Our self made wood stove

Dream

Observer
Hello all,

I want to present you our self made wood stove made out of a gasbottle. It will take place in our new Truck and will be conected via heat exchanger with the boiler.

It was a lot of work until now, and there are some more hours left to finish. But I think it was worth the efforts...

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libarata

Expedition Leader
I would only caution, that you ensure you have quite a bit of insulation on the surrounding surfaces. But good gods that is beautiful work!
 

Presto88

Adventurer
Looks really nice. Any chance you could post a pic with something next to it to give me some size perspective?
 

Dream

Observer
Thank you all for the compliments! :) They are doing very well!

This one is made to be used IN our Truck, yes. It's not the first one we emploi like this. Sure, a heat protection to the surroundings will be neccessary.

I wanted to have the look with thee screws I've chosen. Ain't no problem to replace them...

The size is about the same as a 13kg gasbottle. Max. diameter on top is about 33cm, height is about 50cm. Later I could take the exact messures and post an additional image.

Maybe some further informations about the stoves supplementary functions:
I've made a secondary air intake which is preheating the air before reaching the fire. This helps for better burn efficiency of the wood- the more heat in the combustion chamber, the more effective the wood burns.
Another special feature is the secondary combustion. Released gases by the wood are being burned before leaving the combustion chamber instead of being useless aspirated by the chimney. Therefore you need less wood for the same result, or you get more heat with the same quantity.

I was surprised about the positive reactions about this stove and I'm thinking about to build some more (or a small serie). I've found pleasure by doing this and would be happy to do some more.
Anyhow there are going to be at least 3 more modells of different shape and size.

Otherwise I have nothing really really important that keeps me attached to Europe. ;)
 
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Presto88

Adventurer
The size is about the same as a 13kg gasbottle. Max. diameter on top is about 33cm, height is about 50cm. Later I could take the exact messures and post an additional image.

Thanks, I got a good idea of it's size now. Well, after I converted your numbers to inches, that is! Hahaha!

That is a beautiful piece of work!
 

nick disjunkt

Adventurer
nice work bro!

How did you cut out the new pieces of steel?

Do you have to integrate some kind of thermostatically activated heat dump in the boiler circuit to prevent the coolant boiling if you cant dissipate the heat fast enough through the heat exchanger?
 

Dream

Observer
Hey Nick,

the pieces of steel I`ve cut out with a grinder with a 115mm disc/blade (?). More funny it was to cut out a ring from a 5mm steel plate... ...and the 3mm Stainless steel top with its ~80mm chimney hole. :) Even if the grinder is doing the most of the job, the hand hurts anyway after all... :/ I don`t want to imagine to cut this by hand :D

I didn`t know how to solve the problem with the heat exchanger, exactly because of what you are asking for. I didn`t want to have a circulation pump working all the time when heating. Sure it would have other nice consequences and possibilities (like groundfloor heating, radiators, preheating the machine of the Truck,...), but I didn`t want to be dependent on electricity, or I would like to have an always working system (no matter the circumstances). The amount of Ah/day of such a small circulation pump is a lot- not that much for one day, but day by day in winter to much.

Maybe I should say that the hole boiler story is going to be an experiment and I`m open to get any other ideas how to fix this. I`ll begin on this principe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IRLVCJ1olA No glycol, no electricity. If this won`t work out well... ...the boiler will also have an integrated heat exchanger... ...just in case of- but then I`ll be forced to use a pump and extend the whole system to prevent the coolant boiling.
And yes, thank you to make me thinking; then the whole story will need a thermo switch to make the pump running.

Until now I didn`t thought a lot about that- already enough to think about the stove. It belongs to part 2. But actually I don`t even care to much about. If it won`t work, it won`t work and I`ll put in a normal Truma gasboiler.
 

libarata

Expedition Leader
Sorry, don't take my comments as negative! I was just thinking of how thin the walls on the bottle would be, and just forgot the size. It surely is not like the stove we have in the house, so a minimal amount of thought towards safety, and this thing will look FANTASTIC at night.
 

Dream

Observer
@Libarata
No negative thoughs at all. ;)
The walls of the bottle are 3mm thick. It's enough.
The actuall stove stove in our camper has an air insulation- an aluminium plate plied and fixed around the body with a distance of 1,5cm to it. In addition, cause I was affraid, I've made another air insulation on the closest wall (distance corner of the stove to wall is about 10cm).
The result is that the there is no need for second air insulation. The plate doesn't even get warm. So I got this experience and I'll know how to do in future. Same experience I recommend to do for all "first time" users. Better to pay to much attention from the beginning than to get crunchy. :D
Also important is the fact that every stove has its own "user manual". None work the same. So you have to learn how to use it.
 

Rockhounder

Explorer
Here the actuall stove. Total size 20 x 17 x 50cm (W x D x H). All stainless.

View attachment 276123

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we have done something similar, we have pellet stoves, and definitely of course running the vertical chimney inside gives extra radiant off it. We also put vertical running 10mm fins, spaced around the 80mm vent, 20 fins total. Some people say that it even works better if you put the rings horizontally like washers, as that creates more turbulence, and helps keep air caught longer against the fins to heat more, but I don't know if that works. Ours, after putting the fins on worked noticeably warmer in the room.
 

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