Wood Stove in Wood Shop

[Ken Whitney]

I am in the very early stages of designing a garage/shop and was wondering how many of you turners heat your shop with a wood stove?

Greenwood turning generates a bunch of offcuts, funnels, experiments, design failures, etc. that seem a natural to fuel a shop stove.

If you do heat with wood, what kind of stove do you use? If you don't but have thought about it, why didn't you go that route?

Thanks,

Ken

[curtis rosche]

i have a gas heater in my garage, one of those wall mount ones that shows the flame. i havent had any porblem with it being in the shop, other than forgeting to dust it off once in awhile. the dust from sanding sometimes makes it to the heater, there isnt much risk of explosion as it is not a dense enough cloud. but it settles on the heater, if too much settles on it it will smoke a little, just enough to set off the detector.

the only problem i could see with have a wood stove would be that either you will have second thoughts as you put the wood in and then set it aside for later turning, and then not have enough wood left to heat. or the opposite where everytime you make a large mistake you end up burning it instead of fixing it and learning even more from it :p

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Why would you want to heat your shop? :)

I think wood stoves are SO cool. I'd have one, if I needed one. I think it's a good idea. Toss in your cut-offs etc. I also think the explosion hazzard is a non problem.

[Reed Gray]

They can work, and some day when I have my dream shop, I will have one, with some chairs around it, and it will be on a thick concrete pad with heat entrainment/thermal mass with a concrete wall around 2 sides also serving as a thermal mass. You do not want dust in the shop. The biggest hazard would be if you let the stove get cherry red by overheating, and fire could be a problem. One other consideration, the wood stove heat will radically drop the humidity in the shop, so drying bowl blanks might explode from drying too fast. Might need a temp and humidity controlled room.

robo hippy

[curtis rosche]

i have used the woodstove in my house to purposly dry out wood and make it crack, it resulted in larger cracks instead of many smaller cracks, and i was able to fill them and use it as part of the design

[Quinn McCarthy]

I switched mine from fuel oil to wood pellets last year. I really like the pellets. Saved a ton of fuel cost by doing it.

[Michelle Rich]

do you need much heat in sacremento? A woodstove (safe one) costs a bundle these days.Add a safe chimney set up & you have much money invested. Homemade ones with oil barrels don't cost much but burn too fast & are large and take up a lot of room. Do you really make that much waste wood? I turned for a living and all i got was enuf to use as kindling...

[Alan Zenreich]

I think a wood stove in a shop is a fine idea.
It gives your wood blanks an incentive not to blow up on the lathe.
If your wood has a clear view of their alternate fate, they might just help you shape them into a finished project rather than be tossed into the firey pit.

[Von Bickley]

I don't do much turning, but I do have a wood stove in my shop and enjoy using it.

210762

[Roger Chandler]

If you get a wood stove to heat your shop, make sure you get one with a fresh [outside] air supply for the combustion chamber. One that brings in air from the outside to help burn the wood will prevent dust from getting into it from sanding and maybe cause a real dust explosion. If you have an explosion proof exhaust fan in your shop that pulls out all the dust in the air [especially sanding dust] then you can get by with a regular enclosed wood stove.

[joel nucifore]

just saw at home depot a pellet stove for $999.00 small one but big enough for shop, plan on getting one for the shop, since we use pelets in the house makes it easy on me.

[Ian Jeffcock]

I have a wood stove in my basement shop and love it. I heat the whole house with wood as much as I can. I do have electric backup when needed. I did have a a homemade stove that would take long chunks, but last year changed it for a "Blaze King". I had heard so much about them, I thought I would give it a try. I always thought that a stove was just a stove,... but man are these things different, way better. Very easy to regulate and can easily get a 24 hr burn. Once I have an established fire it will consume what ever I put in it. All my green cut offs go in it. Obviously you need to keep the surrounding area clear and safe, but other than that no problems whatsoever. When I get trees from people, I usually take all of it because they don't want to deal with the mess or have the means to move it. Doing this I usually end up with trunk sections that are not good for turning, so they just go in the firewood pile. I guess I cheat as I use a dump truck and excavator. On another note I do have a pellet stove that sits unused in a corner of the basement. I don't use it because of cost, but I have looked several times at these small home pellet mills that are available. With the mountains of chips that I generate from the lathe I wonder if it would be worth trying. Does anyone out there make their own pellets? The only down side that I have found is that every time I go down to stoke to stove, I notice this or that, and I find myself on the lathe for the next few hours when I should be doing other things. I guess I can live with that problem for the sake of saving on our utility bills :) ;)

[Ryan Baker]

A friend of mine has a wood burning "furnace" of sorts in the back room of his shop barn. It's basicaly a big iron cooker. You can throw in logs, scraps, pretty much anything that you need to get rid of. It uses forced hot air to heat the whole building. Inexpensive to run, handy for getting rid of scrap, and safer than having an exposed wood stove in the dusty shop.

