Wood Stove Part 3

Last night I took the time and insulated the building around the stove. First I started by lining the inside wall with chicken wire. This will support the insulation on the inside since there are no internal walls in the building. Once that was done, I then started measuring and cutting the insulation. I happened to have a whole roll of batts in storage, leftovers from a previous project. These were faced batts, so I put the faced paper portion on the outside of the building. Overall it went up fast and fairly easy.

Around the face of the stove that sticks out the front of the building and the chimney pipe that exits the back of the building I left a gap where the wood does not touch the stove/chimney surface. When I put up the steel siding, that will fit up snug to these areas. Around the chimney, several inches out I built a heat shield which keeps the wood nice and cool. So far from all the test firings I have conducted, nothing gets hot.

Wood Stove Part 2

This past weekend I worked once again on the wood stove. First order of business was building a trough in which the hot air duct and cold air return could pass through. One end is attached to the wood stove shed and the other end passes into the skirting under the trailer. From there, I have insulated accordion style vent ducting that runs then to the main house duct. A cold air return goes to a vent I put in the living room floor. Simple and effective. The cold air feeds into the building and once the sheeting is up around the inside, the building itself will act as a plenum for the blower.

Next on the order of business was wiring everything up which was very simple due to the fact that most everything was already on the furnace. I tested all of the components and everything but the blower was in working order. The blower motor was frozen up and no amount of oiling would help free it up. Luckily for me, my cousin had a better blower with a capacitor in a storage shed, so with that bolted on and wired up, everything was ready. I went ahead and loaded the stove and put match to it and voila! I had fire and heat. The house seemed to warm up pretty fast which was what I was hopping. I watched carefully the 2x2's that I used for the building frame and none of them got hot at anytime. The few that were closer around the chimney outlet I had placed metal heat deflectors which were working perfectly good with no warming of the boards they were protecting. Overall so far I am impressed with how well it has worked. Next will be putting in the insulation (fiberglass) and sealing up the shed so that the blower isn't blowing in the cold outside air put instead household air and heated air from the shed itself. It should be a very efficient unit once all is done.