Wood stove in the woodworking shop

[Scott Loven]

I am interested hearing from people who use a wood stove in their shop. I am building a detached gradge that will see some woodworking use. I have a shop in the basement, but can see doing some work in the detatched shop also. I will need to heat it as I live in Iowa, had frost on the cars this morning, April 27th!
Scott

[Paul Downes]

Scott, I would seriously consider putting the stove outside the shop. I heat with an outdoor wood stove; house, domestic hot water and woodshop.(18 x 32, 12 ft. ceiling). I know a few people who have attached a lean-to or small shed to their existing building and heat with a wood furnace. I would be concerned about mixing fire and wood, wood dust with an interior stove. Plus with an outside stove you keep all the bark/dirt/bugs outside the building. You might consider advertising for a used wood funace/stove. I have a friend who did this and had his choice of 8 or so. He uses them for supplemental winter-time heat for his solar wood drying kilns. Nother thing- put lots of insulation in your polebarn woodshop, it always pays off. I'm adding more to the ceiling of my shop this summer, plus going to insulate the house. My 100+ year old farm house is a sieve, and I burn enough wood to heat a small town each winter. :D

[Frank Pellow]

Scott I have a woodstove in my shop and it is one of the things that I enjoy the most in the shop. See post #270 on page 18 in the thread http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=7769 for a picture.

I also have an externally vented propane space heater. In the winter I use the propane to keep the shop heated to 10 degrees (I think that is about 50 degrees F). Then, I use the wood stove to get the shop to temperatures above that. The stove that I have is very efficient and tghe insulation in my shop is good. It takes very little time to warm the shop.

What with construction scrap, project scrap, and contributions from several neighbours, I doubt that I will ever need to buy any firewood. :)

[Mark Pruitt]

It might be a good idea to run this by your homeowners insurance provider. They might nix the idea. But then they might not see any issues. Better to ask now than later. My .02

[Scott Loven]

Thanks Frank, what do you do to alievate fire concerns with the woodstove in the shop?
Scott

[Frank Pellow]

Thanks Frank, what do you do to alievate fire concerns with the woodstove in the shop?
Scott
The stove is at one end of the shop, in little alcove well away from all my sawdust making equipment. Also, with my combination of an Oneida dust control system and a Festool vacuum, there is not a lot of dust in the shop.

Both the building inspector and my insurance company have no problems with the fact that I have a wood stove.

[Michael Disorbo]

Scott,

I live in Southwestern NY and we have frost on the cars from October to the end of May. I heat my shop with wood. It was an old Kalamazoo coal stove and I used coal the first 2 years I had it in the shop. I used a ton of coal a year and kept the shop plenty warm. This winter I only heated with wood in the same stove. I can't keep it going all night long, but only use it during the day and evening. See the stove is not an airtight and I would be a fool to load it full of wood and leave it. My shop has a concrete floor and is insulated very well. Even with no heat and the outside temp -20 nothing has ever froze inside my shop such as water. It takes about 45 minutes to get it comfortable in there first thing in the morning. I get my wood free from the saw mill. I use slab wood and the mill gives it to me. This time of year all I have to do is start a fire first thing to take the chill off and let it go out and the shop stays good all day. With scrap wood and the slab wood, the heat bill is zero in the shop. Just what I like with the cost of heating fuel going up every year :mad:

Good Luck,

Michael

[Steve Clardy]

Woodstove is the only heat in my shop. Very comfortable with it.
Homemade, made out of a 1/4" thick, 4'x5' butane tank. Brick sides and back, with blower attached.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Unless you plan on letting saw dust and flasmmibles build up around the thing there is no reason not to.


I don't 'cause I can't figure a good place to run a flue pipe without it being unsightly somehow.

You may have a low-humidity issue in the winter to watch for

[Scott Loven]

I have plenty of wood (13 acres 2/3 wooded) and plan on using it mostly on the weekends. I suppose that I will need to keep things that freeze in the house. I am checking with the insurance company just to make sure.
Scott
Do any of you insulate your garage doors, or how do you keep the cold out?

[Frank Pellow]

Do any of you insulate your garage doors, or how do you keep the cold out?
My doors are insulated (but they are double doors, not garage doors).

