Bug In Stove

[churchmouse]

You're right, your homeowners insurance will definitely drop you if you're using a non-listed wood stove (such as a barrel stove). Barrel stoves are great at 1 thing only IMHO, getting a cheap wood burning stove. That's where they "good" ends.

They definitely are not the most efficient, and they definitely aren't the safest, but they are cheap.

Also, you'd probably do better with a fan on the floor blowing the cold air from the house into the garage. It's easier to move the cold air on the floor than the hot air that's on the ceiling.

Either way there is an exchange. The direct warm air into the house is probably more comforting especially for mom and the kids.......

 

[patience0830]

Fireplaces, bakeovens, sauna, natural stone, dishware | Tulikivi

For those with the funds these are top of the line as masonry stoves go.

I want one in the underground house I want to build. May not happen before I die but I'd sure like to try it.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Either way there is an exchange. The direct warm air into the house is probably more comforting especially for mom and the kids.......

True, but the exchange is more efficient by blowing the cold air to the heat source.

 

[draftsman]

I have a non-masonry vented fireplace (insert?). Do they make retro fit wood burning stoves for fire place inserts?

 

[churchmouse]

I have a non-masonry vented fireplace (insert?). Do they make retro fit wood burning stoves for fire place inserts?

Several friends have wood burning Franklin style inserts in the fireplace. Sister's has a fan and heats their entire house (up-graded log cabin) with relative ease.

 

[Bazooka Joe]

So are these barrel stoves your talking about rocket stoves, rocket mass heaters, or something else?

 

[IndyBeerman]

So are these barrel stoves your talking about rocket stoves, rocket mass heaters, or something else?

Just a good old fashioned wood burning barrel stove.

 

[IndyBeerman]

While I think the idea of a wood burning stove is great, I have had plans that I've did some doodling on of incorporating a outside burning drum stove with a boiler plate and running pex lines designed for high temp hot water and running them into the house through one of my crawl vents and use the small car radiator concept placed in a couple of places in the house. Put them in a decorative wood frame with a very low speed fan for air output and it should work fine and dandy.

But this is not something I would use as a full time heating source, only when I'm home. But it's something I'm seriously looking at because I have a source for free wood and there's also the Morgan-Monroe forest. Back when I was younger we used to get pickup truckloads of fallen and marked trees for real cheap $$$'s. Not as young as I used to be, so not enthused about splitting wood again.

Now something I have considered more towards full time heating is a wood/corn pellet stove. You can get 1 ton of wood pellets in 50 pound bags for $159.00 from Menards when they run them on special. This looks very attractive to me for the long run.

 

[churchmouse]

Great idea but the exchange of heat can not be done directly through pex. Is the boiler plate involved, what kind of pump.
I ask because we are doodling out some plans along these lines for a friends home. We are looking at using an A/C "A" coil and the furnace blower on low speed. I have not finalized the exchanger as yet. WE will use a small domestic booster pump to move the water/glycol mix. Still a few issues to work out.

 

[Butch627]

I went from a standard old cast iron wood stove to a vermont castings high efficency unit. My wood consumption went down by about 70 percent. I would highly recommend you look into a high efficency unit.

 

[IndyBeerman]

Great idea but the exchange of heat can not be done directly through pex. Is the boiler plate involved, what kind of pump.
I ask because we are doodling out some plans along these lines for a friends home. We are looking at using an A/C "A" coil and the furnace blower on low speed. I have not finalized the exchanger as yet. WE will use a small domestic booster pump to move the water/glycol mix. Still a few issues to work out.

Yes I know you can't heat directly with pex. that is unless you want a pile of goo.

Looking for options on the transfer plate/exchanger, I've even thought of using a copper pipe loop inside or outside the drum (prefer inside more direct heat) with holes drilled into the drum to run the lines out and connect to the pex, then run to a old 40-50 gallon water heater as a storage tank.

I've also thought of using one of the old 250 gallon fuel tanks because it's heavier steel and you can stoke it with more wood for a longer burn.

As far as the pump, that's something I've been throwing around some, toyed with ideas from individual small pumps to each room to vary output to just using a variable speed motor hooked to a car water pump.

And yes I have though of going the A/N coil route also, but don't know what additional strain it would put on the fan having to push everything through a second A/N coil.

I've rewritten the basics of it maybe 20 times and will probably rewrite it more with some head beatings on the wall also.

What I'd really love to do is Frankenstein a pellet stove and add a glycol heat exchanger to it, but that takes money to acquire one of those. Still scratching my head figuring out why one of the manufactures have not tried that.

I just think of all the efficiency lost and the possibility of getting the max heat to where it's needed with the lowest cost to build, I don't want to drop a lot of money into this and find out a hurricane lantern is putting out more heat in one of the rooms than what I'm trying to accomplish.

 

[Bazooka Joe]

Have you guys looked at the rocket mass heater? These are so efficient that they can be exhausted horizontal and they only emit steam and carbon dioxide, no smoke if working properly. And you consume ~1/10 of the wood you would consume in a traditional wood burner. I have been floating the idea of one of these since I have heard about it.

Rocket Mass Heater

 

[churchmouse]

A friend has a barn like building with a pool in it and set up like a picnic area. He has a pot belly stove in it and uses the stove to heat the area in the winter. He has 1/2 in. copper tubing wrapped around parts of the stove and all around the flu pipe. He circulates the pool water through the copper with a small fractional HP pump he bought at a flea market and it keeps the pool at a comfortable temp. They keep the old pot belly stoked constantly and the area is decent as well. Just some ma-pa engineering.
If you were to wrap the barrel with tubing and leave 1 in. gaps or less most of the heat would exchange into the liquid. I would use a glycol mix so the boiling temp of the water would be raised and include a water heater style pop off safety on the storage tank. If you were crafty you could supplement you water heater as well. Some back yard engineering involved but possible.