Sometimes situations arise when it is necessary, without significant material costs, to heat a small room (garage, workshop or warehouse) as efficiently and quickly as possible. An excellent solution to the problem will be a compact do-it-yourself stove, which requires ingenuity, desire, tools and metal to create.
A simple potbelly stove can be built from materials that are at hand. You can use a regular can or a thick-walled barrel. Many years of practice have shown that very thick metal (over 8 mm) is too difficult to warm up. Thus, the efficiency decreases and most of heat is not used for heating.
If the metal turns out to be too thin, under the influence of high temperatures, it will begin to deform and quickly lose its original shape. The best option is walls of about 3-4 mm.
When deciding what shape and size a finished potbelly stove should take, everyone must independently. A person with engineering education and skills can take any, even the simplest design, and make the desired changes aimed at improving it.
Drawing of a rectangular potbelly stove:
A simple and multifunctional do-it-yourself stove is made from the following materials:
The furnace body will be made in the form of a rectangle with steel sheets, which are butt-welded to each other. It is necessary to cut the workpieces under five main planes (bottom, top, side and back walls). On the front panel there will be a blower and a door for the furnace, so it will be possible to resolve the issue with it later.
First, the side surfaces are welded to the bottom. It is necessary to ensure that they are located strictly vertically, using a level or square, and docked at a right angle. Having grabbed in 2-3 places, once again we are convinced of the correctness of their location and cook.
After that, the back wall is welded. All internal space must be divided into three parts:
The last two must be separated by a grate, on which solid fuel (peat, firewood) will be laid. It is done as follows:
There is no need to weld the grille to the inner corners. If necessary (cleaning the stove, repair), it can be easily obtained. After some time, some of the plates may burn out and will need to be replaced. There are many more reasons to leave the grille removable.
In the next step, you need to weld two metal rods on top, on which the reflector will be located. The latter is a metal sheet that separates the smoke flow and the firebox. The reflector is removable.
It is necessary to position the reflector so that a channel is formed in front, allowing the smoke to escape. It will warm up inside the most, so it is made of very thick metal (12-16 mm).
It's time to start the final stages of work. First, the stove is welded. It will not be superfluous to provide an opening for the chimney in advance. Then the upper lintel is cut out and welded, then a narrower one, placed at the level of the grate and separating the doors of the grate and ash pan.
You should not bother much about the size of the doors. The main thing is that it is convenient to lay firewood through them and remove ash and ash. The door for the firebox is made, as a rule, almost the entire width so that the reflector and grate can be removed, for the ash pan - narrower.
Having collected everything together, it is time to think about how to install the finished structure on the legs. They are recommended to be made of a metal tube 2-3 cm in diameter and 8-10 cm in length with a nut welded at the end and a screwed in bolt. This will allow you to adjust the height. To many, such a step may seem strange, but during the installation process, everything will become clear.
It's time to think about the chimney, which will be made of a pipe with a diameter of 15-18 cm. At the same time, it should be led out through a hole in the wall. Bends are made at an angle of 45 degrees, there should not be any areas located horizontally.
A rotary damper must be provided at the lower end of the chimney. For it, a circle is cut out of sheet metal, with a diameter slightly less than the similar characteristic of the pipe, in which a hole is drilled for the handle for rotation. The latter can be made from a metal bar.
It is necessary to place the chimney on a sleeve 15-20 cm high. It is made from a product with a diameter slightly smaller than the chimney and is welded along the hole to the top cover. It's time to install the stove, adjust the height and that's it - you can heat the room.
The simplest do-it-yourself potbelly stove is made from an ordinary can. There is no need to talk about the durability of such a structure, but it is quickly built, easily assembled and gives enough heat.
All work consists in the installation of the legs, the arrangement of the outlet pipe and some cosmetic operations. For work you need:
Getting Started
A reflector can be mounted on the outside of the tank, thanks to which less heat generated will escape. Having welded the handles from the sides, the structure can be transferred to any other place.
Pros and cons of homemade bourgeois
Among the many advantages of such a nondescript, but useful installation, there are:
But despite the significant and numerous advantages, there are a number of disadvantages of bourgeois:
In custody
Homemade potbelly stove is a reliable and effective assistant in a cold workroom or own garage... Its production is not difficult, and there is no need for large material investments to start work.
Heating technical rooms is often a real problem. Electricity is expensive, leading to high heating costs. The best way out is to use alternative energy sources. This can be firewood, coal, anthracite, and more.
Furnaces of various formats are used to burn solid fuels. One of them is a potbelly stove, which is extremely simple and cheap.
