Shop heater

[gene]

Thank you for all the info. I'll take a look at those links.

bobbin, you wrote: "...they don't have their acts together enough to get on the seasoned wood program."

Did you mean 'acts' or 'ax'? LOL (Can you tell I had a good time at my studio today? I enjoyed the work, got to listen to a few things I like to listen to on my mp3 player, and not too many phone calls.)

gene

[bobbin]

Did you really mean, "axe", Gene?   ;)

[Eric]

Well I cant help on existing except to tell you to look for used furnace. I have pex tubing buried in floor with foam board under that, hydronic heat, nice and warm on my feet.
Eric

[kodydog]

Yep what Eric said. Contact your local HVAC guy and see if he has any used furnace. I renovated a small house into a shop in Charleston. No AC. Propane heat. My HVAC guy gave me a used heat pump just to get the install job, air exchange, ducts, ect.

Bobbin your wood stove edict is spot on. My Vermont Castings fire place is sealed in the since that it draws no air from inside the house. The flue has three walls. The first is an insulating wall for smaller tolerances when installing. The second draws fresh air into the box. And the third of course, draws out the exhaust.. It has no damper doesn't need it seeing the box is sealed, so to speak.

[mike802]

Running a wood stove is more of an art than a science, one stove will have vastly different burn techniques than another one.  Much depends on your installation, the flue, the chimney, where your home is positioned in relation to mountains, or steep banks.   My experience with the air tight stoves is they generate more creosote than antiques stoves regardless of how dry the wood is.  Are they more efficient, I guess it all depends on how you look at it, sure they can keep a fire all night, because they choke the air supply down and let it smolder, this also generates less heat, if your goal is to ring the most btu's and burn time out of your wood as possible I guess they are great.   I once had a Vermont castings air tight stove that generated so much creosote it would cling to the inside of the stove pipe like huge sheets of sea weed, I had to clean it weekly.  In a different location with a different install it might work better, maybe some day Ill give it a try, I replaced it with an antique one, same location, install and wood without any problems.  My father has an air tight and he is very anal about keeping it clean and having good dry wood, but he has had several chimney fires, he just goes up on the roof and shoves snow down the chimney to put it out.

My antique cook stove heats the whole down stairs and keeps the second floor warn enough for sleeping.  It to will hold a fire all night as long as there are enough coals and ash to bank the fire.  By banking the fire I mean being able to block the draft and giving the fire less air.  I have to clean the chimney once a year, but the stove pipe has to be cleaned about every three weeks, along with the oven.  My mother on the other hand, who also has an antique cook stove never has to clean her stove pipe, or the oven.  By oven, I don't mean inside the cooking part, but rather the part where the draft is circulated around it to warm the oven.  I go through about 4 cords a year and I save several thousand dollars a year on heating oil, so I cant complain about efficiency.  Could I cut my wood consumption in half by using an air tight?  Maybe, but that's only about a 200.00 to 300.00 dollar savings, I would rather stick with my antique, I like sitting by it, or cooking on it and thinking back to a simpler time in America, how many woman have cooked meals for their family's on it? Guess I'm just an old softy for nostalgia.

[bobbin]

While there is indeed an art to operating a wood stove for maximum efficiency I beg to differ that science plays a minimal part.  It is entirely about science!  A properly installed and operated wood stove should not generate chimney fires, esp. when seasoned wood is used.  Period.  I can tell you have limited experience with new stoves and the technology and air intake designs that allows many of them (larger capacity fireboxes) to burn 8-12 with hours with ease.  Our stoves will still have a viable coal bed 10 hrs. after the initial fire was lit and they aren't very large.  Certainly nowhere near the mass of a cookstove.  I understand the cache that accompanies antique stoves; several member of the Hearth.com site are very involved in restoration work, but they really are out performed by new models.  The science doesn't lie.  You should check out the sites I linked, esp. Hearth because they have a classic stove forum you might enjoy. 

[gene]

bobbin, I play Scrabble. AX is just as good as AXE. (I can't insert smiley faces for some reason so just imagine that I inserted the one that is wearing sunglasses.

gene

[kodydog]

 Try this Gene. 8 with ) should give the sun glass simile.

When we bought our house in Charleston I wondered why the mantle atop the fireplace had soot on it. That is until that winter when I started a fire. Smoke poured out the front of it and filled the whole house. I called an "expert" who looked at it and told me the fire place was too big for the flue.

Soon after I was admiring a wood burning insert at a customers house. She said, its for sale. I said, will you trade? She said yes. We delivered the sofa and picked up the insert. Didn't really know if this would salve the problem. But we slid it into the opening and screwed the flange to the brick. Fired it up and it worked great.

The neat thing was two screw type vents on the front. At night I could load it up with wood, screw the vents to just a crack and it would burn all night.

Three years later I had the flue cleaned. The fellow doing it couldn't believe only 1/2 gal of soot. 

