Wood stove help

[crashagn]

We are rebuilding a shop.. the roof caught fire.. so were installing new steel and also ill be pouring a new concrete floor in thier. The rough size is around 34 x 54 with 12 ft ceilings. ive choosing not to put in a gas heater. B ut would like to get ahold of a good decent (cheep) wood burner. I'm guessing the area i would like to heat is around 1600sq ft. But would be figuring that a bigger burner would be better. My father tells me just do the old 55 gal barrel thing stacked on top of each other.. but i cant see how that would be very efficient and a pain to clean the ashes out of. My employers brother offered me a house coal burning furnace. Would that work with a little modding? Only time it would be used is only when it gets really cold.. and only to keep the chill off. any ideas?

Thanks for the replys

 

[crashagn]

Ive tried looking on ebay for a kit. door with vent of some sorts. The iron cradles to hold the barrels i could make myself. would have to just buy some heat pipe to run up through the roof. Treeco whats the idea behind having them stacked ontop of each other? having another heat chamber?

 

[JAM]

Barrel Stove

Exactly, The idea is recover some of the heat otherwise lost up the Flue.
Be sure to give yourself enough clearance from combustibles and watch for
holes that will form in the burner section after several years of use.

 

[HickoryNick]

My great uncle built a garage/body shop about the same size as your building. Heck, it might've been a little bigger. He bought the dual barrel kit and put it together to heat the place.

It did a heck of a job. He took just a standard run of the mill box fan and put it a few feet away to blow on it. To my knowledge he never turned on the big electric heaters he originally had installed.

That's the way I'd go....

HickoryNick

 

[clintb]

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/...=mode+matchallpartial&Dx=mode+matchallpartial

 

[crashagn]

Would it be worth to line the bottom of the barrel with the heat brick? Mainly to keep the coals off of the metal itself?I can get those for free at my buddies junk yard. Ive taken 2 fireplaces down thier and i dont think hes cut them up yet. Iam planning to place the woodbarrel in the middle of the shop that way it would evenly heat without having "coldspots". My father will be having his wood shop on 1 side and ill be having my iron and working area on the other.

 

[JAM]

Barrel Stove

That would more than likely help. I would suggest a grate to keep the logs off the bottom and to help with airflow under the fire.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

Someone told me once that they used sand in the bottom to protect from burnout.

Ian

 

[Tendencies]

Sand works great, you can also place a 35 gal drum full of sand (make sure it's vented) in the upper drum and use it as a heat sink, will give off lottsa heat even after the fire has burnt down..

T

 

[Sawdust7]

I put rock or crushed limestone in the bottom of my old wood burner, that way I know when to stop digging when cleaning out the ash. Been using that old boxwood since 91 and the bottom is as good as new. Brick is just too hard to make fit.

 

[crashagn]

Sand works great, you can also place a 35 gal drum full of sand (make sure it's vented) in the upper drum and use it as a heat sink, will give off lottsa heat even after the fire has burnt down..

T

Ill be using 2 used but brand new 55 gal oil drums. About how much sand would you use in the top drum? and i would sappose i would need to run the stove pipe more up in the inside to prevent the side from falling down into the bottom barrel?

 

[Tendencies]

I don't know about loose sand in the top barrel but I suppose if your bottom chunk of pipe went at lease 3-6" up into the top drum you would get some benefit from the sand, you definately don't want it to run back down into the bottom barrel, hence the reason you fill a 35 gal drum with sand (vented) and put it into the upper 55 gal drum.....

T