first homemade woodstove
By electrondady1, Section Heat Posted on Wed Oct 18th, 2006 at 08:17:08 PM MST
chimneyplacement

i'm building an outside woodstove/casting furnace from and old water tank. i want to the capture the heat for my house by wraping the stove with airduct and pulling the hot air into the house with a fan.that should be simple and safe. i plan on placeing the firebox and air duct in a large pile of sand . the air supply for the stove is a little different . it's starts near the front next to the door and runs through a steel pipe and ends at the back of the stove. i did it like this be cause i would sometimes like to do some lost wax metal casting and blowing air under the fire can make it hot enough to melt copper and aluminum. i intended the entire stove to be at a slight angle so the fuel would have a tendancy to fall down to the back and burn up completly. i was thinking the combustion would take place towards the back of the stove and the hot gases would follow the top and exit through a vertical chimmney near the front but this is kind of the opposite of how a normal stove works. maybe the door would get too hot and the glass would break.

first homemade woodstove | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#1) by electrondady1 on Wed Oct 18th, 2006 at 02:22:19 PM MST (User Info)

herese some shots i was thinking with the door closed there would be a build up of smoke /heat unless the chimney were higher than the door any thoughts guys?

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#2) by keith o on Wed Oct 18th, 2006 at 04:58:14 PM MST (User Info)

so far that looks quite close to a woodstove i built a few decades back using a water heater tank beware of few things with that water heater though if it has a enamel? type coating on it? it likes to pop off in little pieces when heating and cooling and don't get it real hot then try to shut it down because it will collapse on itself from the vacuum been there done that it would behoove you to weld some angle iron ribs length wise for support fwiw [ Parent ]

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#3) by electrondady1 on Wed Oct 18th, 2006 at 06:03:20 PM MST (User Info)

thats a good tip keith!  i could tie the rear legs into them. and thanks for the warning about pulling a vacume. after looking at the photos myself, i'm seriously considering putting in two chimmneys and two dampers one on each end . so if it's a blast furnace or if it's a wood stove you could reconfigure to suit. [ Parent ]

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#4) by stephent on Wed Oct 18th, 2006 at 07:11:34 PM MST (User Info)

Actually the outside of that tank is galvanized--the first couple of times (or more) you fire it--fire it HOT--- outside of the house or enclosure. DON"T breathe the fumes from that stuff off of the outside when it's hot. Way out in the yard somewhere, not just a few feet. The glass lining inside should just slowly flake off during a few fires. But that galvanize outside stuff's fumes are dangerous to living things when it gets hot. Just a friendly warning from one who "used" to weld on some of that type of pipe way back. I don't do that anymore. Too many headaches (real headaches--mind numbing ones after breathing galvanized fumes) that close even outside in fresh air. And that's the nice side effect of that crap.

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#5) by WXYZCIENCE on Wed Oct 18th, 2006 at 08:10:42 PM MST (User Info)

Electrondady, I have to second what Stephent has spoken about. The fumes from welding galvanized tanks are heaver than air and will sit in the bottom of you lungs. Drink some whole milk if you are going to weld any galvanized metal. The gas is very toxic. Joseph.

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#6) by nanotech (darrin(dot)moore(at)gmail(dot)com) on Thu Oct 19th, 2006 at 01:11:22 AM MST (User Info)

As to the dual purpose chimney setup, I would go for a heat baffle.  Line the top of the stove front to back with a flat plate.  Make two holes in it, one in the front, one in back.  Have a handle that you control from the outside that allows you to move a couple baffle plates to cover one or the other of the holes.  Slide it back to uncover the front and cover the back, slide it forward to do the opposite. Let me see if I can draw something up.  I'm a lot better with pictures than I am describing things.... In the top portion of the picture the red box is the baffle plate I suggested welding in.  The two black boxes are the holes. Then in the bottom of the picture is the slide rod and the two baffle plates.  The red dots are bolts that go through the two upside down U shaped pivot points.  They will also go through the slide rod.  Measure them out so that only one plate covers a hole at a time, and there you go!! Just a suggestion to minimize on the chimneys...... __________________________________________ My ship finally came in, but it was the Kobayashi Maru!

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#7) by electrondady1 on Thu Oct 19th, 2006 at 07:16:47 AM MST (User Info)

i was aware of the welding hazard and  ground off the zinc for about a 1/4" at the end of the tank before i welded it in. there was some zink still present.i found  a bit of that white powder residue around the welds. there is still a lot of welding to do around the rim of the tank to seal it up.had a fan blowing on me as i worked and escaped with out a headache.  but i'm geting concened with the posibility that the galvanize will continue to emit poison long term. maybe i picked the wrong tank! thanks for the diagram nanotech a sliding baffle would be slick but i think it's beond my tools and resourses right now. if i only had a cutting torch! maybe i could tie the two dampers together with a rod. [ Parent ]

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#11) by RP (russp located-at fidnet (dot) com) on Thu Oct 19th, 2006 at 08:04:14 PM MST (User Info)

That's near exactly the way my "store bought" wood stove is designed and it works good. [ Parent ]

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#8) by Darren73 (darren2604 at hotmail dot co dot uk) on Thu Oct 19th, 2006 at 12:09:15 PM MST (User Info)

if you coat the area to be welded with anti spatter spray after grinding off the remaining zinc turns black during welding and doesn't fume off, I found this out quite by accident while doing some work and not wanting spatter stuck to the plate after welding take care Darren (Spell checked using UK English)

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#9) by kell on Thu Oct 19th, 2006 at 02:44:24 PM MST (User Info)

electrondady This is going to sound too obvious but if you decide against the water heater, you can use a 55 gallon steel drum or drums.  I made a woodstove out of a 55 gallon drum many years back.  I had the drum on its side and a door on the end like yours.  It had a baffle. One setup a lot of people have built is two horizontal steel drums, one above the other, connected by a piece of stovepipe.  You can build a chamber into the upper drum to use as an oven. If you get a closed drum, there will be two bungs on the top.  Cut your door in the bottom of the drum.  Then when you lay the drum horizontal, the bungs will be at the back and you can use one of them as an air inlet.  The bungs have pipe threads, so you can screw a piece of pipe in, that way sparks won't fall out of the bung hole. Reminds me of a ditty: The bear went over the mountain The bear went over the mountain The bear went over the mountain To see what he could see Stuck his head in a char hole Took a bite of the charcoal Sparks flew out of his bung-hole And blew his tail away And blew his tail away And blew his tail away Sparks flew out of his bung-hole And blew his tail away

Re: first homemade woodstove (3.00 / 0) (#10) by electrondady1 on Thu Oct 19th, 2006 at 07:03:51 PM MST (User Info)

i do have another tank slightly larger, 18"dia. this one is 16"dia.    i had intended to use it as a water jacket for this one in a a hot water system. i have backed away from that plan and will continue with the set up i have and rig it up for  heating air. a water system is just too complex to start at this time of year. if i can make some progress tomorrow i'll post some photos. [ Parent ]

Login

Make a new account Username: Password:

Total Views

165 Scoop users have viewed this posting.

Related Links

· Also by electrondady1