Looking to identify the purpose and proper use of this vintage barrel stove. Specifically the purpose of the secondary smaller barrel on top.
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Barrel stove question
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My guess is an attempt to extract more heat from the fire? On occasion the second barrel would have a steel baffle slid into it and welded so that the gases needed to go through a U shaped path. Its an ultra low efficient stove with a lot of potential for creosote formation in the stack. Do the world a favor and scrap it.
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
State of the art homeboy engineering back in the day. 2nd barrel is increased surface area for more heat in the room. Also cools smoke for maximum creosote buildup in the single wall stovepipe running out through the window. They heated many a shop and still do.
With the second barrel intake and exhaust both at the back, there must be a baffle in the 2nd barrel.
Yes, hope so. I expected the outlet to be at the front to provide an offset from the intertie.
What the upper barrel needs is a bunch of tubes welded in longitudinally.
that's the secret to making serious heat out of a barrel stove. And a big fire
that's the secret to making serious heat out of a barrel stove. And a big fire
With a fan hung at the back. I've seen them with a copper line that leads to a bucket with a valve that you dump waste oil in. They glow pretty good!
Worked in a shop with one of those years back. Copper line with a loop in it to keep it from flashing back, some kind of ceramic pipe to terminate it in the firebox, all manifolded to three 55 gal drums of oil. 1/4 turn valve with its own set of permanent vise grips - of course. Ashes diked up to keep the oil from running out. Box fan suspended from the ceiling above the top barrel to distribute the heat.
A few splits and a cup of dirty solvent to get her fired up in the morning, and off you go. Turn the oil off when it gets too hot, or burning oil starts dripping out the draft holes. The stack looked like a pulling tractor all day when it was cranking.
Beyond the waste oil the shop generated, we always had a good supply of transformer oil the local electric co. wanted to get rid of. Hmmmm. All I can say is that was a long time ago, and AFIK we're all still alive.
A few splits and a cup of dirty solvent to get her fired up in the morning, and off you go. Turn the oil off when it gets too hot, or burning oil starts dripping out the draft holes. The stack looked like a pulling tractor all day when it was cranking.
Beyond the waste oil the shop generated, we always had a good supply of transformer oil the local electric co. wanted to get rid of. Hmmmm. All I can say is that was a long time ago, and AFIK we're all still alive.
Don't transformers have PCBs in their oil? Glad I was not living in the neighborhood.
Not anymore, transformer oil has not had PCBs for decades. Any older ones in service had to be tested and the oil replaced until the units tested below trace amounts.
Yes, I should have stated "old" transformers. I remember that happening, but it was stated this was long ago. My concern was that the oil was from draining the older units.
The PCB pollution was real. It polluted the Housatonic River due to the GE plant being upstream in Pittsfield, MA.
I’ve been told they used the old transformer oil to oil the dirt roads around the lakes too…. And that’s how pcbs got into the lakes.
Not just transformers. Do you remember NCR paper?. (No Carbon Required made by National Cash Register corp). PCBs were used in the micro ballons. A large manufacturer of carbonless paper was Appleton papers which discharged waste in the Fox River in Wisconsin which runs into Green Bay WI. There was multidecade clean up of that river. Fluorescent Ballasts used to use PCBs. My office was in an old factory and one of the ballasts leaked on a drafting machine, the guys in the Hazmat suits bagged the whole thing and put it in barrel to be disposed of.
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