My first homemade stove

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
  • Hope everyone has a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving!
  • Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here
Status
Not open for further replies.

s10truggy

New Member
Hearth Supporter
Dec 24, 2009
10
arkansas
I am building a home made stove
i need to know how much air do i need to get to the top of fire to get the gassafication on top of fire
i have 14 feet of 2 inch tube inside the fire box to preheat air is there a rule of thumb for this kind of thing ?
 
[Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove


this is a progress pic

[Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove


Here is what i have inside
 
Here is a homemade stove with built in thermal mass.........
 

Attachments

  • [Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove
    P9010030.webp
    9 KB · Views: 2,053
  • [Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove
    P5151.webp
    13.8 KB · Views: 2,168
  • [Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove
    versie13.gif
    55.8 KB · Views: 2,019
I wish I had the smarts and know how to build my own stove. How big is it, looks more like a furnace? I would be worried about that steel baffle warping or sagging from the extreme heat. Maybe reinforce it or use fire bricks within a angle iron frame?
 
Todd said:
I wish I had the smarts and know how to build my own stove. How big is it, looks more like a furnace? I would be worried about that steel baffle warping or sagging from the extreme heat. Maybe reinforce it or use fire bricks within a angle iron frame?

The baffle was an after thought i will put some angle on it to keep it from warping. I didn't have any thick steel to make a baffle out of :-S

The over size is 24x34x32 fire box is 18x32x29 i guess you would call it a furnace it will go out side

I still need some info on air to make reburn work I have 64 1/8 holes on top and 30 under the fire

Do they make a thermostat to run an 110v fan to go in the house with out a transformer and low volts?

also i need a info on insulation to rap the heater with where to find it

thanks
 
That thing is going to be a monster!! It's going to be incredibly hard to say how much air you need - it's probably based on dozens of factors. Just make an adjustable system to let air in for both primary and secondary combustion. When you figure out how much is enough for each, you can lock them together so as primary air shuts down, secondary opens up.

Those holes strike me as being pretty small - 64 x 1/8" = ~.78 square inches in area which is not a lot of air to feed a firebox which is 10 cubic feet! - Though on the plus side, going bigger is easy, making them smaller is not. You'll also want to line it with firebrick to prevent loss of heat and overheating the steel when the secondaries do light off. and when they do, hang on! If you wrap with insulation as mentioned, the steel will be glowing cherry red and oxidize or 'burn out' pretty quickly.
 
This thing looks like it has potential for some serious heat. It also looks somewhat similar to the Englander furnace with a few additions. I'd be curious to see what kind of heat/secondaries you get out of it. You won't know or be able to see, because you don't have glass in the door. One other thing, usually, the burn tubes are situated E - W inside the firebox for a more even distribution of the secondary air over the top of the firebox, but this may work too. Just make sure to firebrick the crap out of the firebox. Sides, top and even bottom if possible. Keep us posted, and keep the pictures coming!

**Just looked at your picture again. You may need to put more holes in your 2" pipe, but wait and see, you may get so much air that it cools the firebox down too much.
 
Cozyheat and brokeburner - Can you post pics of your retrofits? How well do they work?
 
thats quite a rig!
 
Looks pretty cool. I'd say your re-burn hole openings are too small. As an example, the 1.75 ft³ firebox on my Jotul Castine has three sets of holes in the secondary chamber - 29 .2" dia front row, 29 .2" dia middle row, 22 .13" dia back row. So your 1/8" seems really small. As long as you can get in there with a drill to open them up, you should be able to tune this for your desired performance.

You can see the rows of reburn holes in the pic below. Bear in mind my stove is tiny compared to what you are building, so I think you are going to need quite a few more holes of larger diameter to take advantage of the reburn.
 

Attachments

  • [Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove
    firebox loaded w fan 650 burn2.webp
    33.4 KB · Views: 1,792
  • [Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove
    reburn holes2.webp
    36.6 KB · Views: 1,878
Start with the small holes and try it out. You can always open them up with a cordless easily, but you can't make them smaller unless you get in there and weld them over = pita. :coolgrin:
 
That's a impressive project. I added a baffle and secondary to my older fisher stove.
One of the first things I did was to look at as many stove designs as possible, I downloaded as many stove manuals as I could find, I went to HD and Lowes to and see ow the stoves were constructed.