In this review, we'll talk:
The modernization of the stove will also be considered, which will help increase its efficiency. The article will be interesting - read and get acquainted.
Potbelly stoves have been known among our compatriots for a very long time. They gained their popularity due to their extreme simplicity. A simple metal box with a door and a blower - and the simplest version of the stove is already ready. Considering the ingenuity of our people, this world has seen many of the most diverse bourgeois women, delighting their owners with the coveted warmth. Let's see what you can make such a stove from:
You can make a stove-stove not only from a used safe or a well-worn gas cylinder, but also simply by welding several sheets of durable metal together.
Homemade stove stoves can also be made of sheet metal - for this you need to arm yourself with suitable tools.
The potbelly stove device is extremely simple. Its basis is a kind of capacious container, which plays the role of a combustion chamber. A pipe is removed from its upper or rear part, to which a chimney is attached. In the front part, two doors are organized (less often one) - fuel is loaded through the large one, and ash is removed through the small one. The internal space is divided by a metal grate through which air is supplied - through the useless ash formed during the burning of wood is removed.
The lower door simultaneously acts as a blower - by adjusting the degree of its opening, you regulate the intensity of the flame and the temperature in the room.
The dimensions of the stove can be very different, for example, 250x450x450 mm (WxDxH). A gas cylinder will make a bigger and more efficient stove. The largest size will be the oven from the barrel - after all, the internal volume of 150-200 liters can hold a huge amount of firewood. You can make a unit of almost any size - you don't even have to bother with the exact observance of the dimensions indicated in the drawings.
These simplest stoves are in great demand. For their work, they use firewood, coal, coke, wood waste and many other types of fuel, pleasing with their unpretentiousness and stability of work. Such a stove can be put in a garage - it will take up a minimum of space, but will provide the room with pleasant warmth. If there is a large supply of firewood or access to a cheap source of solid fuel, feel free to build a long-burning stove.
Wood is the simplest, cheapest and most widely available type of fuel for stoves. However, its consumption is poor.
A mini potbelly stove can be used to heat a barn or a household utility room that does not have heating. Agree, doing something in winter is not so comfortable here - teeth chattering and muscles cramp. And with the stove, things immediately go well - just have time to throw up the wood so as not to freeze.
Long-burning stove stoves are useful not only for the garage, but also for any other premises, including residential ones - these can be temporary buildings, summer cottages, poultry houses, premises for keeping livestock and much more. In general, the area of their application is huge. They are most in demand in settlements and villages where there is no gas, but you need to somehow heat residential and non-residential buildings.
Let's see what are good homemade stoves made by folk craftsmen:
Unfortunately, heating with a potbelly stove has its drawbacks:
Despite some shortcomings, simple wood-fired stoves are still in demand among those who need heat in the absence of a gas main.
A do-it-yourself stove stove is made surprisingly quickly. First you need to decide what material it will be made of. Prepare the following tools:
A self-made potbelly stove can have the most intricate and pretentious look. Show your imagination and you can get a unique thing, the second of which cannot be found in the world.
Let's see how to cook a potbelly stove with good heat transfer for a summer cottage or garage from an iron barrel.
The simplest option is a potbelly stove from a large barrel (150-200 liters). It needs to be supplemented with grate bars, doors and a chimney. We start the manufacture of the stove with the construction of a reliable non-combustible base. The best option is to put a small brickwork, on which the barrel itself will stand... It will take several days to make it. After that, we proceed to further work.
In the front wall of our potbelly stove, a rectangular hole should be cut out for the loading door - use a metal jigsaw for this. The resulting piece of metal will act as a door for us - we attach a rotating lock, handle and hinges to it. After that, we weld the second part of the hinges to the barrel. On the opposite side, we weld a metal loop into which the constipation will fit.
In the lower part, you need to make an ash pan with another door. We allocate 10-15% of the total volume for it. We make the door as described above, but it should be narrower - ash is scooped out through it, it also serves as a blower. Optimal height- 40-50 mm. Next, we start making grates:
An old can or flask is also a great option. By using it, you free yourself from the need to weld the loading door.
We make a hole in the lid with a diameter of 100 mm, weld a small piece of pipe of the same diameter here - this will be a chimney hole. Next, we weld the lid into place. Our potbelly stove is ready, it remains only to attach a chimney to it and you can start testing - we load firewood and try to light the flame.
We have made with you a long-burning stove with our own hands - it has an unusually large combustion chamber. Please note that you can make a brewing hole in the top lid - its diameter is 100-150 mm. Instead of a barrel, you can easily use a gas cylinder or a piece of pipe of a suitable diameter. Remember that a potbelly stove from a pipe and a cylinder must have a sufficiently large diameter (at least 350-400 mm).
