Sotz Wood Stove

[Simonkenton]

Back in the seventies the Sotz company made kits where you could turn a 55 gallon drum into a wood stove.
You got a door, 4 legs, and a collar for the stove pipe.
You just got a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade, cut the holes for the door and the pipe, and bolted on the legs.
Then you painted the drum with high temp muffler paint.
The kit cost about $35. Sotz also sold the best wood splitter ever made, the Monster Maul. This giant maul had an all steel handle, and a 12 pound head. I still have my Monster Maul.

In 1975 I built a Sotz kit and what a wood heater that thing was. The firebox was 32 inches long and about 2 feet high. The air control was simple but it worked great.
You could get a hot bed of coals in your Sotz and then, you could put anything in there you wanted. You could load it up with 60 pounds of green, fresh split oak and it would burn all night. Easy to get a hot, 12 hour burn from a Sotz.

Sotz also made a kit for smaller drums, and in 1982 I built one of those, this kit had a round door.

That big Sotz was rated at 150,000 BTU.
I know of guys who have been running their Sotz for 30 years and the drums are still in good shape.
Sadly, when I moved from Georgia I left my Sotz stoves behind. The company went belly up in 1988. I did find a new-in-box Sotz kit for $60 a month ago on ebay, I was tempted to buy it. But, the fiancee hates the Sotz as much as I love it and it is no-go. I gotta spend $2200 for a new Jotul for the new home.

 

[smokedragon]

These are great for a shop (to heat while you are out there working), but I wouldn't sleep with one of these running in my home.......too thin.

I have an original Sotz Monster Maul too......don't use it a lot because it wears me out. Great for the really knarly stuff. I keep mine REALLY SHARP, get it to stick in a piece, then hit the back of it with a sledge.

 

[coaly]

That was Leonard Sotz mfg. Columbia Station , Ohio.
Another Sotz product that worked well was the Auto Draft with bimetallic spring that simply replaces one draft cap;

 

[smokedragon]

My father had a large wood stove when I was a kid, and it had a single draft control that was a sliding door controlled by a spring. You set a dial, and based on how hot the stove was, the draft would adjust to keep it that hot.

Why don't we have that any more? With all these modern stoves, it would seem you would have a way to keep the top of the stove at a certain temperature by the air control adjusting automatically.....

 

[coaly]

We do. Or at least I do. Hitzer uses them, as well as Hearthstone. So the replacement thermostat can be fitted to any stove;
The original air intake works as a "low fire" when the T-stat is satisfied and closed.

 

[smokedragon]

So why don't any of the fancy new stoves have that?

 

[BrotherBart]

Because they can't pass the EPA emissions certification tests with them.

 

[BrotherBart]

You can still get barrel stove kits. Northern Tool sells'em. With cast iron door, legs and flue collar. Fifty bucks. What they sold for back in the eighties.

 

[valley ranch]

First stove I had, when I built our mountain home, was a barrel stove, sure did kick out the heat.





My Centennial has a spring loaded, what you called it, opens and closes the incoming air.
Ashley used to have one that worked really well.