Thinking of the heating bills from last winter. :eek::eek: Have a hanging type 75K btu gas heater that runs I'm guessing 75% efficiency. I'd keep that for overnights when the woodburner dies down. I see used ones for sale, pretty old and some are huge, which doesn't work since space is at a premium.

I've seen those barrel types and not real impressed with them due to their size and not real efficient. I did look at a homebuilt one in a shop, was nice and compact but really did a nice job both in heating and retaining the heat. Put it this way, he hadn't put any wood in it from the day before and it was still putting out good heat.

Just thinking in my head of building one so I can fit it to the size of space I want, use something like 1/4 or 5/16" plate and double wall it. Maybe even do some sort of tube through the top of it with a blower to move some air like a heat exchanger.

Pics? Ideas? I know I can buy a new one, but steel is cheap, could probably spend under $200 and get a nice setup.

Athlon,

I have an older 'Rightway 2000' that was built in the mid 80's that would be easy to copy if you have some large tools.

It is a rectangle about 36" tall, 20"wide and 32" deep. It is big enough to heat my 30x48 shop in the dead of winter (0 degrees) to about 70 and keep it there. Load it 2 times a day and no issues. If I throttle it back (~50 degrees) I can run almost 24 hours on a full load. It does take a while to get it from 0 to working temp, but a torpedo heater is a great 'Jump start' heater.

It is made of primarily 1/4" plate, so make sure you have a welder that can handle it.

I can get you some external pics if you are interested, and soon I will be disassembling it to pit in new fireglass 'rope' seals and new firebrick and can get you some disassembled pics then.

Hope that helps.

Eric

My only advice is to build it and have it draw air from outside, That way you are not creating a draft around your doors and burning up the air that you have already heated.
I have a 24 x 26 garage that has wood heat, I just drilled two holes in the back of my old cast stove, and ran two pieces of 1 inch pipe directly outside. I don't have any way of regulating how much air it will draw from outside though. But its never been an issue for me.
I dont go in the garage if its more than -30 C though.

i cleaned up a shop a while ago that had an old oil burning stove, looked like 55 gallon drum on the bottom but was 1/2 inch at least.
it had another smaller drum on top like a 35 gallon drum that he put used motor oil in. started the fire with wood. it had some kinda valve on the bottom of the 35 gallon drum that misted the oil into the lower stove, the old man said it would not smoke but he could get he bigger drum to glow orange, crazy ass old man

definately take some tubing and run through it above the fire box to make a heat exchanger.....the more tubes through, the more heat exchange possible. Then take some sheet metal to attach an old furnace fan or something of the sort to blow through it.

2 truck drums and some locomotive parts..........:grinpimp:


http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i86/jmleban/PIC_0013.jpg

Keep your eyes open on CL - I've seen quite a bit of wood stoves on it lately. Another option is the barrel stove - Northern sells kits for DIY.

I dont have a pic, but a crude drawing, follow along and you can imagine what I am describing. About the best friggin wood heater I have seen was home made. It was made with 2x4 or 2x3 (dont remember which) 1/4" wall tubing. The tube was cut to 30" or so long with a 45* cut into one end. The pcs of tube were welded together to make it around 20" or so square with the 45* angle at the back and the short side of the 45* on the inside. A 1/4" plate welded inside the front and back, it was sit back in 1/2" or so to allow a good bead to be put down. A hole cut into the front for a door from one of the barrel kits. A hole cut into the rear for the flue pipe fitting at the top of the rear plate. A second rear plate was cut to be welded to the rear at the long side of the 45*, making it 4" bigger then the inside plate, again it had to have the flue pipe hole cut and it had a 4" round hole cut at the middle. Had some short feet welded on. The 2nd hole in rear had a small squirl cage fan with a 4in or so diameter fan in it. It had a snap switch from a furnace mounted to the surface, when the heater surface got hot enough, it would cut the fan on blowing air through the tube and out the front, when it cooled off enough, the fan cut off.It had a override to cut the fan off in order to put wood in without roasting you. The fan was small I thought, but the area heated would dictate the size used I guess. There was a LOT of welding done on it, all tube was welded with contentious bead down the length on outside, and I was guessing the inside also, that may have been overkill ??? If I ever get a deal on some material, I'll be making one like this.
http://www.zuwharrie.com/gallery/albums/userpics/12254/wood_stove.bmp

heres my set up,free 55 gal barrel.made some legs out of 1/2 sqaure stock,welded some hinges on the door and ran 6'' stove out and up.i cut a few holes in the sides down low and it draws pretty good.it's enough to take the edge off in my shop when it's 30 degree's out.my shop is 30x50 with no insulation,i will be insulating this fall and it should be great.also when it's really cold i will stoke the hell out of it and throw a box fan behind it with a dimmer switch on it to control air flow.i've got 35 bucks in stove pipe.

2 truck drums and some locomotive parts..........:grinpimp:


http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i86/jmleban/PIC_0013.jpg

how did you cut the cast drums? angle grinder? i know you did not use a torch

all done by a friend who owed me some favours. angle grinder and special rods.