Outdoor woodstoves

nicksanspam · 2005-12-02T13:24:02+00:00

JazzMan got a fairly large wood and brush pile afterdoing tree work at his house, and rather than pay for a dumpster decidedto get one of these:>... for $99 on sale at the local retail outlet for Harbor Freight.Why is it EPA-exempt? The cook plates? Drumstoves made with $20 kitswork well and hold lots of wood. I designed one into an outdoor stovenear a window with a condensing counterflow chimney, on paper. Outdoor stoves are very dirty, with one high-priced exception, but EPA-exempt, for some political reason, I guess. A hot firebox and a condensingchimney might make an efficient clean burn, with a small fan to pushcombustion air into the stove, which might run faster when more heatis needed, eg when water or room air temps drop. Sounds funky. Is this a wood-framed porch? :-)That small stove won't burn very long, and it may be hard to get heat intoa radiator. At 50K Btu/h, an 800 Btu/h-F radiator with lots of water andairflow would have a 50K/800 = 63 F air-water temp diff, which might behard on a fan motor. You might pump water out of a shallow tank on top ofthe stove through the house instead.Or make a condensing chimney with a 6" (galvanized, aluminum, urethaned?)pipe inside 8" pipe, with the 6" pipe passing through 8" to 6" reducersat each end, waterproofed with lots of silicone caulk? Or wrap the innerpipe with polyethylene film and use PVC for the outer one?And how about lots of foil-covered 4" thinwall PVC pipes under a foilceiling instead of 55 gallon accent drums in the house, with a slowceiling fan and a room temp thermostat and an occupancy sensor tobring down warm air as needed? Nick