If necessary, you can make a similar potbelly stove in a horizontal design - you just need to slightly change its design. The rest of the assembly principle does not change.
The most efficient stove is a pyrolysis potbelly stove, afterburning the remnants of combustible gases and emitting a large amount of heat, compared to other stoves. There is no need to think that it will be a complex unit. Making a potbelly stove of this type will take you 20 minutes more time than a conventional unit without pyrolysis. Let's see how it is produced.
The unit is welded from sheet metal with a thickness of 3 to 5 mm. The use of thin iron does not make much sense - the stove will turn out to be too thin, heat will bend it, and in the end it will be finished off by corrosion. So find a steel that's thick enough so you don't have to make a new stove every heating season.
We need to cut out seven pieces of metal (our iron is 3 mm thick):
The main advantage of using sheet metal is that you can make a stove of any size and volume.
Thus, we will get a Loginov oven, which has two internal baffles to increase efficiency. The same partitions will be responsible for pyrolysis.
In the front wall, we make two doors - in accordance with the instructions described above. Next, we weld a metal box from all the pieces without a top cover. The next stage is making a grate. To do this, we take a metal sheet and make many holes with a diameter of 10-15 mm in it. We fix the grate at a height of 80 mm from the bottom of the stove. Next, we weld the partitions, placing them at a height of 60 and 120 mm from the top cover.
On the back surface we make a couple of small holes and weld thin metal tubes (10-15 mm in diameter) into them. They should be positioned above the lower bulkhead, going towards the front wall. Their length is about 150 mm - secondary air will be sucked in through them. The tubes are welded before securing the second baffle.
We are preparing the top cover - we cut a hole in it with a diameter of 100 mm for the chimney. If necessary, we supplement the wood-fired stove with a cooking hole. We weld the lid to our stove - you're done! Now we install the stove in its original place and proceed to testing. And yes, do not forget to attach legs to it or install it on a non-combustible base (for example, made of bricks).
The height of the chimney for potbelly stoves is at least one meter. The optimal indicator is 1.5-2 meters from the horizontal outlet or top cover.
Now you know how to properly make a stove stove so that it can serve to heat a country house, garage or utility room. But we need the stove to be efficient - to give maximum energy while burning a minimum of fuel. You will be surprised, but we have already considered one possible upgrade option - the pyrolysis unit presented above is an improved version. Pull out the partitions from there, and you will get the most banal stove-stove.
The choice of pipes for the chimney should be approached with special attention - pipes that are too thin or poorly welded will quickly burn out, which will lead to smoke in the room.
Not only pyrolysis will help to increase the efficiency of the stove. If you look at the drawing of the potbelly stove given above (from sheet metal), you will notice that the unit is covered with metal sheets on three sides. They are 50 mm away from the body and play a protective role. But that's not all - in interior space traction is formed, the process of convection occurs. Thanks to this, the efficiency of the stove-stove increases.
The next stage of modernization is the creation of a chimney bend. The thing is that a huge amount of heat escapes into the atmosphere through it. By increasing the length of the chimney using a horizontal section, we can use it to heat the room. The disadvantage of this approach is the deposition of soot in the horizontal section.
A do-it-yourself potbelly stove is great for heating garages. With its help, it is possible to organize the heating of the summer cottage in which they live in shortcuts, it can act as a temporary heating unit until the main heating is established.
With this design, you can not only heat various rooms but also to cook food. And one of the main advantages of this stove is that, with a strong desire, almost every person can cook a potbelly stove correctly, having done everything himself and saving on the services of third-party craftsmen.
You can make a potbelly stove with your own hands from almost any available metal products. For this, an old milk can, a pipe cut, a barrel, sheet metal, etc. are suitable. A correctly made potbelly stove warms up pretty quickly. At the same time, it quickly cools down, but to eliminate this drawback, it is usually sufficient to more thoroughly insulate the room.
To properly cook a potbelly stove, you must first of all prepare a suitable drawing. There are drawings of units of rectangular and circular cross-section. So, you can make a potbelly stove with your own hands, even from an ordinary milk can. A diagram of this design is shown in Fig. 1.
Figure 1. Potbelly stove from a can.
To cook such a potbelly stove with your own hands, you do not need any expensive and hard-to-find materials and tools. The following will suffice:
Some of the variations discussed below will require the use of a welding machine. If you wish, you can do without it. But welding allows for a more reliable design. Any specific dimensions will not be given, because in the case of a potbelly stove, everything is purely individual. Also, the dimensions depend on the capacity you have.
