tattoomike68 said:
I can save some money like the stove pipe, that stuff cost a fortune. I can get some 4" exhaust from a muffler shop just up the road. A farmer friend will give me a good 35 gallon oil drum.
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I might point out that you really should be HERTAS registered heating engineer....i've read the regs etc and they seem to consist mostly of , do it this way unless you cant then don't. In short they are Bull poo, and as my neighbour pointed out when i told him about my new stove installation, If anyone asks, its always been like that...
The odd place sells "conversion" kits for oil drums (
http://www.sussexwoodstoves.co.uk/stoves.htm but at £155 it seems a bit steep for some bits of iron you could make yourself!) I think remember that places in Canada sold them also but considerably cheaper, they might be worth a Google for ideas....
When British gas condemned the gas heating just before winter two years ago, i went into all the stove thing with a knowledgeable friend who had in the past manufactured stoves as well as Pleasure boats. I'll pass on a few tips they might be useful or probably you know them already!
Wood burns best with no bottom air, flat on a plate and air from the top
Coal burns best with air from underneath and maybe a wiff from the top, what your aiming for is a blue flame.
test the chimney with a candle, light the candle and hold it in the unlit stove, if it leans towards the updraught cold then it will have enough "draw" when the column of air is hot.
Fancy stoves with "airwash" systems to keep the glass clean seem to not shut down well at night and don't keep in when unattended.
Glass wise the toughened glass is available but it cant be cut as its toughened by its surface being put in compression at manufacture, so if you want it, design a door round a readily available sheet size (out Squirrels glass is £20), My friends stoves used Normal glass but cut into inch wide strips, which he told me didn't break as this allowed expansion and contraction.
the chimney pipes are madly expensive its true, but ive found them in scrap yards often, often the uninsulated type that gets ripped out (as its not up to current regs that require you to throw most of the heat up the chimney) Its useful to have the odd bit with inspection hatches to sweep the chimney occasionally. I used enamelled tube as it was half the price and the shop guy told me that Stainless was best as its life was better than 20 years of the enamelled, i mean how long is it going to need to last anyway!