Wood Burner for new Pole Barn

[Spinny3]

Hello, everyone. I've been watching this forum for awhile but my first time posting. I was hoping to get some advice about a new barn layout that I'm currently in the process of designing. The contractor will be by in the next couple of weeks to start the construction, and then I will be finishing out the interior myself. Exciting times.

Background: The barn itself is a 30' x 48' with an 8' porch. I plan to split the barn in half with an insulated wall - half will be garage and the other half will be a social area. I will put a sliding barn door in between these areas which will allow functionality but also an easy method to regulate the heat if the stove is a bit oversized for the room. Usage will be mostly weekends with my brother and I watching football, drinking a beverage or two, and watching the fire burn. We live on a 200 acre farm, so downed trees are frequent. Since we enjoy having campfires already, a wood burner seemed a natural idea to take care of the logs along with extending the season on our weekend social events. This leads me to the following questions.

1) Wood burner choice? From reading the forums, it sounds like our usage would drive us toward a lower cost model such as the Englander. I definitely want one with a window to allow for fire viewing. Based upon the size of the room(s), is there a specific brand / size that I should be considering?

2) Mount of the wood burner? It appears there may be a standard that I was not previously aware that the wood burner has a minimum height requirement to the floor. Is this standard in all states? My plans are to finish out the interior with old barn wood from a barn that my dad is having taken down. Are there any rustic designs for the stand that you have seen?

3) Placement on the interior? I know that the chimney placement has specific requirements related to the roof pitch. I plan to vent it straight up through the roof. However, are there considerations that I'm not thinking about that would make me want to move it in proximity to the interior of the building? I'm attempting to upload a sketch of the layout to show my current thinking. The porch side of the barn faces a lake and the door by the wood burner is facing my house.

Thanks in advance for all of the advice!

 

[begreen]

Welcome. The 30 NC should do the job. How well insulated will the place be? One big heat sink/heat loss location is the floor. Even if the slab is insulated underneath, it's a very large heat sink that will soak up a lot of heat if the space is cold before the stove is started. Will there be supplemental heat (and cooling)? Will the ceiling be open up through the trusses? That will effectively double the area to be heated.

Highbeam put an NC30 in his shop. Runs it like a locomotive. See his installation thread for some pointers.

 

[Spinny3]

I plan to fully insulate the shop. Outside walls will have 6" fiberglass rolls. The ceiling height will be 10' ands will have blown in insulation. I do plan to eventually put a min-split in, but I was thinking that would mostly be for cooling purposes as well as keeping the pipes from freezing during the winter. I'll check out Highbeam's thread. Thanks for the direction.

 

[Rickb]

I agree with begreen. The 30NC should put out a lot of heat fairly quick to warm the place and be lower cost but still good quality. Just make sure your chimney is tall enough. Also watch for hearth requirements.

 

[begreen]

Sounds good. What will be the floor treatment? The 30NC needs a well insulated hearth. Englander also makes the 3.0 cu ft 50SSW02 which just needs ember protection.

 

[jotul8e2]

The Englander NC30 would be an excellent choice. In fact, that is what I now have.

My barn is 28X40 with a 24X40 second level, 10" ceilings down, 8' upstairs. I poured a five inch slab over gravel. All well insulated (6" walls, r60 in the attic) and in a similar climate to yours.

As I use it as a wood working shop I need to keep the temperatures fairly moderate - upper 50 deg. minimum, over 60 deg. if I am gluing. I designed it from the beginning for a wood burning stove. After struggling for many years with an undersized and under-designed Dutchwest (It was free. I overpaid), I finally bought a NC30.

Not only does it heat the space, but much of the winter I need to fire it up only every few days. I can run two or three loads and the building will come up to 70 degrees I have so much thermal mass in the slab and building contents that it takes three or four days of normal winter weather to drop to 60 deg. Of course a real cold spell means keeping it going 24/7, but even then I only need maybe three loads a day.

The NC 30 is a fairly large stove with a large appetite. But it is not particularly fussy, the glass stays clean, and the appearance is not worse than most other welded steel stoves.

For backup I use three milk barn electric heaters kept on the 600 watt setting. They cost about $1.25 a day to run on average (total) but I only use them if I am going to be away from home a week or more.

One surprise: I had to get a window air conditioner to keep the humidity from ruining my lumber and keep the rust off my tools.

 

[begreen]

Suggestion for stove placement, keep it away from the kegerator.

 

[Spinny3]

Sounds good. What will be the floor treatment? The 30NC needs a well insulated hearth. Englander also makes the 3.0 cu ft 50SSW02 which just needs ember protection.

The floor will be a 4" concrete slab over gravel base. I haven't decided yet if I'll put a floor covering on it.

Good information, Jotul with the similar overall shop volume and temps. I don't plan on running it frequently - mostly on demand heating.

Being that the man cave portion of my pole barn is only half of the overall (approximately 30' x 22' x 10' tall), will the 30NC be oversized? I can open the barn doors connecting to the garage, but I anticipate them being closed most of the time.

 

[begreen]

As an on demand heater you may be disappointed with a smaller stove. It takes a lot of btus to heat up the mass of a place. Much more than it takes to maintain that temp once all the walls, floor and furniture stabilize. On demand in this case, can take several hours of advanced warming to make it comfortable for hanging out, especially with a cold slab floor.

 

[jotul8e2]

The NC 30 puts out a lot of btus. However, it might be just the ticket if you want to go over and burn just a single load. Just give it an hour or so headstart. However, for a general purpose heater in 600 sq. ft. it will be seriously over sized.

 

[Highbeam]

You don't want anything smaller than the nc30. The way intermittent heating of an outbuilding with wood works is that you decide you want to be in the barn, it's cold, and you want to heat it up 20-40 degrees as close to immediately as possible. No reason to waste wood or time keeping it warm if you don't plan to be there.

I really enjoy burning the stove when I'm out there. Can easily burn a full load down to small coals in three hours. It's like an inside bonfire and all visitors are drawn to it for comfort.

Oh and insulate your slab! 2" of rigid foam under and around the edges.

 

[Spinny3]

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like the NC30 is the way to go - now to shop around for a deal.

Help me understand about insulating my slab. That doesn't seem to be a common method for pouring in my area. Do you still put crushed gravel down as a base and then put rigid foam directly on top of it? This covers around the edges only? How does this help?

 

[moresnow]

Oh and insulate your slab! 2" of rigid foam under and around the edges.

Definately look into this.