The work begins with the preparation of the blower. To do this, you need to cut a hole in your can a little below the neck. Give it a rectangular shape. Finish the edges of the hole with a file. Cut a hole in the bottom of your can so that the chimney will go into it rather tightly in the future. It is extremely simple to do this:
Figure 2. Potbelly stove from a barrel.
Next, you will need to take a metal rod and bend it into a snake. In the future, the snake will serve as a grate. Bend the finished grill so that it can be inserted into the neck later. Align the inserted grid already inside the container. On this, the potbelly stove is ready with your own hands.
If you want, you can make a secure stand for it. And if you make a damper for the blower, you will get a potbelly stove with your own hands with the ability to regulate traction. The damper is extremely simple.
Thus, you can make the simplest potbelly stove with your own hands without any problems. This does not require any special materials and tools. You just have to install a homemade stove where you need it and connect the chimney. Such a homemade unit will regularly heat the room until you want to replace it with a more advanced system.
This option will require the use of welding. Such a potbelly stove is going to be assembled with your own hands from a segment metal pipe... The unit diagram is shown in Fig. 2.
If desired, it can also be made from an old barrel. Everything is done in a similar way. First you need to take the reinforcement, make a grate out of it and weld it to the body. In the above diagram, it can be seen that this do-it-yourself stove is equipped with two doors for the combustion chamber and the blower. A similar stove can be used not only for quick and high-quality heating of the room, but also for cooking.
Figure 3. Brick screen.
It is very fast heating that is one of the most important advantages of such stoves. However, this also implies their main drawback - they cool down rather quickly. Metal is not the most best battery heat. However, you can easily fix this flaw. You just need to overlay the potbelly stove with your own hands with a brick. This material, unlike metal, accumulates heat very well and retains it for a long time.
The only drawback of the design is that it will have to be heated for a long time to warm up the room. But you can easily get rid of this minus. You just need to create a special brick screen with ventilation holes. Systems of this kind are used in baths. You can familiarize yourself with the diagram of such a brick screen in Fig. 3.
In the above diagram, you can see that the installation of the brick screen is carried out at a certain distance from the stove body. This is a non-random and well-grounded decision. This design provides the most efficient and rational use heat generated by the furnace unit.
By correctly making a brick screen, you will save your homemade potbelly stove from the lack of rapid cooling. In the process of operation, the stove will emit heat, it will heat the brick, and the brick, as you know, is able to accumulate heat and keep it for a long time. As a result, you have already turned off the oven, and the room will be warm for a long time.
Figure 4. Potbelly stove with smoke turns.
The masonry must be erected at a distance of about 10-15 cm from the walls of the stove. The top and bottom of the masonry should be ventilation holes... Air will circulate inside the brick screen. The warm one will be discharged into the heated room, and the cold one will cool the walls of the furnace, protecting them from rapid burnout.
Sometimes a brick is laid out around the stove in a checkerboard pattern or without a gap. This approach is absolutely wrong, forget about it. If you do the masonry without a gap, then the efficiency of heating the room will significantly decrease, and the excess heat will literally fly away into the chimney. The checkerboard pattern is bad because, if it is present, the air cannot circulate normally. The area of the bricks is much less solid.
As a result, it will cool down very quickly. The heat from the potbelly stove will simply pass through the masonry, as if through a sieve. Heat loss in such a situation is 50% or more. The room, of course, heats up pretty quickly. But it will also cool down at a very high speed. This method is well suited for new buildings, in which there is no main heating yet, but it is necessary to warm up the room. In finished buildings, it is better to refrain from it.
If there is no money at all, then you can not buy bricks, but even use broken products. But this option will only work for temporary use.
If you wish, you can make a potbelly stove of a more complex design, using metal boxes or sheet metal for this. You will get a good rectangular unit. A diagram of a rectangular stove is shown in Fig. 4.
This design assumes the presence of smoke circuits. Thanks to this solution, fuel consumption is significantly reduced. Traction control doors can be installed. This will save even more fuel. Dampers and smoke circulation ensure the most efficient operation of the stove and allow you to significantly save on fuel.
Thus, the historical name of this furnace has absolutely nothing to do with reality, since there is simply no excess fuel consumption during operation.
The name "potbelly stove" stuck to this beautiful stove only because of a misinterpretation.
It is important to be able not only to properly cook a potbelly stove, but also to know the features of its installation and operation.
