city people and take a taxy. Keeps the car thing to absolute must do status.We are old enough that we have traveled as much as we want in the area and did the restaurant thing a lot and now we like our home so much we can't wait to get home and I like to be in my shop and she likes to be in her kitchen or art studio and we live a simple life. There are several restaurants walking distance away and many really nice shops in the Old Colorado City area a stones throw away from the house. I worked in that area for fifteen years. Very nice area for walking, shopping and working.We lived near down town for quite a while and walked to dinner, the symphony, art galleries. I regularly walked to the Grey Hound bus station and bussed to Boulder over a hundred miles away to spend the day. Busses ran until eleven in Boulder. They have a "REAL" bus system so it was no problem. I would rather read a book than drive in a straight line for hours with a bunch of homicidal idiots so that was fine.Give me a sports car and some corners and things are all different but that is another story.Speaking of dealing . . . hanging from a rock face on a little rope and some spindly metal things sort of gripping the rock . . . naw dude naw. That is not for me. The clothing comes in handy though. A bit of neoprene on the face . . . some snowboarder's gloves.Those same climbers would never ride in weather like this. Too dangerous dude !?
For instance it was 15° F going to work and 10° F coming home. I was never the least bit cold. I dress like a climber would.To night there was a few small patches of ice under a dusting of snow. That is treacherous. Lower the tire pressure . . . lower the seat. Feel the surface through the bike. Those patches would not have been there if it wasn't for the cars polishing the surface with their spinning tires at intersections.Some times one falls. Skiing some times one falls. Ice skating some times one falls. Rock climbing some times one falls. You get used to the conditions and you avoid putting yourself in situations that are over ones head or too dangerous to survive.I wear a helmet mirror. Surface too treacherous and car coming up from behind? That is a no brainer. I pull over and stop, let the car pass then get back out in the street.I totally avoid busy roads by using the back streets. Some times the back streets are not the most direct. That's ok I just want a bit of a ride for exercise. I am not in a big hurry. There is beauty in it even in the winter or the rain. I try to be present the whole way. Not thinking ahead and trying to "just get it over with" and ignoring where I am at the moment.Many a time I have seen things I wished I had a camera for. The way the snow is on a structure or the way the sun breaks through the cloud and comes through the trees during a rain and is toooo greeen to be real. I tell people that my ride to work and then back home is the best part of my day.They just smirk and think I am being an A hole.The old sailor or explorer would put up with weather like this, and "worse", all night or for months at a stretch. Out in it the whole time. No way to get away from it really.Or these peoplehttp://www.iditarod.com/Kind of like that but only for a little while. It is not even cold compared to that.I only am in it for thirty minutes to an hour. As I say; my rower that I have mentioned here a few times rows for sixteen hours a day for almost an hundred days in a row to bring attention to the deterioration of the seas and the planet in general. If she can do that. Alone. No one around for a thousand miles in any direction. On the ocean for crisake ! Then I can futz along on my bike for a few minutes in the city. You won't find me on the ocean alone in a row boat. I swim like my name for one thing.http://rozsavage.com/adventure/roztracker/Nope the bike is no big hardship. Just takes a bit of preparation. Once a guy walks the same route more than an hour each way in snow then it makes the bike look rocket fast in a bit better weather.The "GAME" in rough weather is to dress so I am perfectly comfortable. Not easy. It is kind of an art or hobby. Can be done though.People run marathons but those same people can't or won't get to work under their own power. What a waste of a trained body.I just sit and picture what it was like here not all that long ago. To go to town you go out to the barn and get the horses out and saddle them up or hitch them to the buggy and mosey along clip klop.There are buggies and horses on the street here from time to time for tourist activities etc.My bike is three times faster and I don't have to do much to put it to bed when I get there or get it out to go again.Not saying any thing against horses, Forest Girl, just saying that not too long ago traveling the short distances that I do on the bike to work was a bunch of doing and we have had it too good for too long with this luxury car thing we been trying to keep alive.People say well I have kids. And I say well my Mom didn't drive. When we went we bussed. Wether it was down town or to California. My Dad drove but he was out of town a few weeks or a month at a time on big time construction jobs.Yah I feel like I am from another planet but there are a few here with me. I see them from time to time. There were others out this morning besides me.YES ! I have just written another one of my novels.thats about it really.
rocPS: oh yah the wood thing. How do I get wood home ? It is on the way home for my wood supplier guy and I get free delivery if I get a few hundred dollars worth. Lucked out there.
