wood stove enclosure

[retire2$]

I installed a wood stove in my garage. I now want to enclose the wood stove with a metal surround to reduce the risk of someone getting burned and to help with heat distribution. The stove pipe goes up through the ceiling and is connected to a class A metal chimney. Here is what I am planning to do: Enclose the two sides and back from floor to ceiling with sheet metal and the front from the ceiling to halfway down to the floor. I plan on running a piece of ductwork from a squirrel fan (taken from an old forced air unit) at ceiling height to the top of the sheet metal at the back of the stove. This should force the heated air out through the front where there is no sheet metal. I also plan on putting an adjustable heat register at the top on one of the sides of the sheet metal. It will be closed when the fan is on but it could be opened if the fan is off so the air would be circulated by convection from the front of the enclosure to the heat register. Anyone have any comment or suggestions for this set-up?

This is my Plan B. A few months back I was planning on using the wood stove outside to put some supplemental heat into my house. Your comments and suggestions convinced me that it would be more trouble than what it would be worth.

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions/comments.

[big rockpile]

You will lose some Heat unless you fix some way of circulating the Heat but you defeat the purpose of inclosing it.

big rockpile

[Donkey]

outdoor wood furnaces burn a TON of wood

[Ross]

outdoor wood furnaces burn a TON of wood

My goodness they burn far more than 2000 pounds of wood! But they burn about the same as my indoor furnace did and it costs us considerably less to use than burning oil. Sizing and care when instaling and setting up the exchangers and lines make a big difference in efficiency. I've seen lots of huge outdoor boilers heating small houses with poor heat exchanger set ups. They burn far too much wood

[tamsam]

Why not just enclose the heater and vent through the top part of the box. You could hinge the top so it could be opened when fan was off. Good luck Sam

[Beeman]

Sounds like a lot of work for little gain. Boxing in the top like that might not be a good idea plus you would always have to run the fan which kind of defeats part of the purpose. Does the stove not heat the garage now?

[Ross]

So the idea is to force the heated air down to the front of the stove and let it spill out the front? Without knowing the garage layout its kinda hard to comment on it. I think having a barrier that would protect people is a good idea but I'm thinking the sheet metal is going to pick up alot of radient heat and be very hot its self. I woder if this project needs as much as you're thinking. Wouldn't a ceiling fan circulate the air in the garage well enough, and a simple low barrier 18 inches away to keep people safe?

[RonM]

We have a rather large sale barn not far from here and they have a big wood stove and have a chain link fence around it..Try that maybe 6 ft sections with a gate at the front so you can get to the stove for filling.....

[ibcnya]

Retire, I think it would work darn good. Might be ugly but hey it's just a garage. Also you may want to shut the squirrel cage off when opening the wood burner door. But you'd be pulling hot air off the ceiling and forcing it vertically over the stove pipe down to the wood burner and pushing it out across the cold floor. The only problem I see is that you may need a cold air return at the farthest end of the garage to keep it from short circulating. But a cheaper way may be to just engulf the woodstove (except the front of course) with bricks. The bricks get hot but a person has enough milliseconds to figure out they're hot without losing skin. And when the fire is out the garage is still warm for quite some time.

[seedspreader]

Where is the air intake?

[rambler]

Put a railing or chain fence around it.

I'm not sure I unserstand at all what you are trying to accomplish with the fan? Is your goal to heat the garage, or to move heat into your house?

If you want to move heat into the house, then you can use ducting & fan, but you need to provide cool air return, and be careful blowing garage air into the house - solvants and exhaust and so forth, not good.

If you are heating the garage, it makes no sense to wall up the heater and then run a fan to put a little heat into the rest of the garage. You will lose a lot of heat out of the sidewalls, and create drafts, and lose radient heating, and so forth.

You need to provide air for burning & up the chimney as well. If you create a little metal room around the stove and a fan to blow air out of the room, I think you will have a _major_ draft issue and pull smoke into your garage.

This would take some planning, and I see you losing a lot of heat. I don't understand the point of it? Seems like everything becomes 2x as hard to burn more wood to create less useable heat?

Nothing new, I'm kinda dense, so I just don't quite understand the point.

--->Paul

[retire2$]

Thanks for all your replies. I will try to answer some of your questions/comments/concerns. The stove is being used to heat an insulated 24' x 24' garage (3 and 1/2 inches fiberglass in the walls and ceiling). The reasons for the metal enclosure is to protect people from getting burned on the hot stove, act as a heat shield around other objects in the garage (the stove is not close to combustable materials but I like to be extra cautious), and as a way to force room air around the stove and distribute it throughout the garage for a more even temperature. The stove is located in the upper right hand corner of the garage. There was an 11 degree temperature difference from around the stove to the opposite end of the garage. I put a squirrel fan 7 feet from the stove and took the temperature approximately fifteen minutes later and the temperature in the two previous areas were the same. In my proposed set up the fan will be approximately 3 feet away from the metal enclosure and connected by a piece of metal duct. The air will be recirculated in the garage only. The air will not be exhausted to the outside nor will any outside air be used for makeup air (except for normal air infiltration). I have been burning the stove for a few days and it looks like there is enough air to provide good combustion. The stove will only be used to heat the garage. I have never had a wood stove but I remember back in the 1970"s reading about putting heat shields around wood stoves. Looking at forced air furnaces (oil or gas), it looks like they do the same thing - a heat burner surrounded by metal to distribute the heated air evenly throughout the building. I did put a piece of metal approximately 32 inches tall (the stove is 31 inches high) on the side and back of the stove (approximately 6 inches from the stove) and with the fan blowing the metal was warm but not hot. My main concerns with the metal enclosure is with stack temperature. Can the stack temperature get to cool and would that just mean I would have to brush the stove and chimney pipe more often? I hope this helps with your concerns thus far. Thanks again for the previous comments and for any future comments you have to offer.

[rambler]

Sounds like you have some little ones around & want to guard for that, makes sense. A railing or cattle panels to make a fenced off area would be good.

Walling off the stove area from floor to ceiling seems very contrary to heating the car shed.

A simple fan - as you found - will help even out heating throughout the building. A ceiling fan over the stove would do a lot if you want something permanent & out of the way.

Sometimes it sounds like you are building a seperate room for the stove; sometimes a small heat shield a foot or so surrounding the whole stove only. Not sure which direction you are going.

You can find a heat exchanger that has tubes in it, fits in the chimney, with a fan to blow the warm air around the building. This would do a lot of what you want.

Then as you say, you need to worry about lowing the stack temp. Need to run a hot fire per day without removing heat to let the chmney heat up & dry out.

Me, I'd do a railing/ cattle panel/ chain link fence so the heat can still curculate on it's own. And a fan of some sort to move air through the building, can be as simple as a box fan sitting there. This will allow your stove to work any old time, with or without power. Closing it all up, suddenly you are dependent on power. Lose a lot of radient heating. Etc.

Cadillac system would be with the heat exchanger & blower on the chimney. As well as a railing or fence around it to keep the little ones out.

--->Paul