If the walls of the house are made of wood or panels, then the stove should be installed at least 1 m to them. safe operation This type of unit provides for the mandatory installation of a smoke exhaust pipe. It should consist of one section.
If necessary, it is of course possible to assemble a pipe from more than one section. But here it is important to adhere to the rule that one section of the structure should fit tightly into another. In this case, the lower one must be entered into the upper one. If the pipe has to be passed through a wall, a thermal barrier must be installed at the point of passage. It is usually made of bricks. It is better not to use concrete. With constant temperature drops, it will crumble rather quickly.
If you wish, you can buy or make additional accessories for storing fuel. For safety reasons, they must be installed at a certain distance from the stove. A modern unit will not only be able to warm up the room with high quality in just 15 minutes, but will also become an excellent interior decoration. Happy work!
Workshops and other premises for household purposes forces us to look for simple and cheap ways to heat them. In the era of inexpensive electricity, there were no problems with this - it was possible to use an elementary heater, assembled from a piece of asbestos pipe and a nichrome spiral. Today, the operation of even an economical infrared heater will result in a round pretty penny, and it is better not to remember about gluttonous handicraft equipment at all.
The way out of this situation lies on the surface - it is enough to make a potbelly stove with your own hands. Craftsmen have developed more than a dozen simple and effective designs designed for the use of liquid or solid fuels. If your choice is heater working on wood or wood waste, then better design than a potbelly stove of long burning, you can not find.
The whole secret of long-term burning of a potbelly stove is hidden in the way of laying fuel in it. Firewood in such a stove is set on fire from above, so there is no danger of ignition of all the logs in the fuel chamber at the same time.
Despite its unassuming appearance, a home-made long-burning stove successfully competes with many factory-made wood-burning stoves.
In addition, this is facilitated by the method of air supply. The oxygen required for combustion is supplied only to the top layer of the fuel. Such solutions make it possible to increase the size of the bookmark as much as the dimensions of the furnace allow. Of course, the time of continuous operation of such units increases tenfold.
The secret of long burning stoves is an efficient way of burning fuel
The pyrolytic decomposition of solid fuel, which occurs at a high temperature and a lack of oxygen, allows the duration of one heating cycle to be further increased. At the same time, the firewood does not burn, but smolders, at the same time forming a large amount of volatile hydrocarbon compounds. Pyrolysis gases are burned under the roof of the furnace with the release of a large amount of heat. Thus, smoldering contributes to the lengthening of the continuous combustion period, and pyrolysis makes it possible to increase the efficiency of the heat generator many times.
Another option for long-burning stoves is Bubafonya. You can do it yourself at home. Our next article provides a diagram and step-by-step installation instructions:.
The above-described methods of increasing the continuous operation time of the furnace have been successfully implemented in the design of a potbelly stove, which we propose to manufacture. The unit consists of only a few parts and is distinguished by its extraordinary simplicity, which, however, does not prevent it from successfully competing with more complex heating devices.
The firewood is put into the body, which is most often made in the form of a cylinder. From above, the fuel is pressed by an air distribution device in the form of a hollow rod with a piston (a heavy metal disc, in the center of which there is a hole for air supply). Support blades (blades) are welded to the bottom of the steel plate, the width of which determines the height of the gap between the fuel and the piston. In other words, the volume of the combustion chamber depends on the size of the blades. A pipe is welded to the back of the disc, through which air enters the furnace. To regulate its quantity, the channel can be completely or partially closed using a sliding shutter.
The device and principle of operation of a potbelly stove of long burning
A pipe for connecting a chimney is cut into the upper part of the potbelly stove body. To ensure normal draft, the height of the pipe must be at least 4 m. The unit is closed from above with a cover that has an opening for an air distribution device.
Primary air is fed directly under the piston, which divides the working space into two chambers. Accurate dosage of oxygen makes it possible to reduce the intensity of the flame, contributing to the transition to the gas generation mode. Wherein thermal energy is emitted not only by burning fuel, but also by pyrolysis gases, which are actively burned out under the cover. Secondary oxygen for their oxidation is supplied through a special window in the upper part of the furnace, and in the simplest case, through the gap between the air supply pipe and the top cover. After the top layer of firewood burns out, the metal disk descends under its own weight, providing oxygen access to the new fuel horizon.
The combustion products are removed from the furnace through a chimney cut into the upper part of the body. In order to further increase heat transfer, chimney connected to the heating device by means of a small horizontal transition, which plays the role of an air heat exchanger.
This model of a "long-playing" stove can be made in just a few hours. All that is needed for this is a great desire and the correct organization of the work process. You will also need to thoroughly understand the design of the unit and prepare everything you need in advance.
