Old-fashioned sawdust stoves

[RedRanger]

When I was a kid many,many years ago we had a sawdust stove. We had a sawdust bin close to the road so the truck could pull up and shoot that sawdust straight into the shed. This stuff all came from the mill waste in those days.

Okay, the stove, much simpler than a pellet burner. these things just had a hopper that you loaded with sawdust and let it slowly sink to the burn pot. No mechanics, no auger, no motor. plain and simple. seems to me it worked just fine, cept when on occasion the sawdust got hung in the hopper and the stove went out. so you got up in the morning and relit it and banged the hopper and away it went again.

Of course, in the middle of winter, when the sawdust hung in the hopper, it was damn cold when your bare feet hit the lino floor. but seriously, this is an old technology that served us just fine. of course we weren`t as spoiled in those days with the comfort we have become accoustomed to today. Wouldn`t there be a market today for something like that which can burn just plain old sawdust with out the hassles of mechanics? I mean, plain and simple -- yet efficient enough for those on a budget.

Or is this old technology just too plain and simple for someone to make a profit on it? My parents used to bake and cook on this stove, so it is a useful appliance. multi-purpose so to speak. Thoughts??

 

[myzamboni]

Pook, er kooP, er, Sawdustburner, er, whateever the current handle is, should be along soon.

 

[RedRanger]

Pook, er kooP, er, Sawdustburner, er, whateever the current handle is, should be along soon.

Nope not looking for that kinda stuff. I am not kidding we really did have a sawdust stove in our old house. and it served us decently, not perfect, but okay. But then again, you are responding to a guy that for the first 6 years did his stuff in an out-house= no indoor plumbing. yep, hard to imagine huh? and that was back in the late 40~s and early 50~s.

To the stove , it always amazed me how anyone could cook ,, let alone bake something in that thing. but they did.

 

[fossil]

Where are you going to find a steady supply of sawdust with all the mills shut down? Rick

 

[RedRanger]

Where are you going to find a steady supply of sawdust with all the mills shut down? Rick

ya,ya, fossil , you just don`t want to admit your age. just kidding, ya have a good point there :cheese: wait, isn`t it much more labor and machine intensive to make pellets??

 

[begreen]

In Seattle, the company Sawdust Supply still exists. Their name came to be because they were a primary supplier for these sawdust stoves. Sounds like if you knew what you were doing that they were reasonably reliable central heaters. I posted a little summary of my visit with the folks at Sawdust Supply last year. One interesting thing I found out is that they are still in use in some parts of the world:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/6180/

 

[RedRanger]

In Seattle, the company Sawdust Supply still exists. Their name came to be because they were a primary supplier for these sawdust stoves. Sounds like if you knew what you were doing that they were reasonably reliable central heaters. I posted a little summary of my visit with the folks at Sawdust Supply last year. One interesting thing I found out is that they are still in use in some parts of the world:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/6180/

Interesting BG: don`t ya wonder why we still don`t have that stuff anymore? I am not suggesting that we are third world, but you know they did work reasonably well. And so versatile, cook on them , bake in them, etc. And no parts to break..

You think we will ever go back to that kind of simplicity?? I mean, after all, nowadays you can always get up and plant your feet on a nice carpet floor

 

[jebatty]

Take a look a this article. Fuels: sawdust, planer shavings, bark residue. Burn time: 6-8 hours without tending. BTU output: heats a 400 sq ft space.
http://nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/rn/rn_ne208.pdf

Or for a complete unit:
http://www.hernironworks.com/conifer.html

And:
http://www.bioenergyupdate.com/magazine/security/Bioenergy Update 07-01/Bioenergy Update 07-01.pdf

For a good discussion:
http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/10/31/44342/588

 

[Highbeam]

My father grew up in Portland and his family heated their city home with a sawdust burner. The sawdust supplier would actually shoot it into the basement through one of those little windows in a well. The sawdust would often be full of carpenter ants. There was a hopper that needed to be filled and a chimney. Not sure if it was ducted but the oil furnace that took its place is ducted to the first floor only.

It heated that home for decades as the only source of heat.