Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work.

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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.
He can get slabs from his brother-in-laws sawmill and wants to run
hot water from the outside furnace into the house. Then use radiators
to warm up the place. I know that there is more to doing it than just
a box to get it very efficient and thought he should find a book on
how wood stoves are constructed. Anyone here with any experience at
this or wood stove construction? I think I remember that if you use
steel plate that it won't last as long as cast iron for some
reason. ??
Rosce

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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????


"Butter" wrote in message
ups.com...
Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.
He can get slabs from his brother-in-laws sawmill and wants to run
hot water from the outside furnace into the house. Then use radiators
to warm up the place. I know that there is more to doing it than just
a box to get it very efficient and thought he should find a book on
how wood stoves are constructed. Anyone here with any experience at
this or wood stove construction? I think I remember that if you use
steel plate that it won't last as long as cast iron for some
reason. ??
Rosce


Where do you live, Rosce? A friend of ours had an outside wood furnace
constructed last year in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania. Apparently
the guy who built it was quite an expert, with a lot of successful
installations under his belt.

--
Ed Huntress



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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:29:15 -0700, Butter wrote:

Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.
He can get slabs from his brother-in-laws sawmill and wants to run
hot water from the outside furnace into the house. Then use radiators
to warm up the place. I know that there is more to doing it than just
a box to get it very efficient and thought he should find a book on
how wood stoves are constructed. Anyone here with any experience at
this or wood stove construction? I think I remember that if you use
steel plate that it won't last as long as cast iron for some
reason. ??
Rosce



You are talking about a "boiler" rather then a "stove". Normally
boilers are thought of as devices to produce steam but they can
equally well produce hot water and frequently are in businesses such
as the food processing industry that use quantities of hot water.


Bruce-in-Bangkok
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address is a spam trap)
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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

read up on Hasha

http://tinyurl.com/2dy3xm


Karl


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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

Butter wrote:
Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.

Nobody else mentione this, so I thought I should. What you are
talking about is a potential BOMB! You absolutely must have
proper safety controls on it so the boiler cannot ever get
overheated. (I'm not sure how you do this on a wood-heated
boiler.) For gas or oil, you just cut the burner off if the
circulator pump quits. You might actually have to have some
sort of fire-putter-outer in case of electrical outage, pump
motor failure, etc. If the worst happens, you may have to just
let the water out, and melt the boiler.

Jon


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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:29:15 -0700, Butter wrote:

Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.
He can get slabs from his brother-in-laws sawmill and wants to run
hot water from the outside furnace into the house. Then use radiators
to warm up the place.


There's been talk of banning this type of boiler in a few towns around
here. Apparently they produce lots of smoke and ash when damped down.
The fact that they release this stuff at ground level makes the
problem, or at least the perception of a problem, worse. Be careful
you don't build something you might not be able to use.

I know that there is more to doing it than just
a box to get it very efficient and thought he should find a book on
how wood stoves are constructed. Anyone here with any experience at
this or wood stove construction? I think I remember that if you use
steel plate that it won't last as long as cast iron for some
reason. ??


I did some design work on commercial versions of home boilers that
were developed at the University of Maine about 25 years ago and have
built several stoves myself. Steel woodburners can be quite durable if
lined lined with refractory in the appropriate areas; either firebrick
or cast refractory.

--
Ned Simmons
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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????


"Butter" wrote in message
ups.com...
Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting

-snip-
this or wood stove construction? I think I remember that if you use
steel plate that it won't last as long as cast iron for some
reason. ??
Rosce


example,
http://www.centralboiler.com/models.php

plans, (no affiliation, just googled "pallet burner")
http://deb-design.com/palletburner.htm


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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:47:45 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm,
"Karl Townsend" quickly quoth:

read up on Hasha

http://tinyurl.com/2dy3xm


Isn't the best stuff from Kabul? Oops, never mind.

I much prefer a forced air furnace. The movement of the air keeps any
mildew from forming inside the house much better than convection.

--
Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
-- Margaret Lee Runbeck
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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:29:15 -0700, Butter wrote:

Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.
He can get slabs from his brother-in-laws sawmill and wants to run
hot water from the outside furnace into the house. Then use radiators
to warm up the place. I know that there is more to doing it than just
a box to get it very efficient and thought he should find a book on
how wood stoves are constructed. Anyone here with any experience at
this or wood stove construction? I think I remember that if you use
steel plate that it won't last as long as cast iron for some
reason. ??
Rosce


I also wondered why cast iron was preferred in such applications. I
asked a lot of people about that, finally got a good answer from a
boiler and firebox design engineer.

But we were both office people, having only such skills as office
people might have.

Best of luck in your quest!
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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????