From the tools you will need:
As far as materials are concerned, there is no need to follow the list exactly. All the beauty homemade designs exactly the fact is that any iron that can be found in the backyard or in the corners of the garage (workshop) will go for them.
For the manufacture of the furnace body, any overall container is suitable, for example, an unnecessary metal barrel
So, a list of required materials:
If it is planned to equip the heater with a water jacket, then additionally prepare sheet steel with a thickness of at least 2 mm and nozzles for connecting the liquid circuit to the heating (hot water supply) line.
The pipes are also used when assembling a potbelly stove with a water circuit. For step-by-step instructions, see our article:
Any suitable container can be taken as the outer casing of the pyrolysis combustion stove. The use of waste materials will make it possible to get a heating device with almost zero cost. The only thing that needs to be done is to design all other structural elements in accordance with the dimensions of the selected body. This will make it possible to build not only a cheap, but also a productive, economical furnace.
To determine the dimensions and parameters that affect the performance and thermal efficiency of a potbelly stove, you can use a special scheme. To make a calculation, starting from the dimensions of the found container, it is necessary to measure its diameter (D) and height (H). This will be external parameters heater.
The scheme for the calculations of a long-burning stove will help to adjust the parameters of the parts depending on the size of the base
Complete calculation method:
A table for calculating the thickness of the piston will help you find the optimal ratio of the diameter and thickness of the piston pancake.
The table for determining the parameters of the blades is suitable for standard furnaces
Of course, there is no need to comply with the dimensions of all parts of the oven. Without consequences, they can be rounded in any direction. As for the gaps and vias, the correct operation of the heater depends on their size. These parameters must fully comply with the calculated values.
There is no need to install a furnace door for a stove with a diameter of 450 mm or more, since the unit can be easily loaded with firewood from the top. If, however, a gas cylinder is used as a body, then difficulties during its operation await not so much during the filling of the fuel, as when cleaning the stove from ash. In order for a long, narrow container not to cause inconvenience during operation, you will need to install an ash pan door.
In order not to equip the opening for cleaning the oven, you can use a disc with sides, which is lowered to the bottom. A steel bar welded to its center will allow you to easily pull out the container with ash. The metal rod does not interfere with the work of the stove at all - after installing the ash pan on the bottom, it is passed through a pipe to supply air.
Diagrams and drawings allow you to accurately determine all the design parameters of the heater and build a productive stove from any suitable container. It is not necessary to adhere to the exact dimensions - it is enough to observe the proportions between all constituent parts constructions.
Drawing of a pyrolysis stove with a water circuit Drawing of a stove with a convection casing Simple stove for firewood and sawdust Diagram of a long-burning stove with a hollow cone Drawing of a pyrolysis furnace for working on coal and pallets
It can be built in just a few hours, and the material for the work will serve as a used metal barrel from under the fuels and lubricants, a thick metal sheet and various pieces of pipes, corners and channels. Of course, such a cheap option has certain disadvantages associated with the small thickness of the walls - both the heat capacity of the structure and its service life suffer from this. Nevertheless, the use of such a bulky case has its advantages:
The phased implementation of the work will avoid mistakes and facilitate the manufacture of the heating unit, which can be useful for both a beginner and an experienced home craftsman.
For the construction of the simplest wood-burning heat generator, any steel barrel made of chemicals, fuels and lubricants, etc. is suitable. If there are small dents on its surface, then they must be leveled with a hammer and a sledgehammer, which is attached with back side... This work must be done carefully and accurately, otherwise, during operation, the air distribution piston will hang over the wood, which will lead to disruption of the normal operation of the unit.
If the walls of the barrel are covered with residues of oil products, glue or paint, then they are fired using gas burner or blowtorch. After that, all surfaces are cleaned with a hard metal brush. Of course, with full confidence in the integrity of the walls, you can do without firing and scraping the walls, but if the container was stored for a long time in the open air, then better way to carry out its preparation does not exist.
It is best to cut blanks from a thick metal sheet using a plasma cutter
Since the piston and blades are made of thick metal, it will be quite difficult to cut them out with a grinder. It is better to use the services of a car service for this or go to production. As a rule, you can find an experienced welder there, working with a gas cutter or plasma cutter. He will be able to cut the parts you want in a few minutes, and all you have to do is knock down the drops of molten metal on the emery wheel.
The next stage of the preparatory work is the selection and proper arrangement of the place for the installation of the stove. When installing it, it is necessary to ensure that several prerequisites are met:
It should be understood that lengthening the horizontal section of the chimney by more than 400-500 mm is fraught with a decrease in thrust, which will ultimately lead to a drop in the efficiency of the stove.
