Lil' House outdoor wood burning heater. ??

[moosehunter]

Sorry 'bout that! I have lots of trouble expressing thoughts into words, speaking or typing.

The chimney flange is a pipe welded to a curved piece of metal that is the same shape as the barrel. They cut a rather rough hole in the barrel near the back wall and bolt this flange to the barrel with 8 or 9 5/16" bolts. They use a gasket between the flange and barrel. If the gasket doesn't seal properly creosote will seep through it.
The door frame also has a gasket around it but I have had no trouble with that. The door itself does not have a gasket. It is shaped to seal to the door frame and seems to seal pretty good without a gasket.

If you look at the pics back a few posts, look at the back view, picture a 55 gal drum lying on its side in that box. Where the chimney comes out you can see that the stove pipe goes into a collar. The collar is fitted into the flange that caused me all of the trouble. The collar is what had the hole in the weld the second time around.

I have probubly confused you more.
I am going to go back to the 1/24 post and fix two words that may make it clearer.

[beenthere]

moosehunter
No, not confused more.  That was the image I was getting, but much clearer now.

I'm surprised a bit that there is such a gasket between the flange and barrel, and not a completely welded thimble that exits through the hot air plenum surrounding the combustion barrel. The likelihood of getting the creosote smell (which is likely from the unburned gasses that accumulate when the stove shuts itself down and smoulders) is just too great with that arrangement. It seems it is negating the main reason for placing the woodstove outside. All you want inside the home is heat...no possibility of combustion gases from the stove.  Keep a good alarm for the killing gas with good batteries in the home...sometimes the gas comes with no detectable smell.  The stove mfg should have realized the bad design and fixed it for you real fast...your life was in there hands. Maybe there is just too much differential movement between the barrel steel and the flange for the stack to keep a good weld, so they had to resort to the gasket which allows for that movement (and for your leak).

My indoor wood burner has a gasket around the door for a seal. When I overload the firebox, there can be some smell from the unburned wood gases that collect when oxygen is short. Usually I control the amount of wood needed for the amount of heat needed to keep the air input damper open.  But my method doesn't work well for loading as much wood in the stove as it will hold. Too much wasted heat.

Hope your stove continues to do well for you....it was for three years, and you are half way through the second...right?   

Good luck with it. 

[Bibbyman]

Thanks for the update.  It's been down around zero at night for the past couple of nights and I'm tired of being cold! 

We have the wood stove in the living room but it can't keep up late at night and it can't push heat 60' back to our bedroom.  'Corse,  we could just turn up the thermostats on our electric base board heaters that are in each room.  But then we wouldn't be suffering the proper amount. We have them all set on 50 degrees and the other morning I heard the one in our bedroom kick on!

There is no practical way to install and use the Lil' House stove in our earth contact house.  Any other outdoor stove arrangement is going to cost big bucks for duct work, plumbing and such.  We're watching the Bio-Mizer project pretty close.  Maybe someday.

[moosehunter]

Beenthere, you have explained the problem better than I did and you don't even have a lil house heater ;) I told you I have trouble expressing myself! I asked the company why that flange is not welded on and was not given an answer.

Bibbyman, no problem with cold here. My lovely bride loves the heat and gets home before I do. It is usually in the upper seventies when I get home, sometimes above 80. She asks me every night " why do you leave the front door open when you get home"?  :D :D
mh

[woody1]

I saw that same type of deal in the mid- west about 15 years ago. The were blowing the heat in a window.

[poolman]

I put gas logs in a 100,000 btu wood stove. I could always use wood ,but it is an easy fast fire.Even with a low flame i am sure it is putting out 40,000 btu.  My wood stove is called the ponderosa made by the birmingham stove and range co.                                 brian