[TheForge] Winter is coming (was: sure is quiet)

Mon Oct 28 02:42:00 2002

Yes please Dave, I would be interested in how it performs and what you
reckon the cost to be for say, heating the shop for a month.  I don't have
anything either at the moment and besides a small electric radiant heater at
the work bench, I rely on the forge to bring the temperature up.  Trouble is
there are times when you are just doing finishing work and the forge is not
on.

I like the fact that you don't need a stack with the pellet stove you
describe, because if I put a wood stove in, my stack would have to be about
35 feet. (read expensive)

Harry Foster

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Dave Brown
Sent: Saturday, October 26, 2002 11:15 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [TheForge] Winter is coming (was: sure is quiet)

At 21:09 10/26/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Anybody home?

Well, I'm home, but have been away from the computer for most of the day.

Winter is coming and we've had a taste of it these last few days with
temperatures dropping into the mid 20'sF.

In past years I heated the shop with propane.  It got mighty expensive at
times, to the point that I'd stay out of the shop because it was cheaper to
pass up a job than it was to heat the shop.  So this year I started looking
around at alternative heat furnaces.  I had headed off in the direction of
corn burner furnaces.  Corn has a big BTU value and looked promising.  In
keeping with my coal forge, a corn burner produces a clinker that must be
fished out of the firepot daily.  At one shop out in the middle of farm
country the dealer took me through the pros and cons of corn vs
pellets.  Basically it came down to the pellets being cheaper to burn than
corn unless, that is, you get your corn for free or you burn the low BTU
and high cost pellets at Fleet Farm or similar "BORG" (big box) stores.

I ran into a good deal on some slightly damaged pellet stoves by Whitfield
(Lennox) at a touch under half of the usual price.  Pellet stoves are not
cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but at half price for a stove
designed to heat a structure more than twice the footage of my shop ....
well it was too good to pass up.

It's direct vent, so no stack to run and it pulls the combustion air in
from outside.  This last bit isn't all that important since my shop is so
drafty in the first place.  But it reduces the heat loss a wee bit, so I
won't complain.

It's running out there now and if anyone is interested I'll keep them
posted on how it performs for me.

Dave Brown
Heritage Smithing
Green Bay, WI
ABANA, UMBA, GoM, MODA, ARG

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