Like any other wood-burning heat generator with an open flame, a long-burning stove burns a considerable amount of oxygen during operation. At the initial stage, you should think about how the air flow will be carried out. Without a good ventilation system, the operation of the oven can be unsafe.
All the main work on the manufacture of this type of furnace consists of several stages:
Cut the lid off the barrel as carefully as possible.
The upper cut of the container is folded inward
Before cutting the hole, the cover needs to be prepared
The manufacture of a pressure circle depends on what material was taken as a basis.
The air supply pipe must be installed level
Installation of a branch pipe for connecting a chimney takes place in the upper part of the barrel
To eliminate temperature differences that lead to condensation, the chimney is equipped with an external casing, and the resulting space between its walls is filled mineral insulation... In addition, the top of the chimney is protected from precipitation by means of a metal cap.
After installation in a permanent place, the stove is connected to the chimney and filled with fuel. Long-burning stove-stove tests are started after the piston and the top cover are installed.
Long burning potbelly stove ready to work
For use in pyrolysis heating furnaces only dry wood is suitable. This is due to the fact that when burning wet fuel, a lot of water vapor is released, which reduces the temperature in the working area. Of course, in this case, efficient combustion of pyrolysis gases is out of the question. In addition, there are other unpleasant moments associated with incomplete combustion of volatile components. First, while cooling in the chimney, they fall out on its walls in the form of tar, creosote and other hard-to-remove substances. Secondly, the content of hazardous chemical compounds at the outlet of the chimney exceeds all allowable norms that negatively affects the environment and human health. And, on the contrary, when burning well-dried wood, the exhaust gases consist mainly of carbon dioxide and water vapor, and the work of the stove outside can be judged only by a slight movement of heated air at the upper cut of the chimney.
Before filling the fuel, the piston is removed and put aside, and the space inside the stove is filled with wood. It should be remembered that the thermal power and the duration of the heater's operation depend on the packing density, therefore, all the gaps between the logs should be covered with shavings, chips, wood husks, etc. cover.
For ignition, you can use a rag soaked in flammable liquid
The stove is ignited with a fully open damper of the air supply pipe, throwing a burning rag into it, which is pre-soaked with barbecue liquid or other similar. After the firewood has ignited, the air supply is reduced.
In order to make the operation of a potbelly stove safe, follow a few simple rules:
Often, in order to make the potbelly stove more presentable, its body is primed and painted in the desired color. It should be understood that during the operation of the oven, the paint will fade, therefore it is better to use only protective compounds intended for work in high temperatures.
Despite the fact that pyrolysis decomposition contributes to the most complete combustion of the fuel, during the operation of the furnace, a small amount of soot and ash is still formed. You can use a metal scraper and brush to remove carbon deposits. As for the ash, it is most convenient to clean the potbelly stove from the barrel with an iron scoop with a short handle. This does not require removing all the ash. A layer of ash 2-3 cm thick will act as thermal insulation, preventing the bottom of the heater from burning out.
Such a productive and economical heating device as a long-burning stove will make it possible to successfully heat any technical and household premises... Due to the simple, undemanding construction materials, you can build a stove with your own hands, spending only a few hours on it. Accurate calculation, accuracy in work and attention during operation - these are all the terms necessary to obtain comfortable, cozy, and most importantly, safe heat.
Thanks to my versatile hobbies, I write on various topics, but my favorites are engineering, technology and construction. Perhaps because I know a lot of nuances in these areas, not only theoretically, as a result of studying at a technical university and graduate school, but also from the practical side, since I try to do everything with my own hands.
Since homemade wood stoves remain the simplest means of heating garages and summer cottages, in this article we will consider making a potbelly stove with our own hands. With the help of our instructions and drawings, you can make a heater from available materials - a gas cylinder, steel pipe and even rims.
From old propane cylinders with a volume of 50 liters, home craftsmen got the hang of making several varieties of wood-fired stoves:
Note. From a former gas tank, installed in a vertical position, it is possible to weld a dropper furnace using oil working and diesel fuel. How to do this correctly is described in.
It makes no sense to disassemble the simplest designs of country and garage stoves - there are enough such drawings on the Internet. We propose to consider more efficient, and therefore, economical models with modifications that increase the heat transfer and efficiency of iron furnaces.
