homemade stoves

[wayacoyote]

I'm looking to replace my girlfriend's 55gal barrel woodstove for her cabin and am wondering if anyone has input on improvements. She complained that she could never regulate it. (I did notice the door is missing a gasket, but that may not have been the whole problem.) As we'll be installing a new kit, and her's was the "basic" single door, no regulator - type, has anyone tried one with better success? I just read on the web that discarded waterheaters do better than drums.

I'm also interested in making her a fire-fueled water heater to set outside for winter/summer use. I don't have any plans at all for it. Anyone?

Waya

[Sundance]

The gasket is a major issue on air control
with these rascals. I used one to heat my
house for two years with good success.

What do you mean by "no regulator"? It does
have a air control of some sort doesn't it?

[Michael Bush]

The only way I ever got a 55 gallon drum stove to seal well is buying a kit with a bold on cast iron door. Otherwise the door always warps and leaks air. Of course you also need a damper. An air tight stove is a delight and a 55 gallon stove is difficult to get air tight.

I've had better luck making a stove out of an electric water heater tank. People often throw away good tanks because the elements burned out. The steel is thicker and less prone to warp.

[drobbins]

ya need one of these [img]smile.gif[/img]

http://www.vogelzang.com/barrel_stoves.htm

Dave

[edit] as Michael said, using a drum made out of thicker metal is WAY better

[size="1"][ October 16, 2006, 08:21 PM: Message edited by: drobbins ][/size]

[power napper]

I have two thirty five gallon stainless steel drums that are stoves for emergency use now. I put them in use back in the late seventies, worked wonderfully. One upstairs fireplace and one in basement fireplace, bought kits from a company named sotz, out of business now. You can buy good gasket material and good furnace cement to seal up the door frame etc.
I have heard of old transformers being used, old water heaters, big pipe casing, two hundred fifty gallon fuel tanks with two sets of doors etc.

[wayacoyote]

Thanks.
Bruce, by regulator, I did mean damper. It has a damper on the smoke stack and it has a "damper" at the top of the door... I think this is a very poor place to put one as the fresh air flows above rather than through the fuel. To solve this, the ladies had removed the large barrel plug which is at the bottom of the barrel. Thus, either they had the air flow fully on or fully off. No other air control.

I've heard what you guys are saying... air-control and tightness seems to be the problem most often mentioned. Hopefully, the new one will have gaskets and air regulator. She's having it built by a friend in trade school who built one last year.

I'll keep an eye out for water tanks.

Tanks again,
waya

[wayacoyote]

Power napper,
I had been to that webpage last week. I like the looks of the "delux" style with the dual air controls. So you like that one? if the welder has me order the parts, that's the best one I've seen so far.

Waya

[power napper]

Wayacoyote--All of the cast iron kits that I saw were either cracked or broken some how. The old steel ones made by sotz were sort of like the old timex watches--took a licken and kept on tickin! Once in a while I will see one that someone has for sale in the local trader paper. Sotz had a square door of steel that sort of meshed like a glove, no air leaks and a metal damper on the door. The fifteen gallon to thirty five gallon drum moder which I have two of are round, they just barely fit on fifteen gallon grease drums, it was an ingenious design, plain and simple, keep your eyes out for one of them, you will not be sorry.

[tecumseh]

I use to build wood heaters made from very used hot water heaters. The one that I came to like most required two water heater which I joined into the shape of an L with the bottom of the L being the wood burning box. It seems??? like a gas hot water heater was made with a bit thicker skin so it was a bit easier when it came to welding them up. the real advantage was you could cut the end off the water heater add a strap of flat metal to band the cut off end of the tank and the resulting door was pretty much air tight. In fact you had to add an air valve to allow enough air into the device to really get it started. I usually also added a sliding door type draft control at the top of the stove. I had thought at the time I was making these little jewels that you could (I never did) add a number of wraps of copper tube to the vertical portion of the L to add a hot water feature to these stoves.

good luck....

[Michael Bush]

I never tried the gas water heaters because of the hole running up through the middle. Of course you could plug the holes by welding something over them or you could put a fan in to blow some air down the middle to get more heat. [img]smile.gif[/img]

But I never tried either of those.