Heating

Started by Robert_Flowers, December 16, 2005, 06:15:26 PM

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Robert_Flowers

The cold weather we getting got me thanking about how to heat a small house we have about 1300sq.ft. and heat with wood and elec. force air furnance. But a 200 sq.ft. housewould be too small for most wood stove and elec. would be a space heater or a small wall heater.
What do y'all thank?

Robert

bartholomew

A marine wood stove might be about right.  Anything intended for boats tends to be expensive though. One manufacturer is at http://www.marinestove.com/.




Amanda_931

#2
The single plaque mister heater, ubiquitous, sells for under $80, won't heat my (right at 200 sf) trailer by itself, although, especially connected to a grill gas bottle fed in from outside if you're wise instead of the small bottle, it's handy as a supplement--but it may not last more than one season, apparently something about needing filters.

Although with louvered windows, two skylights, and a warped front door, the trailer's pretty leaky.  The company brags on their insulation, but it's just fiberglass between 2 x 2's, maybe an inch more in the ceiling.

The double one, that Amazon isn't selling any more probably would heat the trailer.  As, I expect would most any 2-plaque heater.
 
This double one might be a pain to run off a grill gas bottle, though, and I gather, even though I saw one the other day in a store, I gather that there were safety recalls. 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00069YIOY/ref=sr_11_1/102-5033885-9976111?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=284507

Seems like the (expensive) little Jotul's look like they'd be fine for 400 sf.  As, if you can find the book, the Ken Kern masonry stove made with a couple of 55 gallon drums covered with concrete and rock.  He swore that it was usable as a cook stove in the summertime, which would lead me to think that you could use it for most any size.

The trailer came equipped with a forced air furnace vents on the floor (yuck), that ate grill gas bottle gas in two or three days.   But it would heat the place up by 40 degrees or so in twenty minutes.

Here's the little Jotul, cute, but it might really take up too much room in 200 sf.  And with 28,000 btu max rating, and "up to 800 sf," it may just be too big.  Probably not as expensive as those marine jobs, though.

http://www.jotul.us/content/products/ProductArticle____3105.aspx

ibcnya

#3
The military use to have a stove that looks something like the one in the link. Maybe a surplus store?

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/cb/cb.asp?a=196148

glenn-k

#4
Here's a link to home made stoves - mostly for backpacking, but it has information on The Winiarski Elbow Stove, commonly known as the rocket stove.  Not exactly what you are looking for but educational.

http://wings.interfree.it/html/main.html



Amanda_931

I want the Rocket Stove in a cob bench!

A little difficult to retrofit, though.

Might fit in this shape, if it weren't a trailer, though. After all Heart House is tiny.

This is not my favorite picture--not the one of Heart House, but....


tjm73

#6
QuoteThe cold weather we getting got me thanking about how to heat a small house we have about 1300sq.ft. and heat with wood and elec. force air furnance. But a 200 sq.ft. housewould be too small for most wood stove and elec. would be a space heater or a small wall heater.
What do y'all thank?

Robert

If it's wired for electric I'd use this....  

www.nuheat.com or this...
http://www.warmfloor.com/english/ or this....
http://www.orbitmfg.com/

glenn-k

#7
Got my Rocket Stove book from Charmaine Taylor along with the other good free stuff she always sends.

Amanda has linked this book several times.  She knows what she's talking about - it is a nice book - well written and easily understood.  It shows ways of doing this on a wood floor but there is no certification for this so you will be on your own,  I think I'll be trying a version of it to heat my roman bath and hypocaust.  It is even mentioned in the book.

For those who are interested but don't want to spring for the book, it is based on some of this information.  http://www.aprovecho.net/at/projects/Design%20Principles.pdf

Amanda_931

I still have only the first edition of that.

I gather it is much expanded.


Daddymem

Get a tankless hot water heater and use it to heat your water and run radiant heat in your floor at the same time?  Check codes that an open system can be used of course.

MountainDon

Well, speaking of stoves that will keep you warm, but don't exactly have approval or certification....

http://www.walltentshop.com/KKampstove.html

These sure beat those propane / catalytic things for heat output in a canvas walled tent on a hunting trip. The Kwik Kamp has a fibreglass seal around the door; most the others of this type do not. I've always thought the Kwik Kamp would make a neat little stove in a small cabin. Strictly off radar though.

glenn-k

#11
The new version is 100 pages - not real big but pretty thorough.

I read that the tankless water heaters didn't work as good for radiant heat as the tank type, and they suggested a pump on both sides of it due to the low flow characteristics.  I haven't tried it.  I was hoping to have a good wood burning hot tub heater and hypocaust just for the heck of it -- cuts wood use down to about 1/4th of chunk burning use but takes feeding small wood -- but I have small wood I can split my wood into smaller pieces.