Flammable propane-butane mixture, filled in gas cylinders, heavier than air by weight. To safely cut the tank for the manufacture of a stove-stove, the remains of the mixture must be displaced with water. The correct disassembly technology looks like this:
When the reservoir is partially empty, continue working and separate the lid. Whichever design of the stove - homemade you choose, the cylinder will have to be cut, so the procedure for filling with water is required.
The device of a potbelly stove - a housekeeper on wood is shown in the diagram below. The modernization consists in adding a separate chamber with a heat exchanger in the form of steel fins, blown with air through 2 nozzles in the upper part of the heater. Increased efficiency is achieved by forced air supply by a fan, which allows you to quickly warm up the room.
An important point. An additional chamber isolated from the firebox can also serve as a water circuit connected to registers or heating radiators. One caveat: this inexpensive version of the boiler for a summer cottage or garage must necessarily work with forced circulation of the coolant from the pump.
For manufacturing you will need Additional materials from the list:
Drawing of a heating stove of a vertical structure
If a propane cylinder is not available, make a potbelly stove from big pipe with a diameter of 300-500 mm with a wall thickness of up to 5 mm. The assembly technology in both cases is the same:
Note. When making a furnace from a Ø300-500 mm pipe, it will be necessary to install an ash pan bottom (steel 2 mm), and the air chamber will turn out to be cylindrical.
To prevent the potbelly stove from smoking into the room, install a chimney with a height of at least 4 m (counting from the grate). If you plan to burn sawdust, then the distance between the grate bars should be minimized.
Due to its small size and forced supply of heated air, it is convenient to use the stove for a variety of purposes - to heat a garage, a summer cottage or a greenhouse. The technology for assembling such a heater with your own hands is demonstrated in the video:
In this case, the design improvement consists in installing an additional chamber with partitions for the afterburning of pyrolysis gases released in the firebox during slow smoldering of wood. The emphasis is on long burning, so the useful volume of the firebox is not taken away by the ash pan - it is taken out.
To increase the efficiency and heat transfer of the potbelly stove, the body is equipped with flat heat exchange fins on the outside, which is reflected in the drawing. By the principle of operation, the heater is similar to the Buleryan type stoves: before going outside, the flue gases bend around 2 partitions in the secondary chamber, giving off heat to the iron walls.
In addition to two tall 50-liter cylinders or a steel pipe with a diameter of up to 500 mm, for manufacturing you will need:
Cutting and docking of propane vessels, installation of door and ash pan frame
The manufacture of the furnace begins traditionally - with the disassembly of the cylinders. In one, the bottom part is cut off, and in the second, an opening is made for the doors and slot-like holes in the side wall - the future grates. In order for the combustion products to pass into the secondary chamber, a round hole with a diameter of about 10 cm is made on the other side. Further order works like this:
Advice. The partitions in the vertical chamber are best made from semicircular pieces cut from the sides of the second tank. This will increase the extraction of heat from the flue gases.
The resulting potbelly stove for a summer residence is quite capable of providing heating for various utility rooms, including a steam room in a bathhouse. It is not difficult to adapt it for cooking by making a flat hob made of 4-5 mm metal on top of the firebox.
The advantage of the rims is the decent thickness of the metal. If you make a potbelly stove from them, it will not burn out for a long time, although such a product cannot be called beautiful. Let's give some recommendations for manufacturing:
If only two wheel disks are found on the farm, you can collect combined option potbelly stoves by inserting a section of steel pipe of a suitable diameter between them. How such a stove is made, see the video:
We propose to weld a wood-burning stove from iron sheets 3-4 mm thick, shown in the photo. Outwardly, it looks like a classic rectangular stove with low efficiency (up to 40%), but inside the structure has undergone modernization. To make it more economical, two smoke teeth are arranged above the combustion chamber, like in brick fireplaces.
The partitions inside the body, shown in the drawing, overlap the section of the firebox in the horizontal plane and leave a small passage 10 cm wide for the combustion products.The flow of heated gases through two smoke cycles gives an increase in heat transfer by 5-10%, which is much better than factory cast iron stoves.
Advice. The dimensions of the heating unit indicated in the drawing are not an axiom, you can change them at your discretion. The main thing is to maintain the size (height) of the gas ducts. We do not list the required materials, since their list is obvious - sheet metal, pipe cuttings for the chimney, and rolled metal for grates and legs.
The manufacturing procedure is as follows:
If you expect to heat a potbelly stove with small fractions of coal or sawdust, make a grate from steel corners turned downward with a profile. Make the distance between them as small as 5 mm.
Design engineer with over 8 years of experience in construction.
Graduated from the East Ukrainian National University. Vladimir Dahl with a degree in Electronic Industry Equipment in 2011.
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