We had a wood stove in my dads barn.
Pro's:
wood is cheap free
Only used when is needed
Can warm up coffee, and food
Cons:
Floor space
Takes awhile to get up to heat
Cleaning
Triple wall pipe is stupid expensive
No thermostat
In my old mans barn(40x60) a small box stove
Plus a 100k btu torpedo made it comfortable to work in. Sweatshirt/ long sleves. Insulation only on the ceiling(R12).
Now in my barn I have plastic on the ceiling and the 100kbtu torpedo gets it decent for me. Granted I did great stuff every single place I could to prevent drafts. Next year I will plumb in natural gas and hang the 150k btu heater from the ceiling and do foam board or r12 across the trusses. On a side note I love working in a hoodie, it is the most comfortable and best thing to fabricate in.
Luke after driving on 96 yesterday you are right there are tons of people with just standard black pipe coming out of the side of the barn. Its those people that make the insurance rates go up/ not cover. Just add a rider on your current home insurance plan that covers the cost of the barn, plus anything inside. Thats what I did, and no inspections etc where needed. If you do it right using stainless triple wall, the correct pass throughs etc you will be fine.
I would sell the stove and get another roof hanging unit since you have propane out there already. They can be had on craigslist for about 200 all day long.
The stove I have in the furnace room in the basement is identical to the one pictured!...that little thing cranks some serious heat,despite it being rather crude,it has seams with gaps 1/8" wide,so its by no means air tight,but I can get 4-5 hours burn time out of one load using good sized logs split in two..
I have a "spare" one just like it stashed in my garage someone gave me when they moved too...
The upstairs stove is the type that sits in front of a fireplace,and has a sheet metal block off plate to cover the opening,a "Hearth-Mate".....its airtight,and looks nice,but I'm rather dissapointed with the thing,I think the draft sucks because the fireplace flue is way too large for it--it has a 6" pipe opening on the rear of it,but the flue is big enough that I could probably crawl up it,I'm guessing 16x24" maybe...we removed the damper from the fireplace before installing it...as the instruction manual said too..
I've read this design is also the worst for soot and creosote build up,due to the chimney flue being too large,and being an "external" chimney,it stays cold and that also reduces the draft...it will backdraft easily if the winds are strong,especially if they are from the north east,which we get here often during winter storms..seems like it only throws good heat if you use bone dry wood and the wind is favorable...it is lined with fire brick too,I think that doesn't let it get hot enough in a way..
The box stove down in the basement drafts fine no matter what the wind does,even though it shares a flue with the oil furnace--I've read that can reduce soot build up because the flue stays warm due to the oil furnace running ,but codes have changed in recent years,they most likely wont allow a "shared flue" in new construction..
One thing I learned in my garage,is to not put the stove right near the chimney,if you want the most heat from it--I built a concrete chimney with tile liners and plumbed one of my 55 gallon drums into it,using only a foot or so of pipe,and an elbow...the thing seemed to me it wasn't throwing as much heat as it should,despite burning well and getting the drum red hot at times..
I thought possibly one stove just was not enough to heat the huge steel quonset,it is a lot of cubic feet and uninsulated..
When I added a second drum stove in a small room about 12 feet from the first stove,I used a 6" tee to plumb both into the chimney,and ran 12 feet of pipe to the stove...first time I lit the stove in the small room,I was amazed how much it also heated the main part of the garage,just from the heat coming off the stove pipe...I would say to use at least ten feet of pipe,even though its not cheap now (regular black steel pipe,not the triple walled stuff),because it'll extract a lot of heat that otherwise goes right up the flue...It is a pain to clean the pipe out yearly,and replace it every 3 years or so though..
If I were able to afford oil or propane I would not bother with wood any more,but since I have access to lots of wood and its free,I may as well keep using it...however,if my athsma gets any worse,I may have no choice but to ditch the wood,and go with something else...here electricity is pretty reasonable,unlike other nearby towns,it would probably cost less to have electric heat than oil here once oil hit 3.50 a gallon...
