Heat sinks on woodburners

[whatsnext]

This I kind of have to disagree with. There is getting to be pretty good evidence that Al ingestion is a precurser to Alshimers(sic). The epidemiologists are looking hard at this as we speak. We, as a people, have not been using aluminum as cookware for that long so we have not really proven it 'safe'. I'll stick with iron.

John.......

[whatsnext]

Troy, Please don't bring any concepts of thermodynamics into this thread. Nothing To Lose wants the heat out as fast as possible.

John.........

[whatsnext]

I had an early version of just such a stove that required a somewhat trained eye to keep the second air intake from becoming a exhaust. A catalyst removes the operator error but putting one in a barrel stove would be pointless because it would never get hot enough. I don't understand Nothing To Lose's need for a small but quick burning fire and the need for instant heat. I've seen setups with multi thousand pound heat sinks that made the most wonderful heat. The Russians build houses around their fireplaces. Not the other way around.

John..........

[sven]

I see your point, I am thinking of starting to smelt Aluminium, and I came up with this idea to make the fire hotter, and I thought it could be used in a regular stove as well. But I guess you're right, the stove would get way to hot.

Sven

[nothing to lose]

Yes, I prefer a good old 50lb cast iron skillet myself and soda from a glass bottle too thank you! Skillets are getting easy to find again, but soda in anything other than aluminum can or plastic bottle is hard to come by! One of the reasons I am getting into black smithing is to make my own cookware. Store bought cast iron is ridiculous priced and most of what I want cannot be found either. I can hammer out steel plate into basically the items I want and it will be about the same as cast iron once treated in the fire and coated with veggie oils or animal fat properly.

As for the temps though, if you look at those Rutland wood stove thermometers you will see the safe burn zone temps are between 300f I think for the low (maybe 250) and about 500f for the high. Below the low creasote may form easier and above the high is supossedly risk of chimmeny fire. Every wood burner I have used so far I think the stack is the hottest part normally, so I figure I will be staying well below the 400-500F with any heat sinks on the stove part. As for on the stack itself, if used within the recomended guidelines then even that should be kept below 400F (normal oven baking temps).

I personally am more concerned about eating the cake my kid bakes in the Scooby Doo aluminum baking pan at 350F for an hour or two than breathing the air that passed over my heat sinks on the woodstove. Yummy, aluminum flavored chocolate chip cookies, yum yum.  Even the pizza pan/tray is aluminum, and EVERYTHING frozen seems to be in an aluminum pan, unless you get the rare paper/cardboard like some frozen dinners. But what toxins you avoid from the dinners not being in an aluminum pan you get from the more toxic food itself. Just different poisons I geuss.

[nothing to lose]

Yes, I have studied a bit on some Russians masonary fireplaces. That is a great concept for when you have constant steady cold and need steady heat for days on end.

However many of us have several problems with those. First if you have temps today of 5F you need heat now, if tomorrow the temps get up to 80F you don't want any heat!

Ok, that's an extreme, but fact is my water pipes have been froze and I had no water for 2 days, today I was outside in a T-shirt. You can't just shutoff the heat from those Russain fire places, they put out for days or even weeks. Great if you have the constant cold, and they also use less wood and are far more efficeint too.

If like me you often leave for a few days at a time. You need the heat when you get home to the cold house, not in a few hours or in the morning. I have often been away for the weekend and come home to a 20F house (or colder). I want at least one room up to 50-60F fast as I can get it.

I no longer buy my daughter those nice water balls, she had some very nice ones that froze and busted while we were away in the past.

The concept of the Russain fireplace is a small fire burns at full speed and also cleaner than a controlled slow burn. The exhaust is flowed up and down through chambers back and forth through tons of masonary as it tries to exit up the stack, the thermal mass of the fireplace draws almost all the heat out of the exhaust. It takes days for the fireplace to cool, it provides a nice steady warmth for a very long time from a fast small fire. I have heard of people laying clothes on them to dry. I think (but not certain) that they run around 90-100F or close, maybe more. Also may depend on the fire you built, longer the fire probably the hotter they get.

I do plan to construct such a fireplace myself when I build a real house, but like you say, the house is basically built around that, it's not really something you ad to an existing house easily

[nothing to lose]

Sounds like we might be headed the same direction on that to a point.

Yes, durring the summer I will be working on and testing alot for next winters heating unit. Doing some now, but needing heat in 2 houses mostly working on just heating.

I want charcoal for many uses, most people won't need as much charcoal as I will. So I basically want to cook the wood untill it is pure charcoal and not burn that. Once the gas is filtered it can be used for just about anything propane can be used for. How to best filter and compress it for storage for latter use is something I have to figure out still. Several ideas. Dry wood chips or dry saw dust should work well. Charcoal itself is a great filter for many things and I will probable use a 55gal barrel of charcoal as the filter. Then just burn the filter latter and replace with fresh

I like the rock house I rented, if things work the way I plan I may stay there next winter also and be building a real house here. Just don't have the room here to work on things I need to work on, though I have 12acres I have no indoor room here.