[Scott Hackler]

When I was needing a heat solution for my shop I had thought about the wood stove deal. My Dad is a big time user of firewood and we really have a hundred years of available firewood, but..... I don't know when I will get shop time and when I do (in the winter) I didn't want to wait for 30-60 minutes for some sort of relief from freezing temps and I wouldn't like keeping something burning when I am not going to be in there.

So I had two real choices. A propane heater or an electric heater. Our propane tank is too far away from the wood shop to run an extra pipe (as far as I was concerned) so I decided on electric. My shop (now) is fully boxed in with 7/16" OSB on all interior walls and the ceiling (cheaper than drywall and I can hang something anywhere I want) and packed with insulation. I knew that a couple smaller space heaters would suffice but I didn't feel comfortable leaving them on all the time. I finally picked out an electric furnace that hangs on the wall, from an eBay seller. It is a 10,000 BTU using two elements. twice as much as I need so I unhooked one of the coils and now I have a spare. 4 runs through the attic for the forced air and tada... my shop can be very comfortable in 15 minutes! I generally leave the thermostat on 55 during the day and during shop time I bump it to 65-70 depending on whether I am turning or sitting in a chair decorating. I recommend this choice.

The only down side is having to blow out the filter about every 2 weeks and the added cost of electricity. But honestly I don't think the heater uses as much as the tools in the shop.

[Ron Jones near Indy]

I am in the very early stages of designing a garage/shop and was wondering how many of you turners heat your shop with a wood stove?

Greenwood turning generates a bunch of offcuts, funnels, experiments, design failures, etc. that seem a natural to fuel a shop stove.

If you do heat with wood, what kind of stove do you use? If you don't but have thought about it, why didn't you go that route?

Thanks,

Ken

Remember that greenwood in a wood stove leads to creosote build up, and that's not a good thing. Seasoned wood (dry wood) is the fuel of choice for a wood burner. Also check with your insurance company--some really don't like wood stoves.

[John Spitters]

When I built my shop I also looked at all the alternatives towards heating the space. What I settled on was first off making darn sure that I did a good job of insulating and weather sealing all windows doors etc. I have 2 x 6" walls filled with batt insulation, I did a proper vapour barrior, and have the 2 x10" ceiling joists properly insulated as well. Inside wall and ceiling clading is 5/8" 12 ply plywood, the shop is 22' x 23' and I am easily able to heat this space with a portable 110v electric sealed oil filled convection heater, even when outside temps drop to -10F I have a very comfortable shop that stays easily at 60 -70F. I have no issues with leaving this unit plugged in at night since there is no open flame or "hot" exposed element. As for electrical costs I have no exact #s but believe that I am able to heat the shop over the course of the winter for apx. $300 - $400 That is for a period of from October through till April / May. and I always leave the heat on !!

John

[Ken Whitney]

Thanks all for the great information.

The proposed shop would be a detached structure, 16'x24'. Michelle, I should have clarified that the shop will be in NW Washington State, not Sacramento. In my current shop if I could figure out a way to cool it by burning offcuts then I would be able to get more use out of it in the summer:) I do generate a fair pile of offcuts, currently about a 2x4x8 foot pile. I can't bear to toss them out and we only have occasional fires in the fireplace (in Sacramento). Like Ian I usually get more tree than I need for turning. So the pile keeps growing.

I do like the idea of using an external air source for the stove. Is this a common configuration for wood stoves?

Since this will be from the ground-up construction, I will have the opportunity to add lots of insulation, weather sealing, etc. Scott, I also like the idea of using OSB for the walls and ceiling.

I think I will pencil in (or sketchup in) a wood stove for now and see if everything else fits.

Ken

[Hilel Salomon]

I have a wood stove in my VA home that is fantastic. It's at the basement level and heats almost the entire house. I use the cutoffs from turning as starter wood. Works great. I put my old wood stove in the shop but the heat goes straight up and doesn't do much for the shop as it is a two story barn. I'm seriously thinking of a Hot Dawg propane heater so that I can work in the shop during the winter. Anyone out there who has one?

Hilel