"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:29:15 -0700, Butter wrote:

Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.
He can get slabs from his brother-in-laws sawmill and wants to run
hot water from the outside furnace into the house. Then use radiators
to warm up the place. I know that there is more to doing it than just
a box to get it very efficient and thought he should find a book on
how wood stoves are constructed. Anyone here with any experience at
this or wood stove construction? I think I remember that if you use
steel plate that it won't last as long as cast iron for some
reason. ??
Rosce


I also wondered why cast iron was preferred in such applications. I
asked a lot of people about that, finally got a good answer from a
boiler and firebox design engineer.

But we were both office people, having only such skills as office
people might have.

Best of luck in your quest!


Considering your prowess in the office, how does one go about sharpening a
pencil, Don? :-)

Harold




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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:36:53 -0500, Jon Elson
wrote:

Butter wrote:
Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.

Nobody else mentione this, so I thought I should. What you are
talking about is a potential BOMB! You absolutely must have
proper safety controls on it so the boiler cannot ever get
overheated. (I'm not sure how you do this on a wood-heated
boiler.) For gas or oil, you just cut the burner off if the
circulator pump quits. You might actually have to have some
sort of fire-putter-outer in case of electrical outage, pump
motor failure, etc. If the worst happens, you may have to just
let the water out, and melt the boiler.

Jon


Remember this thing is making hot water, not steam, nor is it new
technology. They were using hot water radiators in the grade school
when I was in the first grade for God's sake, and the school was an
old building even then.

You can control pressure in the boiler with a pressure relief valve,
just like they always have.

The only other controls you need are the chimney damper and the air
inlet doors to control the draft.

If you are worried about the make up water just mount a "make up" tank
above the boiler.


Bruce-in-Bangkok
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address is a spam trap)
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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

First ask yourself....

Do I want to get up 3-4:00 am in the morrning and go out side in the
cold snow to fix a fire...

Sometime it will happen...




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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

Great, but are you going to tell us what you learned?

We made maple syrup here for 10 years using a homemade evaporator.
http://www.spaco.org/ms.htm



I tried steel grates (re-rod) but a 5/8" diameter rod dissapears in
about a year. So I finally broke down and bought cast iron grates.
They seem to last forever except if you EVER let the ashes pile up
underneath enough to touch the cast iron. Then they sag.
So I certainly agree that cast iron is better. Of course the
evaporator fire is kept VERY hot. We were after a stack temperature
of 550 to 750 degrees F.

Pete Stanaitis
--------------------------------------------



I also wondered why cast iron was preferred in such applications. I
asked a lot of people about that, finally got a good answer from a
boiler and firebox design engineer.

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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????



Jon Elson wrote:

Butter wrote:

Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.


Nobody else mentione this, so I thought I should. What you are talking
about is a potential BOMB! You absolutely must have proper safety
controls on it so the boiler cannot ever get overheated. (I'm not sure
how you do this on a wood-heated boiler.) For gas or oil, you just cut
the burner off if the circulator pump quits. You might actually have to
have some sort of fire-putter-outer in case of electrical outage, pump
motor failure, etc. If the worst happens, you may have to just let the
water out, and melt the boiler.

Jon




All water heating systems have a overpressure valve commonly called a
Watts valve since the Watts company makes a lot of them. You have one
on your water heater and they are installed on all water circulating
boilers. They have to be sized for the burner. Most modern water
radiator type systems have an automatic fill into the system. Back flow
valves must be installed so water cannot flow from the closed system
back into your fresh water system.


John

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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

There are some combination wood/oil fired units now, where if the wood fire
dies down, the oil burner kicks in.


wrote in message
ups.com...
First ask yourself....

Do I want to get up 3-4:00 am in the morrning and go out side in the
cold snow to fix a fire...

Sometime it will happen...







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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

Don Foreman wrote:

I also wondered why cast iron was preferred in such applications. I
asked a lot of people about that, finally got a good answer from a
boiler and firebox design engineer.

I grew up with hydronic heat, we had a Standard boiler and
Bell & Gosset pumps. The house I am in now also has hydronic
heat, with a boiler make I'm not familiar with, and one Bell &
Gosset pump, and zone valves. Both systems used finned
baseboard radiators. The Standard boiler was a cast iron thing,
but this newer one (installed in 1976 when the house was built)
has a long string of copper ells. I'd never seen one like that.
I assume the ells are brazed together, I can't imagine solder
would hold up to the thermal cycling conditions.

The ells look like this :

_ _ _ _ _
| | | | | | | | | |
- - - - - ----

and there are several circuits in parallel.