The fireplace I have now has no damper and no adjustable vents. I can load it up at night and by 3:00 its about out.

Trivia: The book, E=MC2 states that its not the wood that burns but the gasses coming from it. Look at a fire closely and you'll see the flame doesn't touch the wood. The flame does however heat the wood forcing the gasses out.

[mike802]

While there is indeed an art to operating a wood stove for maximum efficiency I beg to differ that science plays a minimal part.  It is entirely about science!  A properly installed and operated wood stove should not generate chimney fires, esp. when seasoned wood is used.  Period.  I can tell you have limited experience with new stoves and the technology and air intake designs that allows many of them (larger capacity fireboxes) to burn 8-12 with hours with ease.  Our stoves will still have a viable coal bed 10 hrs. after the initial fire was lit and they aren't very large.  Certainly nowhere near the mass of a cookstove.  I understand the cache that accompanies antique stoves; several member of the Hearth.com site are very involved in restoration work, but they really are out performed by new models.  The science doesn't lie.  You should check out the sites I linked, esp. Hearth because they have a classic stove forum you might enjoy.  

First of all I said running a wood stove was more of an art than a science, running as in operating.  The only science involved is that of burning wood, if it was really scientific every stove would operate the same, as in repeatable outcomes for each and every stove and that just aint happenin.  My oil furnace operates on science, I turn the knob to the heat I want, each and every furnace runs the same way with repeatable outcomes.  Each and every wood stove installation is different with different variations and the same stove will act differently in a different setting and install, doesn't sound very scientific to me.  Maximum efficiency in a wood stove, you have got to be kidding," there is no efficient wood, or coal burning stove.  All stoves lose at least half the convective heat up the chimney.  Wood stove merchants do not dwell on this fact.  They keep telling you that a fireplace loses 85% to 90% of its heat.  They hope you won't ask about the 50% a stove is likely to lose no matter how great its "efficient" design is proclaimed to be."1
"Very often you will read that burning green wood causes creosote buildup. That statement is not really true.  Green or wet wood may smolder at such a low temperature that it indirectly causes creosote to build up overly fast in the chimney, but you can build up creosote just as quickly with very dry seasoned wood, if you burn it at a very low draft.  The less air, or draft you allow in your stove, the more creosote will form, because without oxygen, the fire cannot burn hot enough to burn up the gases that carry off the creosote.  Just as night follows day excessive creosote problems have followed in the wake of the so called airtight stove. Always remember that wood won't burn in a stove that is so tight air can't get in.  This should be obvious, but when you are being beaten over the head by sales talk that stresses the superior "efficiency" of airtight stoves you come home with a terrible case of misplaced emphasis.  You believe that the reason for airtightness is to see how long you can keep a piece of wood burning.  So you turn the drat as low as possible without totally quenching the fire and brag you your fellow wood burners that an armload of wood last all night in your stove."1

The science doesn't lie.

No, but salespeople do and a wood stove does not heat, the fire does, it is just a container so the house doesn't burn down.  I have had many stoves over my lifetime air tight and antique, the best one was made out of a 55 gallon drum with a stove kit costing about 35 bucks.  It would heat the whole garage, not pretty, but would would keep you warm.  And I'm talking about here in Vermont when it gets down to -20

1 Gene Logsdon's Practical Skills Rodale Press, Emmaus Pennsylvania

[bobbin]

Kody, I'm impressed! you understand the science behind a burn cycle.   8)

Gene, haven't played Scrabble in years, but seem to recall that it depends on which dictionary you use?  As my Welsh MIL used to say, "Is that what they teach you in American schools?"  (she was really funny). 

[Mike8560]

Bobbin I think he was axing the proper spelling :)

[Jim101]

It gets kind of cold here, sometimes, but it doesn't get really cold here.  I've been in Minneapolis, Minnesota in February.  I know cold!

We have a gas heater in the shop, one of those ones attached to the ceiling.  It uses a lot of gas, and electric, whereas our kerosine heater puts out a lot of heat in a short period of time.  Its one of those big, but portable, kerosine heaters.

They're supposed to burn at 99.3% efficiency, or something like that.  I've used it in my house and had no fumes or gases that I could tell although we had to open the doors and windows it got so hot in there in a very short time.

We still use the kerosine heater on days when its cool and damp, but not cold.  Its got a cage built around it too so you won't get burned but I like it because it keeps my coffee warm in the morning! ;D

Jim

[bobbin]

Lol, Mike. 

[gene]

I don't mean to beat a dead horse with an ax, but:

Didn't someone famous say, "Axe and you shall receive?" Or was it "Ax not what your country can do for you..."

I like the bumper sticker that says "Random ax of kindness."

Isn't there a book in the bible called Axe?

If the plural of 'ox' is 'oxen', then the plural of 'ax' would be 'axen'?

And don't forget Lizzie Bordan. Whack! Whack! Whack!
 
gene   8 )

[bobbin]

NO, but it is:  axEs.  chuckle.