The burn theory of the rocket stove is based on some real good reasoning.  It only burns from the ends of the small wood.  Starting the fire at the bottom of the pile as a chunk burner pyrolyzes much more fuel than can be burned efficiently so much of it goes to waste as creosote on the chimney.  It's like driving your car with the choke pulled out.  Oh -- wait a minute --- you youngsters probably haven't seen a car with a choke.  OK - it's like running your lawnmower with the choke on. :)

Daddymem

BIG Firstday home using tankless water heater for radiant and domestic in a monolithic slab.

http://www.hawkswingfarm.com/

glenn-k

I read that on one of the other sites I posted -- sure enough if someone says it doesn't work good, someone else will find a way to do it. :)


MountainDon

#14
hypocaust = Roman central heating...
thought you were old, but didn't think you were as old as I

:-/ :o

glenn-k

I'm not ancient but like history so learn a few old words. :)

I also like weird things -- hypocaust and Roman Bath -- who has one of them? :)

.. and since I have a sawmill I usually have free wood along with the 60 acres we have up here that needs more tree maintenance than I give it.  

JRR

A "marine wood stove", .... hmmm.  So you're out on your boat, the weather is cold and sour, and you need to gather some more firewood.  Where do you go, and what are you looking for exactly?

MountainDon

#17
I like history and the odd and unusual myself.  ;D  Hope you didn't mind the fun jab in the side.

60 acres will keep you more than busy if your trees grow like these around here seem to.


glenn-k

I'd let the fire go out because I'd probably be ralphing over the side anyway.   :-?

Yeah - this is a year old thread - don't know if we ever did get a satisfactory answer to the original question but though I would revive it for general heating discussion -

glenn-k

QuoteHope you didn't mind the fun jab in the side.
It was better than being poked in the eye with a sharp stick. :)

It's pretty hard to get the best of me, Mountain Don, but keep trying. :)

We have Bull Pine, Blue Oak and Live Oak.  Not extremely fast growing but many places could be thinned and trimmed up higher to alleviate a bit of summer fire danger.


MountainDon

Mostly those tall Ponderosa Pines here, mixed with some Engelmann Spruce and White Fir, Aspen here and there and some Gambel Oak (short stuff, mostly like scrubby bushes). It just seems like they grow faster than you can deal with them because the years and years of fire prevention have left the forest littered with deadfall and crowded out dead or near death trees. In the places along the main highways the forest service has done a creditable job of cleaning up, but back in the woods a ways it's another story. A lot of the private landowners have gotten smart, especially since the fire that ate a portion of Los Alamos a few years back.

After cleaning the (forest) floor here we're going to go thru and try to cut off most of the dead branches up about 15 ft or so. Make it look like a park  ;)

Santa FedEx brought me my drilldoctor today    :)

glenn-k

#21
Good on the Drill Doctor - you like it.

We have all the bigger trees on the next mountains East or North so no shortage of wood here.  Ponderosa, Sugar Pine, Incense Cedar, White pine and others. We also have the brush problem.  In the 1800's and before the Native Americans tended the oaks and Bull Pines and burned the brush off.  It was their food source and the fires kept things growing good.  After that everything was cut from the mountains for mine timbers and steam trains.  In old pictures - 1850 or so there were no trees on the mountains - most trees here are 50 to 75 years or less at least in my area.

Daddymem

#22
QuoteI read that on one of the other sites I posted -- sure enough if someone says it doesn't work good, someone else will find a way to do it. :)
You and Billy would get along great.  He doesn't play by the rules either and is always figuring a way of doing things his way.  I don't know if his system works well and he has issues that Mass. doesn't allow open systems but he claims it keeps his feet warm so I imagine a 200 sf home would be no problem.  Either that or a can of beans would do the trick.  ;)

glenn-k

Let's not talk about the time I nearly set my pants on fire, eh?

I have also run lines from my water cooled generator to the tubes under the floor in part of the cabin.  I don't run the generator enough to do any good though.  This system is separate from my domestic water.  May hook it into the Roman bath later though.

I have a problem with government coming into my house for anything so I say if he likes it he needs to have at it.  Did he get finaled yet?

Amanda_931

#24
If you were in the 19th century British Navy, your wood supply could include broken spars and masts, and the casks that salt pork, salt beef and water came in.  

And the fact that hammocks for the grunts were allotted something like 14" each, side to side.  (Only half of them were trying to sleep at any given time, though, so effectively that doubled the distance, still damned close).  There were a lot of people on a navy ship, because it took a good-sized handful for each gun.

So fires were almost exclusively used for cooking, if Patrick O'Brian has the description right.