Necessity stove.

My wife and I bought a 32foot fifth-wheel rv.  When it started getting cold, we realized propane was a very expensive way to heat our home.  

So I began the search for information.  I stumbled upon the you tube videos of Trying2hard, and decided to emulate some of his designs.  The result is a mixture of what I know, and what he built.  I could not find propane tanks cheap so I opted for a scrap water heater tank.
 Part of the tank was rusted out at bottom, so I cut about a foot out of the bottom, and rewelded what was remaining to the bottom.  

While Stainless would have been the best choice for the inner tube, and exhaust tube, it was not an option for me.  I had access to 1/4 inch thick wall 3 inch pipe. So that is what I used.  I went to a local steel yard and purchased a 5 ft piece of 6 x 6 1/4 inch square tube for burn tube.  I did two or three practice burns in the yard, before I put a door on it, and reached temperatures approaching 600 degrees on the outer surface of the tank.  I built a door and wanted to order ceramic stove glass, but at the time could not afford it, so I opted for mica glass.  In the videos I will upload you can hear the mica glass rattling because it is so thin.  Later this year I will purchase real glass, and modify it.

 I opted to incorporate a fresh air intake tube that brings in fresh air from the outside as opposed to robbing oxygen from inside.  I routed the fresh air intake to straddle the burn tube so the air coming in would be pre heated.  I works really well, I get lots of wood gasification. (sp?)

My Rv is kinda unique, in that it has a front and rear door. (never saw that before)  I opted to build a small structure to enclose the stove right out the back door.  I pressed the structure onto the rv, and sealed with foam.  I did not want to do permanent attachment, because I wont need it in the summer.  I installed the stove without painting it, because we were freezing.  I took shortcuts in exhaust pipes, but will remedy that next time around. The only regret I have is in having used single wall pipe for exhaust.  I have to monitor the stove temp so that it doesn't climb too high above 360 degrees because the exhaust gets too hot where it goes thru the wood if it climbs up to over 400 degrees.  Its risky but we have learned to not fill the burn box too full.  I am adding links to photo bucket and you tube.



https://s1280.photobucket.com/user/flirdippinb/library/wood%20stove

thankyou for posting your vids

ive edited them so they can show on the forum post

you can still get away with it by using a reflector panel if need be a thin ss sheet can be used to deflect alot of heat away from the sides

as goes for chimney you should use a spacer between the chimney and sides and fill with insulation this will do the job as well

Thanks Gadily. Yes adding a spacer is my intention. As it is, my only worry is where the smoke stack goes thru the wood. I lined the space the stove sits in with corrugated sheet metal at about an inch, and a half from the wood sides. I did use some of the same steel I made the main burn exhaust out of to make a sleeve for the smoke stack where it goes thru the wood. It helps alot. But I wold feel a lot better with a proper sleeve, or even ceramic tile as a spacer.

How exactly did you edit the vids? Is there some other way I should have posted them?

apparently my link to the pictures on photo bucket doesnt work either.

they all worked fine i just changed it as we have a utube button so vids show on the forum post

heres how just incase

https://woodstoves.forumotion.co.uk/t566-posting-pics-and-youtube-videos-on-site

dan a few suggestions here

if you was to use a ss insert you could make that burn chamber even hotter though it may cool your intake of air from outside

also i would consider having some control on the input of air into firebox i dont know if you have it on or not

if you had secondary air tube this would come into great effect by controling your firebox air input

as you might have figured out that door gets rather hot on fingers try not to open it as fast as you might get back flare at you and id change round the door catch then fingers wont get burnt

im saying this and i havent even done it with mine yet lol but soon will do but im considering changing the whole firebox to a new version

Gadily

Thanks for your input. Stainless lining is what i would like to do, but currently funding is an issue.
As for my fresh air intake, I think I accidentally stumbled upon just the right mixture for my incoming air. I Have noticed that if I open the door to the burn tube, the fire will get crazy because of all the fresh excess oxygen. But when I close the door I get a good, long steady burn. I think my best option at this point id to put a damper on the flue.
I have found that at times when the fire is dying down that if I open the door sometimes smoke will come out. I have come to the realization that it happens because I have an exhaust fan running, which is creating negative pressure in the house. I have the exhaust fan running because my wife and i smoke. Because we live in an rv we have ceiling mounted exhaust fans, so its easy to get rid of stale air. The benefit of this is anytime we get smoke from the heater we can exhaust it quickly. The other benefit is that the fans are reversible. So If it is a time when I would expect to get back draft I reverse flow on fans and create positive pressure in house, thus eliminating back draft. I would definitely like to add a grab bar that does not conduct heat. fingers don't like temps above two hundred F.

i know times are hard it takes time to get it right these are always experimental, it is nice to have heat it looks as if you did that good job

if i was you get some cement board put that on the walls it wont get to hot also the used to make half brick on wire cover with that i dont know if they still make it. it was cheap to buy

t2h used a thin piece of ss inside burn chamber on this version



you can see it at 1.48 mins, 4.04mins mentions ss lined 3 walls of 16th inch thick ss

info here

ss tray, ss breadbin, ss bin, ss hot pot, ss hotplate kitchen sink is ss most times dishwasher ss
Today I did a scrap metal run with my wife Lynda, Had a blast and made over 160$ Canadian doing it!
sounds silly but we can use alot of the stuff just from scrapping and you can use the air conditioners


these can be gained for peanuts or even free as thrown out by people

ive seen crags list mentioned often

something to consider on doing and to cost

https://woodstoves.forumotion.co.uk/t577-casting-a-core



at 7.30 mins mentions 2.5mm steel hence the change to ss vortex tube that lasted 2 years but was joined up by welding

ROACH wrote:

if i was you get some cement board put that on the walls it wont get to hot also the used to make half brick on wire  cover with that i dont know if they still make it. it was cheap to buy

I have found that the temperature of the sheet metal I have surrounding the , (which has about an inch and a half air gap between it and wood) has even when the stove is at max temperature only reached a temperature of about 85 degrees. So I am not really concerned about that area. The only area I am concerned with is where the exahust exits the structure. As it travels thru the wood, and it has been said that wood can combust at 200 degrees (i found that to be a stretch, but I am not going to discount it) So I rarely run the stove where temperatures in the exhaust reach more than about 110. I think that because the tank has such a large surface area that it radiates most of the heat, so what exits the smoke stack rarely creates external temps on the surface of 110 to 150 degrees.

just for your info, wood needs 350 to burn it should be ok i dry hog fuel samples for 12 hours at 250 they never catch fire and your right the tank takes almost all the heat out of the gases by using a damper at the exit of the tank it cool down more on the exhaust but you have to remember to open it up before you open the front door for added safety put in a piece of tin around the pipe that is the old timer way

ROACH wrote:

just for your info, wood needs 350 to burn it should be ok i dry hog fuel samples for 12 hours at 250 they never catch fire and your right the tank takes almost all the heat out of the gases by using a damper at the exit of the tank it cool down more on the exhaust but you have to remember to open it up before you open the front door for added safety put in a piece of tin around the pipe that is the old timer way

Well I would have thought temps had to be even higher to burn wood, but it was just recently somewhere on here I read that someone said they had seen wood catch fire at two hundred, so I don't know for sure. Hog Fuel???

hog fuel is a wood waste, we burn in a wellons boiler,if you look at at a the new pellet stoves the way it burns that is the way we do only 100 times larger, 100k pound boiler 820 psig,