Edited 12/4/2009 2:38 am by roc
Roc.
"I have just written another one of my novels".
I have always looked foreword to your words of wisdom.
I love to see how others get through life. Life is the only thing that we as a society really have in common. Here we all are sitting on this giant Volcano we call earth. But we all deal with our day to day life in a different way. You can ask 20 people how to sharpen a pencil, you'll hear 20 different versions and your bound to learn some ways had never even yet heard of.
In some ways I envie the way you are able to get by without a vehicle. We tried to grt down to hust one, when we lived in Seattle. In Seattle the wife worked at the University of Washington, the staff was encouraged to use public transportation. Her transit pass was almost free, UW paid about 90% of the cost as a perk. Due to living in the county north of Seattle the bus would stop running after the rush hour ended, both am & pm. So if she had to work early or late the U would pay for her cab fair. So much for trying to conserve energy. The transit system in our area at home was a joke, their hours of operation are only during office hours. Even when I was going to school I was only 18 miles north of the school. In order to use the bus it was a 2-3 hour event. The alternative was to sit in traffic a hour and a half, twice a day and burn two to three gallons of diesel every day.
So we have always had the two vehicles all the time. I need a full size pick up for hauling material around. I choose the Diesel due to better mileage and lower operating costs. The better half she drives a small SUV a Jimmy, we bought it for the fact it was rated to get good milage per gallon. That is, it used to get good mileage. But not any more, I think it's averaging about 13 mpg, vs 21 mpg for the F 250.
Now that we are no longer in Seattle, now in rural Milan, IN. Half way between here and no where. No matter what you need to do it's a lot of miles to drive. Any thing ypu do is major mileage. You have to travel to Cincinnati or northern Kentucky 45 miles, or Indianapolis 65 miles. So life here takes some planning. The great part of it is being away from the hassle of the city.
About 20 years ago a friend that lives in Greely was trying to persuade me to buy 150 acres out by Ft Collins. It was a ranch where his grand parents had lived and had been in the family for years. At the time he was leasing the land to another farmer in exchange for tending the horses Mac kept out there. Man I tried to get the wife into the idea, but no go. She said it would be like living on a deserted island.
One major reason for the move to SE Indiana wanted to work from home. Besides the fact that the wife wanted to be near her family.Back in Edmonds, WA I was getting complaints about making too much noise from some Yuppies that moved in next door to us. Then they gave me a cease or desist order to make me stop doing any woodworking, Plus the fact I was running a business out of my home. I guess I violated the zoning law being in a residential area.
Talk about a book, I had best start another thread (or a blog) before I am served with another cease or desist..........................
Taigert
>away from the hassle of the city<Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer sure misses being in the country. I mean where you don't here traffic on the highway all day and all night. We are on some nice foot hills with wild life here but she wishes it was like when she was a kid and could just be in nature without the constant sounds of people.When I was a kid my biggest fantasy, seemed easy to do at the time, was to live where it was so remote the best way in was a helicopter. I was going to make high quality, custom one off metal work ( small items ) and fly in to a city to ship them out a few times a year. The rest of the time grow food, do my art and live in peace.I used to run across this guy here in one of the coffee shops. He was from Europe who was young during world war two , terrible stories of civilian survival, who later sold Daimler cars and basically did the helicopter thing in his prime. Rather than live in a forest he lived high on a rocky land mas. Strange old guy. Always got the feeling that conversation in the coffee shop was what he really wanted but if it came to it cutting my throat would be no problem.>Complaints about making too much noise . . . cease or desist order to make me stop doing any woodworking, Plus the fact I was running a business out of my home. I guess I violated the zoning law being in a residential area.<Oh man that is a super disappointing thing to have happen after getting all set and going. I can see their side but a shame for you.Was it one of the last Tools and Shops that had the guy who put the shop under his yard behind his house and had it all sound insulated so the neighbors could not hear his tools running? Shame you couldn't have done that.As Queenmasteroftheuniverseandbabybunnytrainer always says, well two things really, :
• It's always sumthin'
and
• Whataya gonna do ? What CAN ya do?Of coarse she is a nice quiet as a mouse oil painter but she wants to paint more with turpentine and she wants to do encaustic (painting with melty wax ) and both are too smelly for where we are now.>transit system<
I was appalled to hear China had seven hundred miles of high speed train rout a few years ago. Now they have seven thousand miles.The narrator said we have no highspeed service in America.Think of the jobs that would generate.There is, or was, a rail mill about forty miles from where I sit. Not much going on there now. My Dad helped build some of that Steel mill. He used to run crews that did what they called "turn arounds" where they strip out the liners of the furnaces and rebuild them. He used to work thirty six hour shifts running three crews before he could go home.When he finally came home he would sit there chewing with his eyes shut trying to stay awake long enough to eat his dinner.Why we don't have a simple thing like a passenger train along the front range from SanteFe NM through Colorado to Cheyenne Wy or further I will never understand . . . let alone high speed.>2 or 3 hour event<
yep sounds like this town I live in and now they are cutting week end service and evenings. Last I heard the mass transit coffers where full in Washington DC but we can't get any help here? Nutty.rocGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham Lincoln ( 54° shaves )Edited 12/4/2009 11:45 pm by roc <!-- ROC2013 -->
Edited 12/4/2009 11:46 pm by roc
This works better than most think. Our whole mechanic shop is heated by this system. The scrap pallets and broken wood from the pipeline is what they use.
