As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Most of you have seen or heard of these barrel stoves and kits, and if you look on Gaytube, you will find a number of builders and firing them up, but no follow ups, and there is a reason, as these stoves have a nuance to them, like all wood burning does. The Lame Cherry, always seeking to educate and provide the million dollar hidden knowledge, will tell you how to deal with the barrel stove.
I will not go into detail on construction, save I used a hand grinder to cut the openings out. JYG sold me a barrel which you could open like the above......yeah they will leak smoke from the cracks.
Here are two major necessities. You have to burn the paint off before you finish the stove, meaning painting it with temperature paint. You have to do this at least twice before painting and you will not burn it off the bottom, as the heat rises. Sitting it up on end and burning, did nothing likea trash barrel. Also, you have to put a stove pipe on the chimney hole or you will not get draft and the fire will go out, unless you keep the door open in these test firings.
Ok those hidden necessities now have you with a barrel stove. You will have to have high temperature caulk to seal around the stove pipe you install, and it is better to have a longer piece than an elbow so you can "force" it in there, as that Chinaman flue is tight.
Now, here is what I did, in I salvaged old chimney brick and just linked the bottom half up the stove. I would rather have it on top too, but it would probably collapse from the heating of the mortar, and cracked stones, so the suggestion would be, which I have not done is to place NOT TOUCHING THE top of the barrel stove, on a metal platform, several layers of spaced bricks, holes in them would be great as they would absorb the heat the stove generated to bleed off later in a heat sink.
I'm working on a rammed earth, but this is a better alternative.
OK I poured a platform off the cellar floor, this thing is no doubt up to code, but I have no homeowner insurance as I can not afford it, so my chimney is probably not up to code too, but it all works.
Now for the lighting of the stove.
After a test firing in a small fire, that worked pretty good, I had two disasters in smoke so thick it burned my throat and burned my eyes, and filled the house with smoke you could see. The reason is fires need to burn, need draft to suck the air in and draw the smoke out. Barrel stove kits from China are hideous, even if you have an outside air hose, pumping fresh air into the combustion chamber, the stove door still sometimes has to be open a crack to get a burn, which gives you cinders coming out, which is not what you want ever.
OK this is how I make the barrel stove burn reasonably clean, as you get smoke from this thing in lighting it and checking it, and in burning it.
I get stacks of newspapers at the super market as they always have those free piles which no one reads. I wad up about three sheets in these inch thick fliers, and toss them into the back of the stove. I use two of the fliers.
I next use a box cutter and roll up a cardboard box which will be loose.once it is stuffed inn to the side. Next I fill this cardboard hole about the size of a coffee can with inch to two inch sticks.. On the opposite side, I put in a couple of 2 to 3 inch logs.
Now comes the Cherry torch which you are careful with. You build a cardboard roll up again, and in the center you put newspaper sticking out. You set this to make sure it will go into the stove between the two stick piles. You CAREFULLY light it up, and shove it in, to the back of the stove to where the vent is, and in making sure it is still lit, as you can see with the fire light inside, you close the door with the front breather vents open.
NOTE* I added a second breather vent under the main one, as there is not enough air even with an outside inch and half tube allowing air to be sucked in.
Also note that cardboard has those little holes in it, and those are little chimneys and smoke will come poring out of those little holes at you or the open door.
What happens in this is, the torch burns, and in that fast burn, creates draft in that high heat up the chimney. I have problem of 15 feet of almost horizontal chimney pipe with an inch rise to the chimney as the cellar is in the middle of the house. But it does start creating draft, and as it ignites the crumpled newpapers as the bed in the barrel stove, it really gets the heat up fast, so no smoke, and it starts sucking air in from outside which I can hear, and the rush goes up the chimney.
I would recommend you do not do this on a windy say, as it really starts the flow of heat up the chimney in sucking too much heat up and cinders. (Put a cinder wire trap over the chimney)
Do not overload these stoves as you will be stunned how much heat will come out of them in they will be too hot, and there is not any sense in wasting fire.
I have had better early work with softwoods than hard, but you should get a good hour out of this first loading, and then I put in a larger 3 inche log, and if you use hardwood which is dry that will burn a few more hours.
I do not use this as our primary heat as they are too inefficient. What this is for at this point is to heat the stone cellar up, the heat rises, and it means the furnace is not running as much, as this heats the house up.
My plan is to use this more in the late fall and early spring so the furnace will only run a few times a day and for excessively cold days. The fact is though if you heat a house up, it does retain heat for a few days. That is the problem with this old plaster house is it absorbs cold and stays cold, If I get it warm, it stays warm.
I would much rather have an efficient burning stove, but I can not afford one or several. The reality is though, these stoves will work, if you nurture them and get them burning correctly.
For mine, after I have my 3 hour burn, I shut down the outside air as I am not going to be O2 deprived in the cellar, as I do not want to lose the radiant heat, and when it stops smoking, I shut the damper to retain the heat in it. It works out pretty good.
This is an adult device though as it will make Darwin candidates out of many. You just have to be led by God in how to feed it right to get it started and then it works well, and I actually am fond of the thing. I'm not in any great rush to build another, but I could see this in my future shop as once you are Inspired how to make it work, then it does work, instead of producing more smoke than a forest fire.
Once again, another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Nuff Said
agtG