That rock house is a 2 story LARGE house. Only one fireplace downstairs where I can put a wood burner. If the woodburner is built to make charcoal and I filter the gas really well I can pipe the gas upstairs and use a normal (Outside vented) propane heater. Don't think I would trust one of those unvented wall mount propane heaters with this type of gas though it might be ok. But anyway I could use wood downstairs for heat and the gas upstairs for heat. I cannot put a wood burner upstairs though.

Saving some gas for the gennie and such is something else I plan too. Maybe just use the compressor from an old frig or freezer to pump it into a 25lb propane tank.

Someone did mention in another post here about my need for getting heat out of a small fire fast. When you have 1 wood burner in a house that size, that is a small fire

And to heat that much area you need to get all you can as fast as you can.

This house is 4 large rooms and 2 small rooms downstairs and 3 large upstairs, solid rock with no insulation! Since I don't own it alot of things I would do I can't do.

I did just score some 1" or larger pipe, about 30' and will be heating water with a genie and running that upstairs for heat. Building an insulated box unit for in the window like an airconditioner. The water will stay outside so if there is a leak I don't flood the house, room air will be circulated through the heater then.

 If I were setup to run the gennie on wood gas it would be perfect, but not that far along yet and will have to use propane for now.

[nothing to lose]

You can easily heat water many ways with the wood stove, but you have to watch out you don't make a boiler and have a steam explosion.

If your using pumps or fans that's electric your using also. That's ok, but what about when the power is off, you can't pump or cool the water, you have to be careful there too.

Also if your doing anything like that it would probably be better to run it up instead of down. Heat rises anyway, so your helping it along, if pumping or blowing downward then your fighting it. Durring any power outage where you have to rely on convection for heat flow up would be better.

But yes those type things should work.

[nothing to lose]

Thanks for the link, I will check it out. I like to look at lots of things, gives me lots of ideas of things to make

 Gonna check that link then gotto take the kid to school and get to work on the burners again. Yesterday was busy and I didn't get much done on things here. Today I "SHOULD" have most the day to work on my stuff, hopefully!

[nothing to lose]

"and except for the fact that I don't like to shovel ashes, "

It seems I always come up with ideas for things I never have seen before, people tell me they are dumb Ideas then I see the product for sale a year or two later somewhere.

A few years ago I was thinking about making a vacum cleaner to suck the ashes out of wood stoves and fire places. Never did anything with the idea though.

Basically a metal shop vac with flexable metal hose and a filter screen on the end to prevent sucking up hot coals. Just suck the ashes right out of the fire after you let it die down a little. Or just push the coals and wood to the back and drag the ash to the front and suck it out. No more ash dust alll over the house, no more droppng ash all around the wood burner. No more dust storms when you have the flue and sneeze while cleaning out the ash!!

What do ya think, should I have built it? I never saw anything like that before. Never saw anything since I thought of it either. Everyone seemed to think vacumming the ash out was a dumb idea nad a fire hazzard?? I don't think so.

Well, geuss what Harbor Freight item # 03394-1jma is?? $29.99!!

Looks like a steel 5gal paint can that has a flexable metal hose and attaches to any shop vac or household vacum with a correct hose size and sucks the ash out of the wood stove/fireplace. Says something about a metal screen or filter to prevent sucking hot stuff into the vacums bag.

 Not sure how long these have been around, I never saw anything like it untill I got this months catalog, I thought of it several years back at least though.

If I can find a steel 5gal paint can and a flexable metal hose and some stainless mesh screen I think I will build one! Also maybe add a little steel wool or a brillo pad to catch the finer stuff and a metal window screen over the end of the tube to keep out the larger pieces. $30 is a bit much and should be easy to build!

[troy]

I only show the conceptual door.  It is entirely up to the individual to decide if they wish to walk through that door.

Take the blue pill and wake up in your bed and think whatever you want about this whole experience.

Good luck and have fun!

troy

[tecker]

  Once the gas is bleed off . A room ac would be perfect exchanger the evaporator coils

just need to be blown out with some fast orange to get the oil out and coupled to 1/2 copper run  to a water heater tank wrap the upper barrel with copper and pump out of the water heater to he ac evaporator remove the condenser coils and fit the fan shaft with a auto water pump for that matter .The reason I wouldn't wrap the bottom barrel with the copper is I think it would get too hot .and the upper barrel is easy to remove to service the heat exchange coils .A little anti frezze and it's good for a cool spell if your out of town.

[tecker]

 I have to say that the thing I love most about the stove is to back up real close  with jeans and a hoody on get toasty and go sit down in a chair the heat is the best kind of therapy