Pellet Stove

[Rick Schmalzried]

I am starting to make plans for a new garage for my workshop and am working on ideas to heat it.  I have thought about a wood stove, but that is difficult to regulate temps and I couldn't have the building warm when I get home from work.  One idea that I keep bouncing around on is a pellet stove.  But I am not wanting to run it on pellets, but rather on chipped wood.  It is easy to have a landscape crew drop off a truck load of chipped branches.  If I put them in a 'silo' and pump air to dry the chips it seems like it would be a relativly easy source of biomass to burn.  

I am wondering if anyone has had experience with a pellet stove and how would it work with merly chipped wood, rather than purchased pellets.  Even if I had to further grind the chips from the landscape crew I don't think it would be as much work as splitting wood, then the 24 hour burn time would be an added benefit.  This all falls apart if I could only burn the pellets because if I have to pay for the material, I just as well install a natural gas furnace and not have to carry anything.

[Mark M]

Hi Rick

I've often thought about that myself. My biggest concern with a stove of this type is preventing a back-fire through the stoker. Some I've seen do not appear to be very well designed.
Around here they are selling corn stoves and they work pretty slick. At my place in Minnesota we have a big outdoor boiler that you fill twice a day. It can take pretty big stuff and really works well.

Mark

[Ron Wenrich]

We heat our shop with a big wood stove that has a water jacket and a circulator.  It will hold heat for quite some time.  It has a huge firebox and will take 4' wood.  Most of our stuff isn't split that well.  

With a water jacket system, you can put radiant heat in the floor.  That will help hold your building heat.

I'm not sure if the pellet stove would accept chips, ground or whole.  You are going from a bone dry, compressed fuel to something that has a lot of air space in it.  You would need something that is more of a sawdust burner.

[Bro. Noble]

Rick,

We've used a wood furnace to heat our house for 30 years.  I just use wood I don't have to split.  It will take pieces as big as I can handle and holds a fire for as long as you would need.  The thermostat works well on it but we have had to replace it once as well as the pipe connecting the furnace to the flue.

Noble

[Jeff]

I have a company for a web client that sells all sorts of stoves. I am in the midst (just starting really) of completely overhauling thier site and adding new product lines. I have a stack of stove brochures here 6 inches tall. Corn burners are some of the stoves I will be adding. They must be new eh?

www.hearthofthehome.com

Lots of firepace and stoves but the ones on there are 3 years old and pretty much obsolete. New stuff will be up in a week to 10 days and be available for research.

This is one of the first sites I ever built. Really primitive code that I will be reworking. the first newpage is at www.hearthofthehome.com/newindex.htm

It looks the same but is worlds different.

[Frank_Pender]

I would sure thing of a hot water system.  I have two Taylor Stoves, one heats the 3,00 sq. ft. house and the other my kil.  I can put 36" material  in each and up  to 24" in daim.. Of coure, I can' pick up a piece of 24" in daim. Oak, but the thought is intrienging.  8) 8) I only add fuel every 12 to 16 hours, depending on the rate use and the level at which I set the thermostat in the house.  

[Rick Schmalzried]

I have thought about an outside boiler, but from what I have found, a full installation would end up costing almost as much as I will have in the entire building.  (24x36 is as large as my subdivision rules will allow.)  I would love to be out in the country and build a real building, but my wife likes it here.

If anyone has ideas on how to put in a wood boiler for less than $2K I would be interested in hearing about it (although even that will be a stretch as I can simple move the electric furnace in my existing garage for free.  Even at $100/mo (I only use it in the evenings and weekends) it would take 20 months of heat (about 5 years) to pay back.

[ADfields]

I have a 28x30 garage that I heat with a home made airtight wood stove and it's not ever under 40 in there if I stoke it once a day.   It's a dirt floor 2x4 walls eith R13 and R19 over head and in Alaska.   Once a day I jam the firebox full of birch, squrt some charcole starter in and set it off.   The firebox is a 24" pipe 28" long, the guy I got it from bilt it out of a chunk of the leftover Alaska Pipeline pipe.   I let it burn till it's all cooking good, about 15 minuts or so and close off the intake damper on the stove.   If I will be working in the garage or want to melt ice off the wifes Bronco I will stoke it 2 or even 3 times a day to keep it in the 60's and 70's with highs neer 100.   It's nothing fancey but it works and it's cheep.
Andy

[bull]

 Spend the $ 3500 for the out door furnace and tie it into the house as well as the shop..... they burn green wood and have a 75 plus hour burn time- most burn 4 ft wood.... if you can get free chips you can get free wood/ a smart tree guy knows if he doesnt have to run the chipper for wood over 3 "
he's saving money. not sure what you pay for oil or gas but you can save all that money and figure it into your savings...

 I have a NewYorker wood boiler that I bought in 1992 for  $1700 installed its tide into my forced hot water system and is inside next to my oil burner, I spend a little over $300 a year to heat my 3 bedroom ranch 1200 sq ft the oil covers hot water costs mostly in the warm season..... you could fill the system w/ antifreeze and use something like this in your shop

[Jeff]

I am nearing completion of the www.hearthofthehome.com website upgrade.  Lots of brand new lines of wood, gas, pellet and electric stoves, fireplaces, inserts and cook stoves to see. just click on product lines and tell it what you are looking for.