[Stoves] Heat / cook stove

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Darren

Welcome to the list. There are several people around who will be able to
offer ideas. Some questions to help everyone think:

How much heat (in kW) are you looking for? 
How wide are you thinking of making the stove body?
How will you load the wood?

Re the chimney, it is likely 100mm will be enough, even 90. It will probably
work much better if it is 3 metres long instead of 2. It will give enough
draft to pull the air through without having to be overly hot. Draft is a
function of temperature and height so if you plant to capture a lot of heat,
you want the chimney to be a bit taller (to give more draft) and smaller (to
give more velocity and thus a higher average temperature because the gas
doesn't have time to cool down so much). You need, absolutely, some heat in
the chimney or it doesn't work. It is a 'fan' running on the buoyancy of hot
air.

There was a discussion of a stove earlier in the day which is probably worth
looking into. It has a low (to the grate) exit at the back so the fuel falls
down and burns at the bottom, but venting backwards. There is a lot of merit
in this. Exiting at the top pretty much guarantees high smoke and CO (lost
heat) the way the old stoves do. Once you have created clean heat, you can
pipe it around the stove as you wish. Bringing the fire to the front bottom
then up past the glass, the under the top is another way to go that retains
the side-drafting fire. It is pretty impressive and cane be refuelled with
little change in emissions.

There are many things to consider...!

Regards
Crispin in Waterloo (Ontario)
++++
Hello,

Joined the list a few days ago and have been following the conversations
with interest.

I'm going to work with my x-partner to make me a wood stove for my living
truck.  Shes a blacksmith and has previously made a number of ornamental
stoves.
http://www.firebird-ironwork.co.uk/stoves-and-fires/

I read a few books a few years back about woodstove design which gave me
some knowledge about primary and secondary air.

My idea (drawn before I started reading posts here) is attached.

At the moment I'm thinking the dimensions will be A - depth about 60cm B -
height about 40cm C - stack diameter 13cm

It needs to front load as the top will be a big hot surface which will be
used for cooking etc.  The front door will be airtight and I was going to
put in a window so I can see what is going on inside.
The red pipe will be feeding preheated air.  Actually 2 pipes one for
primary that will feed to the bottom/back the other secondary) . and both
will have valves to regulate flow.  Flue pipe will be about 2 meters long.

In addition to this stove I'm going to have a large water tank with a
connected 'heat exchanger' that I can place on the stove top.  This will
heat the water tank while the stove is running which will then act as heat
mass and hopefully keep the well insulated/reasonably draft free living
space at a reasonable temperature for some time after the stove has gone
out.

I appreciate that this is not going to achieve a 'perfect' burn but would
appreciate any ideas for improvements / comments.

Best regards

Darren