Do you have a shop wood stove?

[Volfandt]

I used to heat my 1200 sq ft shop w/a Woodchief wood stove (circulator type) that is very similar to this http://www.vogelzang.com/vg820e.htm. It did pretty good but after 15 yrs of burning everything I could in it, she finailly corroded to the point of unusable.

As a quick temproary fix I went with a Vogelzang Deluxe Boxwood stove Cast iron Deluxe Boxwood woostove model #BX42E I got from TSC and it's worked out well enough to loose the temporary tag.
I do miss the ability to easily slide out the ashe pan as the boxwood doesn't have this great feature but since I let the fire go out over night I just sweep it out before I fire it up again.
If I were to want heat over night I'd have gone back with a stove w/a slide out ashe pan.
Whats crazy is the grate was extra.
I may be adding one of these Cast iron Deluxe Boxwood woostove model #BX42E this season also.
Good luck

 

[keving]

Here's what I ended up doing. It's a US Stove "Clayton" 1600M ($1500) at Tractor Supply. Dura-vent "through the wall" kit and a few extra sections, black pipe, etc. ($700)

 

[BigE_]

I just bought a new stove (Quadrafire 3100 - http://www.quadrafire.com/Products/Wood_Burning/Wood_Model.asp?f=3100MILL) for the house from Coastal Tools. It heats my 2700 sq ft house with no problems.

We had a much larger wood stove that was much less efficient. I was always choking it down, and wound up with way too much creosote.

The new stoves get the efficiency up by burning the smoke in one of two ways: super heating tubes, or a catalytic converter. My quadrafire is rated at 80% (using the super heating tubes) while the best catalytic I could find is rated at 84%.

At first blush, the catalytic converter stove sounds better because it is more efficient, starts burning the smoke faster, and therefore gets hot faster. This means your room will heat up faster, yada yada yada.

The problem with catalytic converter stoves is that you have to change out the converter every 2-5 years at $200+ per pop, and you have to be careful what you burn in it. Furthermore, you have to be careful not to let the stove get too hot, or you'll get premature converter burn-out.

With the super heating pipes (lifetime warranty), you can burn whatever you want with no damage to the pipes (including painted boards, etc., not that I'm recommending you do that...). You can still damage the stove by "over firing" it (getting it too hot), but from what I could gather, this point is much higher than the catalytic converter burnout.

I also have a virtually unlimited supply of firewood on my property, and I didn't want to deal with the converter, so I made the trade-off of a slightly lower efficiency instead of dealing with having to replace the cat down the road every few years.

Oh, I paid $1250 for mine this last March. It was listed at $1395 I believe (now $1495?), but I mentioned I should bring in my father-in-law to buy it for me because he'd get a 10% discount, so the guy just gave me the discount instead. Oh, I also got the optional super quiet blower for $250. Out in a shop, I wouldn't bother with that, but inside the house it was a Godsend.

Hope this helps a little.

Regards,
-Steve

 

[PA hayseed]

At first blush, the catalytic converter stove sounds better because it is more efficient, starts burning the smoke faster, and therefore gets hot faster. This means your room will heat up faster, yada yada yada.

The problem with catalytic converter stoves is that you have to change out the converter every 2-5 years at $200+ per pop, and you have to be careful what you burn in it. Furthermore, you have to be careful not to let the stove get too hot, or you'll get premature converter burn-out.

With the super heating pipes (lifetime warranty), you can burn whatever you want with no damage to the pipes (including painted boards, etc., not that I'm recommending you do that...). You can still damage the stove by "over firing" it (getting it too hot), but from what I could gather, this point is much higher than the catalytic converter burnout.

-Steve

I don't know if this helped him, but it helped me. Thanks. I have been looking for an alternate heat source for my addition.

 

[woodyacres]

This has been some good reading. Thank you all. I have a question?
If I plan on heating my house (2000 sqft ranch w/ walkout) with a wood burner. Then at a later time heat my future outbuilding (probably 30 x 40) with wood. Would it better to buy two individual burners or one outdoor burner for both?

On a side note, why is everyone heating with indoor stoves instead of outdoor? Is it just a price thing or some other underlying aspect I am not able to think of?

 

[BigE_]

On a side note, why is everyone heating with indoor stoves instead of outdoor? Is it just a price thing or some other underlying aspect I am not able to think of?

From my perspective, I was upgrading an existing stove, so it was definitely cheaper / easier to go with an indoor stove.

With an outdoor stove, though, its kinda like a propane tank -- you gotta put it somewhere, and no matter what you do with it, it isn't going to be exactly what you call beautiful.

I'm sure the main reason is cost, though. I haven't priced out the outdoor units, but in my book, more metal equates to higher cost. Running the chimney outside vs. inside has got to be cheaper (unless you have an existing chimney), but running the heat carrying pipes inside has got to offset that cost, especially if you go with radiant floor heat. Tying into an existing air handler might be cheaper, but I didn't have that option.

Bear in mind, I have no experience with an outdoor stove, but I do know that in the dead of winter, I really don't want to standing outside in the freezing cold batting away the snow and rain while trying to light a fire. Ditto for feeding the fire in that weather. (Unless you build some sort of outbuilding to house the stove -- then it might be easier to deal with).

I'll be adding a woodstove to my shop shortly (using the old woodstove out of the house most likely). I didn't even contemplate using outdoor stove, cost being my issue. I've got two indoor stoves to choose from (for free). The stovepipe is going to be the biggest expense.

Just my $0.05
-Steve

 

[huntsman22]

I burn wood in my shop. An old sotz double 55 gallon barrel stove is what I use. Will take big wood, lottsa heat and burn all night. They are hard to find, since sotz went under in the 80's. The cast-iron vogelzang kit is about as close as you can come now. Cheap heat.......

The house is heated with a quadrafire up front....

Lopi in back.....

Even the hunting tent is heated with a sotz round door kit on a cut-down 15 gallon drum......

here it is compared to the 55 drum...

We burned over 7 cords of wood last winter, all split by hand. I'm getting too old for that stuff..... Currently looking for a 3 point splitter. Don