Home made wood stove.

[ken morgan]

These guys know more than me so I know when to shut up.

Very nice fab skills! I can appreciate how much work went into that.

Thanks, Learned how to fab while as a farm kid in Indiana and just retained the skills all through the years.

unfortunately for me I have a very specific set of circumstances that have forced me in this direction. good thing is I can change add, subtract or delete any portion of the system as I have the tools and skills to d it, so its guaranteed tech, possibly old school but it will work .

 

[begreen]

Keep up posted on progress Ken. It's quite the project. In particular it would be good to know operating temp on the stove top and flue gas temps, but burn times etc. are also good and interesting data. What are the capacity of the firebox and overall stove dimensions?

 

[ken morgan]

Keep up posted on progress Ken. It's quite the project. In particular it would be good to know operating temp on the stove top and flue gas temps, but burn times etc. are also good and interesting data. What are the capacity of the firebox and overall stove dimensions?

5.4 cubic feet external 2.5 cubic feet actual internal after calculating for fire bricks, re-burn circuit etc.

this Saturday after initial fire up and burn of 3 hours, I restocked it, I loaded at 2030~2100 to the top with 20' splits of 2 year old (from splitting) Japanese oak. I set re-burn and ran it as cool as I could while keeping the flue temps up. drank with my buddies about another hour and then check stove top with IR gun and it read 535f on the lower plate right above the re-burn circuit, and 435~445 on the upper plate. flue temps were bouncing all over the place from a low of 180f to a high of 230f on the outside of the single wall flue pipe that runs from the stove to the upright double walled flue.

Went to sleep and woke up at about 0500 needing to urinate and it still had small flames, when i woke up again at 0700 I had no flames, but had a large bed of coals, that slowly burned off over the next 4 or 5 hours. I was too groggy to even think about measureing at 0500, though i mean to make it a point to do it this weekend.

It was so hot in the cabin that we slept with the windows open in the bathroom and the kitchen to adjust the temps.

we will see how it does in the coming months as the temp drops to its cold point. I will say it s a relief not having to wake up every couple of hours to stoke a stove. The thermal mass of all of those fire bricks is impressive. it takes about an hour of burning to get the walls of the stove hot. the top warms up reasonably quick but all of the firebricks absorb a heck of a lot of heat.

 

[begreen]

11+hrs on a 2.5 cu ft stove is excellent. Well done Ken.

 

[Squirrely]

...then check stove top with IR gun and it read 535f on the lower plate right above the re-burn circuit, and 435~445 on the upper plate.

Sounds like you did good!

And that's the right approach. Scan to find the very hottest spot on the stove so you'll know that everywhere else isn't any hotter than your reference point. Ours is on the exact center of the top of the stove.

Greg

 

[bholler]

5.4 cubic feet external 2.5 cubic feet actual internal after calculating for fire bricks, re-burn circuit etc.

this Saturday after initial fire up and burn of 3 hours, I restocked it, I loaded at 2030~2100 to the top with 20' splits of 2 year old (from splitting) Japanese oak. I set re-burn and ran it as cool as I could while keeping the flue temps up. drank with my buddies about another hour and then check stove top with IR gun and it read 535f on the lower plate right above the re-burn circuit, and 435~445 on the upper plate. flue temps were bouncing all over the place from a low of 180f to a high of 230f on the outside of the single wall flue pipe that runs from the stove to the upright double walled flue.

Went to sleep and woke up at about 0500 needing to urinate and it still had small flames, when i woke up again at 0700 I had no flames, but had a large bed of coals, that slowly burned off over the next 4 or 5 hours. I was too groggy to even think about measureing at 0500, though i mean to make it a point to do it this weekend.

It was so hot in the cabin that we slept with the windows open in the bathroom and the kitchen to adjust the temps.

we will see how it does in the coming months as the temp drops to its cold point. I will say it s a relief not having to wake up every couple of hours to stoke a stove. The thermal mass of all of those fire bricks is impressive. it takes about an hour of burning to get the walls of the stove hot. the top warms up reasonably quick but all of the firebricks absorb a heck of a lot of heat.

Those pipe temps sound pretty low. I would give it a little more air. I am afraid you will get quite a bit of buildup in the chimney at those temps

 

[coaly]

Nothing worse than Japanese creosote.

 

[ken morgan]

11+hrs on a 2.5 cu ft stove is excellent. Well done Ken.

This is running it at the absolute lowest possible setting and as a result it goes through wood slowly, but as bholler mentioned below, my flue temps are pretty low. and this was with the draft damper partially closed. (about 40% closed.)

Those pipe temps sound pretty low. I would give it a little more air. I am afraid you will get quite a bit of buildup in the chimney at those temps

And this right here is my biggest concern. right now its right around 50 degrees at night, so running it any hotter will run you out of the cabin. next month when it gets down below freezing, or in the middle of december when it hits zero I should be fine though. I will be monitoring the flue probably every other week to ensure that its not building up until I start running it hotter

 

[Fort Wisers]

How big is your cabin? How much colder will the outside temps get through the season? You might be fine (as you mentioned) when the colder weather hits. Shoulder seasons are hard for many people, resulting in open windows LOL
Very impressive work BTW, you're motivating me to do a little work to our little baby bear at our cabin!

 

[ken morgan]

How big is your cabin? How much colder will the outside temps get through the season? You might be fine (as you mentioned) when the colder weather hits. Shoulder seasons are hard for many people, resulting in open windows LOL
Very impressive work BTW, you're motivating me to do a little work to our little baby bear at our cabin!

Thank you for the kind words, My Cabin is small under 900 sq ft but its 40 years old, designed primarily for 3 season use and as such, poorly insulated. right now it averages about 50 f, but by November it will be low twenties, and in December it will drop down to low single digits.

Edit: sorry forgot to mention but the south wall is all patio style sliding glass doors (single pain) so huge heat loss in the winter.

 

[ken morgan]

update... running north south fill with hardwood (@ years since split) I am now averaging about 7 hours of burn time with an outside temperature of 20 degrees and an in cabin temp of 75. that is with flue wide open and primary and reburn engaged. opening the reburn to full cranks up the heat, but shortens the burn time even more.... the undersized flue (4") might be hitting its limits. will post more as it gets colder.