One thing I would consider would be to add stainless steel tubes E-W instead of the N-S arraignment you have now, also the hole size should vary, in your case smaller in the front and increasingly larger to the rear. I think this would give a more even distribution.

As others have said I think you need some fire brick insulation on the bottom and sides.
Your idea of moving the baffle back and forth is quite clever. You may consider ading some high temp insulation to the baffle.
It looks like there is not a lot of room above the baffle, perhaps you could attach some high temp ceramic insulation to the bottom of the baffle.

I purchased insulation for my baffle form McMaster Carr.

I would think 2" dia tubing would be plenty big for sec air. I made some sliding covers for the sec air inlet so I could shut the air off if I needed to.
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php?ACT=24&fid=2&aid=29375_ca0vxPpxdfn1w5JoBbWH&board_id=1
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php?ACT=24&fid=2&aid=29376_5X5mCSgeEvCqvYa1sJSX&board_id=1
 
s10truggy said:
[
Do they make a thermostat to run an 110v fan to go in the house with out a transformer and low volts?
Not sure what range of temps you want but a simple answer is yes, Dayton makes them, Honeywell makes them , check (broken link removed) for some
 
[/quote]
Not sure what range of temps you want but a simple answer is yes, Dayton makes them, Honeywell makes them , check (broken link removed) for some[/quote]


thanks for the link


I am thinking i have built to much stove for my house after reading these forums

so i am thinking of doing an air blower on a thermostat to turn the burn on and off when i need it

What do you think my house is 1500 feet i think i have double the stove i need????
will a air blower work smoothly??

thanks for the help
 
Nice stove - I'm going to follow this thread for sure to see how everything works out.

If you think the stove is too big (and it most likely is far too big for a 1500 square foot house in Arkansas), why not line it with one or two layers of firebrick? You'll need that thermal mass to support the high stove temps needed for secondary combustion anyways, and a second layer of firebrick after the first might give you enough thermal mass to enable an easier re-start, if that's what you intend to do.
 
s10truggy said:
Not sure what range of temps you want but a simple answer is yes, Dayton makes them, Honeywell makes them , check (broken link removed) for some


thanks for the link


I am thinking i have built to much stove for my house after reading these forums

so i am thinking of doing an air blower on a thermostat to turn the burn on and off when i need it

What do you think my house is 1500 feet i think i have double the stove i need????
will a air blower work smoothly??

thanks for the help

Make sure the motor speed controller is appropriate for the blower motor. Otherwise it may not work out well. What is the blower make and model #?

PS: Good suggestion about the firebrick!
 
s10truggy said:
I am thinking i have built too much stove for my house after reading these forums

...well it certainly looks big. I don't think you have under-sized the thing :cheese:
 
Quote BeGreen "Make sure the motor speed controller is appropriate for the blower motor. Otherwise it may not work out well. What is the blower make and model #?"


This is the blower for the air to the house

PSC Blower, 2 Speed, Forward Curve, Direct Drive, Wheel Dia 5 1/8 In, CFM @ 0.000-In SP 428/293, Voltage 115, 60 Hz, Single Phase, Full Load Amps 1.1/0.85, RPM 1500/1085, Max Inlet Temp 104 Deg F, Overall Height 9 3/8 In, Overall Width 9 1/4 In, Overall Depth 8 9/16 In, Includes Discharge Mounting Flange

Grainger Item # 1TDT6
Price (ea.) $119.80
Brand DAYTON
Mfr. Model # 1TDT6
Ship Qty. 1
Sell Qty. (Will-Call) 1
Ship Weight (lbs.) 10.8
Usually Ships** Today
Catalog Page No. 3762
Country of Origin China
 
ok i did some testing
got the fire going good
[Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove


flu temp
[Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove


clean burn
[Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove


air going in temp
[Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove


air coming out (my cardboard duct LOL)
[Hearth.com] My first  homemade stove
 
Thats great, glad to see it worked!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.