I've been using an old 45 gal. diesel drum to burn leaves and branches, and, maybe because of our excellent summer, am finding it more difficult than expected to get everything to burn.
I had made a series of small holes (about 5/16) in the base, and a similar series in two rings around the lower part of the barrel. Enlarging three of the lower holes on the barrel to one inch didn't seem to help the burning.
Does anyone have recommendations for optimum ventilation?
I ended up cutting the bottom out of ours completely. Stand it on some bricks to raise it up off the ground.
When mine burnt through the bottom, it worked really well until it got chucked out. Sez she, "it had a hole in the bottom". I had to get a new one that didn't burn nearly as well ...
Nick
Look up Silsoe incinerator. The agricultural college did some work optimising the hole size and spacing. They used a raised mesh of some sort to form a hearth.
regards
>
Standard technique is to whack in some 1" holes using a pickaxe.
which excellent summer was that?
put it on bricks remove all the bottom and fit some expanded steel mesh flooring inside
>3rd August, in Gravesend, Kent.
This did not extend to Humberside.
Owain
Pickaxe-sized holes around the bottom. Alternatively, one 2" hole near the bottom and feed it with blown air from an old furnace blower. Everything burns cleanly.
branches,
wander are lost
I'm with Steve Firth on this one. Whack about 20 holes with a pick axe in the base, then stand it on bricks.
If you cut 1/3rd of the top and 1/3rd of the bottom off a steel drum, then similarly whack in the holes they make a superb barbeque when set on a suitable frame, using weld mesh as the grilling surface. I've three done this way, and an angle iron frame to sit them on that neatly gets lifted to where ever we are feeding using forks on the back of the tractor. Last used a few weeks ago when we fed a couple of hundred people over two days.
AWEM
That's interesting, thanks for that.
The two rows of ventilation holes were to try to get it to act as a gasifier, with a primary and secondary air supply. This burns much more efficiently and cleanly than a simple fire for lots of reasons that can be found on the internet.
25+ years ago I used to have such an barrel rubbish burner with the ventilation holes as specified (pick-axe). I set up a blower with an old cylinder vacuum cleaner; the hose on some of these could be connected to the outlet if you needed a blower. Air was blown into the bottom of the barrel through a 10' length of scaffold tube, so the vacuum cleaner didn't get hot.After getting it burning, I set the vacuum cleaner going. Burning became very intense, all smoking ceased; 5 or 10 minutes later the barrel was incandescent, literally red (bright) hot. It started to collapse under it's own weight. Predictable; I'd made a blast furnace.
A small blower would do this very well; a fan from a dead boiler or a car blower would do nicely. The latter would have speed controls.
I've given mine away. One point to watch; don't set one up under overhanging or nearby trees.
regards
By that, I meant a single row of holes around the base, not a two- row gasifier effort. Stuff burned but it smoked a lot, the ventilation gradually blocked with ashes and is smoked more, so I tried super-charging it, as described.
I had best results by entering the air pipe tangentially - the incoming air cools the wall of the barrel as it spirals around. I got this idea from building a Turk burner for consuming old chip oil.
You cut or knock a largish hole in the middle of the base about 3 or 4 inches wide and stick a 3 x 3 down the middle of the barrel as you load it. Load the driest leaves into the centre around the timber then pack it down as you load it.
Remove the timber and put a fire lighter or some kindling in the base. It will burn like a chimney fire when it warms up. Putting a lid on it with a small pipe to extend the chimney a yard or so and it will flare like a jet engine.
Once it is burning nicely you can load it with wet leaves and it will keep going. Just pour them in around the sides so they feed into it slowly.
That's a very useful link; some concrete suggestions about hole size and spacing, though garden waste is a bit different from "containers".
I didn't want to start with large holes then try to reduce them!
I'll have to see if I have anything which would do the job, though maybe just enlarging the holes would help. Your suggestion has brought to mind a memory from _many_ decades ago, of how effective small bellows were at resuscitating a fire from one or two embers.
I was hoping to reduce the mess by leaving the bottom in place and just perforating it a bit. I'll see how larger holes in the sides works out. I was actually surprised that it didn't burn better, but probably the fire was being starved of oxygen.
Don't have a pickaxe, but I do have a 1" reduced-shank drill which fits a Bosch hand drill. I'm now reassured that larger holes won't have a negative effect.
Think I'll try enlarging the side holes first; I'm trying to keep the assorted small unburnt (green) twigs etc. inside for easy removal. Of course if I got it to burn well enough, even the green stuff should be reduced to ash.
Sounds as though I needn't worry about having too much ventilation then.
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