The shop is large enough to park the semi truck in and a few light vehicles at the same time.
Part of my inspiration was a wood shop in the area. It is big - probably at least an acre under roof. I could almost put my whole boiler in its firebox. I can't remember whether all of the heat comes from lines buried in the floor. He doesn't bother splitting wood before putting in the firebox - logs, rootballs and all.
In my younger days I stayed with my brother in law for a time and he heated his house with one of those double barrel set-ups. To this day I've never seen a stove that heated as well and you could put a small tree in one!
...Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off , painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it’s worth – lyrics from the song wear sunscreen
Hey BonesGuess you just posted. I get a kick out of how often folks dither over simple things like woodheat in a woodshop. I have been doing it for nearly 40 years. And the cabins or houses too. Building the last homestead now and heating the shop, the house, the sauna and the wood fired hottub. I saw many of those double barrel stoves in bush Alaska and heated remote log cabins with custom barrel stoves. They do throw a helluva lot of heat but eat the wood like a sternwheeler. We thought they were somewhere around 25% efficient. Due to codes here etc I now happily use high efficiency non-catalytic stoves more like 75-85% efficient.Many of the old roadhouses in interior Alaska and elsewhere up there used the simplest thing around....drums. Many burned down too due to creosote buildup and stack fires mostly due to burning green wood.The comments from urban folks who have air quality problems have my empathy but I just would not live where I can't pee off the porch and burn my own wood.Stache
I hear you on that. I loved wood heat. I lived in an area called floyd county va on the blue ridge parkway and saw a lot of the exterior wood stoves. They looked like a little metal shed. It was basically a big firebox and heat exchanger. I worked for the phone company and a buddy installed one and had a water boiler and burried the lines into the house and two huge water holding tanks burried in sand in the basement for the hot water. He not only heated the house, but his hot water and he ran his pool water through the system. It was a sweet set up. He could run wood or convert and use corn. It was a cool set up and clean too. I have gas heat as primary but I'm sitting here enjoying a fire in the fire place right now. ...Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off , painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it’s worth – lyrics from the song wear sunscreen
St. ache,although i have been consigned to living in the city of angels, i heat by burning wood in my pot-bellied stove and i have been known to pee off the porch...
eef
I had a wood burning stove in my shop for years and never had a problem with it.
Each time I fired it up, I first fired up my exhaust fans and blew the area around the stove clean of dust. It was always the cleanest part of my shop. After starting a fire, I allowed it to burn hot, both to heat the shop and to remove build up in the stack. Of course, I avoided wet wood, both for my projects and the stove.
I mounted the stove on brick and had cement board walls surrounding it, with large air gaps. As well, the walls had all combustibles removed and were layered with reflective foil. The combination would have allowed me to build a fire right on the floor, if I so desired and didn't mind a shop full of smoke.That which I least want to do is oft that which I most should do. And I can't afford cheap.
To minimize pollution, burn hot and you will drastically reduce your emissions. It is for that reason I avoid smoldering fires. Get or build a stove which burns the CO2 and hydrogen (e.g., look at jet stoves, gassification, etc.) and you will be polluting less than even most who are making an sincere effort to be green.
Edited 12/4/2009 1:58 am ET by dejure
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