Do you mean condensing moisture? It'd sure add to the efficiency, but what do you do with the stinky moisture.. if you leave it in the pipe and expect it to "evaporate" then the efficiency gain is lost in the latent heat (which is the gain realized by condensing the moisture in the first place).. you could have a trap for it to flow to, but then you gotta deal with it..
John
Barry has the clue.. it takes considerable temperatures to break creosote down to where it'll burn. It's a very heavy hydrocarbon, what you see on utility poles, and it won't burn at lower temperatures. That's why the square stoves leave so much creosote in a chimney, that's why people need the insulated pipes to keep creosote accumulation down- but they send vast amounts of heat up that pipe along with the lost heat the creosote would have made had it been burned.
Burn the fuel efficiently and entirely at high temperatures in the stove, take the heat from the flue pipe.. that's what works.
John
Copper flashing. Hook up some wires and run some LEDs from the resulting thermocouple, while you're at it. not enough to be useful, but interesting anyway.
You should also look into piping in combustion air, while you're at it, so you don't have throw heated air from the room up the chimney.
--Goedjn
>
Neither. Extend the bases past the fins, and hold them on with giant hose-clamps.
The real question is the cost. ; Of course a metal shop can fabricate them, but is the cost going to be something the average homeowner can easily afford?
what is the purpose of the convoluted run? If it is just to increase the length of pipe in the room to provide more heat, how about just adding fins to the pipe?
Perhaps beer cans could be used as a source of aluminum. A little work with a tin snips should suffice.
Anthony
If you join the pipe sections so that the creosote runs down inside the section below it and into the stove you will eliminate the mess, and even further impede the air flow like you want to. But your house is still likely to burn down.
Gio
Of course.
Let it drip into a plastic bucket.
Nick
La di dah. Life is dangerous. Use a CO detector or two.
Nick
Yes Nick, if you live like that LIFE is dangerous. How about if I nominate you for the Darwin award now so you can enjoy the award in the short time you have left. Perhaps you should read the code section on flues for wood burning appliances.
Stretch
PS, I once saw a guy use galvanized flue pipe on his wood stove when I lived in Pennsylvania. He had ordered the stainless steel triple wall that he needed, but it was slow in arriving. The galvanized stuff lost the galvanized coating the first time he fired the stove, and the flue ate through in less than a week. He was lucky he didn't burn his house down. CO poisoning was the least of his worries.
alu fins on a steel(?) flue?? how about broad, thin flat-bar tacked on one edge, parallel to the run...
Err, any machine shop with a guillotine and sheet bender should be able to convert a sheet of aluminium or gal(?) or steel (?) to strips with a
90 corner.The question is whether to punch and drill the rivet holes before or after. Blind rivets of course, or Tek screws if you like the look.
$1K for shipping too.
Ditto. You are playing with fire.
They use aluminum on copper baseboard. Very good heat transver
how about broad, thin flat-bar tacked on one
Could work. I was thinking of the typical fins on baseboard, but no reason they could not be as you describe. Easier to fabricate and install.
OK, Coyote, what is it you want? That's the first thing you need to figure out.
When my ex and I were in the Yukon on a mine claim, we had a very rough house and a poor stove, and nothing to insure. I'm too embarrassed to tell you how bad out heating system was. But it was cheap. And at that time, that was our priority.
Now I live in a log cabin, with nice stuff that I want insurance on. I have water only in a holding tank, so I couldn't even insure my place if I claimed fire as a heat source -- other than for emergencies. Insurance dictates that the stove be on a hearth, be a certain distance from walls, have a certain kind of chimney, etc. That's going to have to be what you ask yourself about first. Well, that and safety.
I haven't looked around at stoves for quite a while, and don't remember names of specific products, but I remember little stoves of thin metal with a lining. From Army Navy, I think. Those linings wear out, and I wouldn't trust their safety, especially if you have to keep the box real hot. Wouldn't trust anything but cast iron.
And of course, there's comfort. To me, that means the house is warm enough and the fire lasts long enough that it's not necessary to get up to tend the fire in the middle of the night. Our place has about 1000 sq ft, and is the "trapper" style -- low pitched ceiling, and open floor plan (U shaped space the guts of the house, like the bathroom, boiler, water pump, closets, etc), so the stove and a little heat powered fan are plenty for us. Part of keeping the fire going is getting a stove that's tight enough and also controllable. Once again that means a decent cast iron stove.
And decent cast iron stoves cost. But they also last. As it happens, we got ours new. Ordered it through our local wood stove store from Vermont Casting, because that's what my husband wanted. I thought it was a little frivolous, but am so glad we chose it. The store had other less expensive stoves, and also had used reconditioned stoves from trade ins.
But there are other places to look too. Try junk shops, try Tradio or your local equivalent, want ads, free ads, ask the old timers to ask other old timers. Maybe estate sales or garage sales.
I agree with Janet. A good stove, properly and legally installed is an important long term investment. The only way to go unless you REALLY have nothing to lose.
Tina
It'd work, and with some wood it'd certainly increase the efficiency in a dramatic fashion. I don't believe it'd be much help with well-seasoned hardwood, but with wet or oily woods (pine and walnut in particular) it might really be worth the effort.
John
Maybe you need to look around some more. There are a lot of expensive very nice-looking air-tight woodstoves. However, I bought ours for about $700 (Canadian!) 3 years ago at our local hardware store. It's an EPA rated air-tight that performs very well It doesn't have all the fancy trim, but still has a nice glass door that stays clean for many days thanks to the "air wash" system.
-- Bert Menkveld
Codes ensure safety, but they also ensure spending lots of money and wasting energy. They show little understanding of heatflow.
Nick
So Nick,
You want to be rich and dead? Maybe you can get them to put a U-Haul behind your hearse!
In my business, safety is very important. If I didn't follow code, I coould get sued. Someone could get hurt, sick or die. That would be a bad thing! If you don't care about ketting killed by your contraption, make one operate like your post said. Then if you live till next year, let us know how it worked. For me, I want both as much safety as possible and as much efficiency as possible. I also like stuff to last a long time. It is better for me AND my customers.
If a sheet metal flue needed replaced every two weeks, that would cost my customer a lot more than he saved on energy. Especially if the wood was free for the chopping, which it aften is.
I always consider safety very important, dead customers do me no good!
Besides, if you get someone killed. you can go to jail as negligent homicide for a few years. How much research will you do in jail? I know that would be a tough way for me to feed my family!
Stretch
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