Jon
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On Oct 24, 4:29 pm, Butter wrote:
Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.
He can get slabs from his brother-in-laws sawmill and wants to run
hot water from the outside furnace into the house. Then use radiators
to warm up the place. I know that there is more to doing it than just
a box to get it very efficient and thought he should find a book on
how wood stoves are constructed. Anyone here with any experience at
this or wood stove construction? I think I remember that if you use
steel plate that it won't last as long as cast iron for some
reason. ??
Rosce


The niece has this in their place, combination corn and wood pellet
stove. Feeds hot water to a set of loops in the house. It's welded
steel construction, probably about the size of two phone booths back
to back on a slab outside about 20' away from the house. It's got a
pretty sophisticated controller to handle things, thermostats in all
the loops. Personally, I wouldn't try to cobble something like this
together myself. It's got a hopper they have to fill about once a week
and clean out the ash at the same time. Pellets have less ash than
the corn, corn they can get from the tenant leasing the land. Not
sure what they're using this year, ethanol is driving up prices on
corn. Has a backup propane burner that can also supply domestic hot
water.

Hand-fed and wood fired is going to get awful tiresome running out in
the cold at least twice a day, maybe more. The b-in-l has had wood-
fired hot water heat for decades, stove is inside. Also plate steel
construction. He's lost his source of free wood and doesn't want to
spend the time cutting and splitting anyway so is going back to
propane for heating as soon as the current woodpile vanishes. Had to
fill the basement with wood at least once a week and feed the stove
several times a day, takes up a lot of space down there. Brings in
bugs, too. With his system, there's a pump involved, if there's a
storm that takes out the power, there's no heat in the rest of the
place. Has a backup generator for that eventuality, something that
you need to keep in mind.

One thing about a do-it-yourself furnace is the effect it might have
on the fire insurance, like maybe you can't get any? Insurance
companies are usually a lot more willing to insure places that have
proper testing agency stickers on the heating equipment, particularly
where sealed vessels heating water are involved.

Stan

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Default Outside wood burning furnace help needed????

My cousin uses an outside boiler mounted on a slab 100' from the house.
All the ash, mess, bugs, logs, etc are kept well away from the house.
Firebox is sized to take 48" logs without need for splitting. There is a
roller on the firebox door, if you can horse it in, it will burn it. In
moderate weather you may not have to load it more than every other day.

Another friend was using a basement boiler, what a mess it made. But he
was lucky on his wood supply: in his area the pulp log cutters have a
steady supply of non aspen logs that they can't sell to the mill. He
would have a 7 cord truck load delivered to his backyard for a few
hundred bucks. Mostly basswood, ash, and maple.

wrote:
On Oct 24, 4:29 pm, Butter wrote:
Guy at work is constantly talking about this now that its getting
cold and I had the idea that the place to find someone who had done
this was people with the skills to do it. What would be the point of
asking office people for example how to do anything. We have acess to
steel sheet from 12 ga to 3/8 thick.
He can get slabs from his brother-in-laws sawmill and wants to run
hot water from the outside furnace into the house. Then use radiators
to warm up the place. I know that there is more to doing it than just
a box to get it very efficient and thought he should find a book on
how wood stoves are constructed. Anyone here with any experience at
this or wood stove construction? I think I remember that if you use
steel plate that it won't last as long as cast iron for some
reason. ??
Rosce


The niece has this in their place, combination corn and wood pellet
stove. Feeds hot water to a set of loops in the house. It's welded
steel construction, probably about the size of two phone booths back
to back on a slab outside about 20' away from the house. It's got a
pretty sophisticated controller to handle things, thermostats in all
the loops. Personally, I wouldn't try to cobble something like this
together myself. It's got a hopper they have to fill about once a week
and clean out the ash at the same time. Pellets have less ash than
the corn, corn they can get from the tenant leasing the land. Not
sure what they're using this year, ethanol is driving up prices on
corn. Has a backup propane burner that can also supply domestic hot
water.

Hand-fed and wood fired is going to get awful tiresome running out in
the cold at least twice a day, maybe more. The b-in-l has had wood-
fired hot water heat for decades, stove is inside. Also plate steel
construction. He's lost his source of free wood and doesn't want to
spend the time cutting and splitting anyway so is going back to
propane for heating as soon as the current woodpile vanishes. Had to
fill the basement with wood at least once a week and feed the stove
several times a day, takes up a lot of space down there. Brings in
bugs, too. With his system, there's a pump involved, if there's a
storm that takes out the power, there's no heat in the rest of the
place. Has a backup generator for that eventuality, something that
you need to keep in mind.

One thing about a do-it-yourself furnace is the effect it might have
on the fire insurance, like maybe you can't get any? Insurance
companies are usually a lot more willing to insure places that have
proper testing agency stickers on the heating equipment, particularly
where sealed vessels heating water are involved.

Stan

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