[TheForge] OT Wood Stove for Shop heat

[Dann]

If you google Mother Earth News, and then do a search for wood 
stove,  hot water heat, etc, there are tons of ideas.

<http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/1978_January_February/The_Amazing__500_Wood_Burning_Stove___That_You_Can_Build_for__35__Or_Less__>

Our old double barrel shop stove has a 6 inch pipe running lengthwise 
down the center of the top barrel.  It is 2 -  30 gallon barrels, on 
a home made 1 inch square tubing iron frame, with a home made chimney 
connection.  It has a great home made fire door, that I would copy 
for a larger barrel.  We  run an old squirrel  cage fan salvaged from 
another old furnace to help spread the heat.    This set up has been 
used for a number or years, so the sheet metal of the barrels is 
getting thin in places.

We're planning on putting a double tier 55 gallon barrel stove in our 
Quonset-shop.  For backup, the shop still  has an old fuel oil forced 
air furnace.   My 50 cent opinion is that I want to line the bottom 
barrel with fire brick for thermal mass, plus  so that it can be 
burned very hot.  I've even thought about bringing in a outside air 
duct  for combustion air. The upper barrel,  I want to line with 
salvaged clay building brick, again for thermal mass to help suck the 
heat out chimney's hot air.

The Mother Earth News had a write up on the Russian brick stove back 
in the 1970s.  As I recall it had a circuitous smoke excite and a lot 
of brick thermal mass to keep the home heated for a longer time 
between firings.

The advantage of the old setup is that it heats up quickly.  The 
advantage of the 2nd setup is that it will provide heat a lot longer.

My home heats with hot water.   7 years ago we switched out a  1962 
fuel oil furnace to a 1999 propane burner, and in the conversion, the 
good old wood/ fuel oil chimney got down sized to the 4 inch propane 
kind.  So for me the idea of burning wood indoors has been pretty 
much precluded.

We would have to go to one of those separate outside - detached- 
building furnaces.    Think of a mini insulted building that is 
filled with sand for thermal mass, and has a water - antifreeze 
filled copper pipe that circulates through the sand, around  a wood 
burning  central chamber.  This runs back into the home via an 
insulated underground pipe circuit.  There are a lot of commercial 
variants. Doing the wood burning outside the home makes for a lot 
cheaper home owners' insurance.

This one has a ton of links to commercial wood burners.
<http://www.motherearthnews.com/DIY/2003_February_March/Wood_Fired_Central_Heat>

Dann