[TheForge] Wood Stove for Shop heat

[Andrew Vida]

El Frio wrote:

> No reputable manufacturer builds wood burners with catalytic converters 
> anymore, haven't for in the neighborhood of 5-7 years. The problems with 
> catalytics are: Proper use and maintenance resulting in way more chimney 
> and hence house fires than necessary. Catalytics have to be preheated 
> before they're engaged, then they're vrey finicky about the quality of 
> wood you feed them, then you HAVE to keep the fire rolling or they plug 
> up. Catalytic converters were an idea that sounded good on paper but in 
> practice have proved to not only be inefficient but outright dangerous 
> in use.

	Wow, it is amazing what one learns in this forum at times.  My friend, 
Butthole, never had a problem with his AFAIK, but he did replace it a 
few years ago, so maybe it didn't work out as well as it once seemed. 
Nevertheless, that stove ran like the devil and ate very little wood.
> 
> So, over the past decade or so all the good manufacturers with the 
> notable exception of Vermont Castings, have gone to multiple burn zones. 
> Some of the high end manufacturers have taken it to indirect combustion 
> so the stove is making charcoal in the wood chamber and only burning the 
> gassious byproducts and charcoal. These last are typically external wood 
> fired boilers but they're extremely efficient and clean burning.

	Are you saying that your active burning fire is in chamber 1, heating 
wood in chamber 2 and thereby driving off the volatiles for heat, 
resulting in charcoal that is then moved to chamber 1 for heat and to 
drive a new batch of volatiles from new wood loaded into chamber 2?
> 
> A good barrel stove is hard to beat if it's properly built. A single 
> barrel will easily heat 1,000-1,200' sq/ft with 14' eaves if it's 
> decently insulated. A double barrel will heat twice the volume with 
> little trouble. You can heat more if you convert the second barrel from 
> a simple stack robber (heat scavenger) to a forced air stack robber. 

	Makes sense.

> Simply cut holes in the ends of the scavenger barrel the same dia. as a 
> 15 gl. grease barrel. Weld a couple grease barrels together so the ends 
> hang out a few inches in front and a foot or so in the back. Then you 
> mount a fan or blower in the back and you have a very efficient stack 
> robber.

	I suppose it would be best to vent barrel 1 into barrel 2 opposite the 
flue end and vent barrel 2 at the flue end, like so:

                                               | Flue  |
         ______________________________________|       |___
        |                                                  |
        |         ____        ____        ____             |
        |        /    \      /    \      /    \            |
        |       |      |    |      |    |      |           |
        |        \____/      \____/      \____/            |
        |              Heat Exchanger                      |
        |___       ________________________________________|
        ____|     |________________________________________
        |                                                  |
        |                                                  |
        |                  Fire                            |
        |                                                  |
        |                                                  |
        |__________________________________________________|

	This what you mean?


> 
> Andy, if you build a nice large pond within about 100' or so of the 
> house so a FD pumper can supply the hoses your insurance will go down 
> dramatically.

	I asked one of the brokers about that and they said "no".  Perhaps this 
is a state-by-state thing?  In any event, I intend on eventually damming 
the creek to at least 10'.  I may go higher so I can build a bridge 
across the top to the other side in case a house or other building goes 
up on the north exposure.  But even at 10' that will easily exceed 100K 
gallons of reserve, probably by many times actually.

 > There's not a lot you can do about the length of your
> driveway except make sure it's well maintained and always passable. 

	Would you suggest I get a plow?  It would seem the right thing to do.

 >The
> best bet will be to cut a second access road so there's little if any 
> chance the FD equipment can get trapped by a fire. Most FDs will not 
> respond to a fire if the men and equipment might be trapped by a fire.

	That's pretty costly, given the amount of earth that will have to be 
moved, the gravel, and the culverts.  That part will have to wait a 
while, unless I get lucky and find a good running excavator at scrap prices.


	Speaking of damming the creek, I was thinking of running a 4' culvert 
(steel?  Concrete?) along the flow in which to mount a large stainless 
steel gate valve.  One reason is to have a means of clearing silt and 
the other would be to provide a means of flow control in the event we 
would one day put in a turbine for power.  Or I suppose I could build a 
gate from heavy plate.  Anyone have any thoughts about the idea in 
theory and on how to do it?

	-Andy