Heating a shop

[cybrfire]

True, but I have a couple of things going for me here. First of all, it's occasional use, so maybe a couple dozen hours a month. When it's on, it's pretty much always full throttle (the windchill is like -10 right now). You get the most creosote when you run it damped down and the wood smolders. So I'm hoping to get away with cleaning it once a year. We'll see.

I was all gung ho to get set up in the pole barn, but I've decided now there's no rush. The floor out there is so smooth and clean it's almost a shame to start getting it all oily. It's working great to park the tractor and K5. The garage is already an oily mess and so much easier to heat. I may even put some insulation in it.

If you're building a wood burner, you could do some sort of auger on the bottom to draw the ash out. Just a thought.

 

[diesel4me]

I agree cleaning the ashes out of the stove is a unpleasant chore,but it doesn't need to be done all that often..compared to how much wood you burn,the amount of ashes in remarkably small in comparison..

I have burned at least a face cord of wood,maybe two, in my 2 stoves in the house,and I have only had to shovel out the ashes twice since October when I started using them,and I burn a lot of paper and anything that burns like cardboard,etc,which leaves a lot of ashes...saves me a lot of trips to the landfill and money on bag stickers by burning household trash..

My 2 barrel stoves in the quonset only need to be emptied once a season,I just use a square shovel with a long handle,about 5-10 scoops and its empty--the stove I made that stands vertically is the worst to clean,you have to use a old pan with a handle to scoop the ashes out,and lift it out from the door in the top lid of the barrel,and when you burn lots of pallet wood with nails,the nails and staples build up quickly and can get pretty heavy...

I usually use a dust mask or wear a ski mask over my mouth and nose when I clean the stoves,that fine ash dust is murder on your nose and mouth..

It is best to leave about 1" of ashes or sand in the bottom of the stove,to protect the bottom from overheating and it prevents anything under it from catching on fire by insulating it...it also helps the wood burn more completely..

 

[Stein]

On my double barrel wood stove in my shop if I'm burning it 5 days a week I still only have to clean the ash out once a month.

 

[MrSchaeferPants]

Yup if you burn cleanly and efficiently there's hardly any ash. Especially in a wood stove where you're constantly adding logs to the stove floor and crushing the ash into smaller and smaller pieces. My fireplace on the other hand I've emptied twice this season, and used probably 1/8 of the wood I used in my old stove at my last place.

 

[cybrfire]

We only had to clean the big wood burner out twice a winter and it still sucked.

Though, ours was huge. We had also built an ash try into it which allowed for a lot of burning. If it was primarily wood, it'd do allright. Cardboard would accumulate the ash a lot faster.

 

[evolve991]

Dont you know? If insurance companies do not acknowledge something then that thing either does not exist or is viewed as a major threat to life as we know it. I mean where would we be if we weren't required to supply the business capital and salaries of such an abstract industry? If you do not have the backing of an organization which creates laws that force you to pay them " just in case" ,then fabricates reasons your payments never ensured you would benefit from them , then you are in violation of the shell game that causes the cost of everything (from transportation to saving your life) to rocket at the whim of greedy con artists.