[Michael Disorbo]

I have a single garage door in my shop and insulated it with 1 1/2" styrofoam from the local hardware store. Walls and ceiling are well insulated as well. There are times during the winter I need to open the windows, just gets to hot in there when working. But there are days I just like to sit near it, days when my bones have a chill :rolleyes:

Michael

[Scott Loven]

Well the insurance company said that they would not cover a wood stove in a garage so I will be looking at overhead LP.
Scott

[Dave Anderson NH]

I heat my basement shop with a woodstove and have now for about 6 years. For safety it is on a 4 foot square raised platform of 4" thick block covered with 6" square quarry tile. The floor around it is concrete. The wall behind the stove is the base of the 1st floor fireplace chimney and is concrete block veneered with half inch thick brick. My building inspector approved the installation even though for some reason my town doesn't require it. The stove is in my bench room and is separated from both my machines and from the oil burner though that really isn't a safety issue anyway.

I love the heat it throws off and often have to open the door to the first floor to cool things off when it gets to 80F on a cold wintery January day.:D Mine is airtight and will burn for about 8-10 hours if fully loaded and damped down overnight.

[Travis Johnson]

I agree with everyone, both pros and cons, but the reason I chose not to put a woodstove in my shop was because of something not mentioned...the amount of room that a woodstove takes up if properly set up. I know there are ways to reduce the size required, but after losing my parents house to fire two years ago, I am very leery about "cheating" the fire code requirements.

In the end I chose to install a stand up propane unit that gets its intake air from outside the shop. Its footprint is very small as it is thin and narrow, but very tall.

Still that does not mean I am not jealous of the rest of you that can enjoy woodworking around a crackling Beech fire.

[Jerry Olexa]

I would love to have areal wood stove in my shop..Just be careful. Use triple insulated stovepipe, etc Enjoy it..

[James Suzda]

Off the top of my head the reason your Insurance Co said no to a woodstove is because you called it a garage and not a wood working shop. No Insurance Company will insure it because of the fact that gasoline fumes are heavier than air and with any kind of stove on the floor you risk having an explosion or fire. But, they will insure the building if you have a furnace mounted at least 2 foot off the floor or in the ceiling. At least this is the answer my Insurance Agent told me. Now if you would have called it a woodworking shop then it probably would have flown!
Jim

[Keel McDonald]

I use a wood stove and wouldn't have it any other way. That's part of the charm for me. In my experience, there's nothing that gets you as warm as a wood stove. I love it!

[Scott Loven]

Off the top of my head the reason your Insurance Co said no to a woodstove is because you called it a garage and not a wood working shop. No Insurance Company will insure it because of the fact that gasoline fumes are heavier than air and with any kind of stove on the floor you risk having an explosion or fire. But, they will insure the building if you have a furnace mounted at least 2 foot off the floor or in the ceiling. At least this is the answer my Insurance Agent told me. Now if you would have called it a woodworking shop then it probably would have flown!
Jim
I will be a used half as a garage with a car, lawn mower, gas cans etc. I hadn't thought about gas fumes, I was thinking more about wood dust, and other combustibles. Thanks for the reminder.
Scott

[Russ Massery]

I have one in my shop. No problems so far (6 yrs.) Common sense should be your guide. I use planer flakes as kindling. And burn of all my scrap in it. My only problem is sometimes it's like a "freight train" and hard to control the temp. So I open the service door to cool it down.And I did pipe in a fresh air supply into the back.

[Mark Pruitt]

I will be a used half as a garage with a car, lawn mower, gas cans etc. I hadn't thought about gas fumes, I was thinking more about wood dust, and other combustibles. Thanks for the reminder.
Scott

I would urge you to never, ever keep a gasoline container inside. The risk is way too high.

[Andy London]

I've had a wood stove in the shop for 16 years, even when I worked in there full time and have no complaints. I did however buy a pellet stove last year and would not be without it, works perfect......Forget insurance though....at least around here.

[Frank Pellow]

I've had a wood stove in the shop for 16 years, even when I worked in there full time and have no complaints. I did however buy a pellet stove last year and would not be without it, works perfect......Forget insurance though....at least around here.
Andy, do you think that the insurance problem is because you are a proffesional? I had no problems at all getting insurance both for my shop here in Toronto and for my three buildings (one a shop) with wood stoves at Pellow's Camp in Northern Ontario.

[Scott Loven]

I would urge you to never, ever keep a gasoline container inside. The risk is way too high.
ok, where do you keep your gas containers? My car is in the garage and is full of gas, I have the red plastic containers made for gas, lawn mowers, chain saw, weed wacker etc.

[James Suzda]

Scott,
Another thought. Are you going to build this garage/shop large enough that you could put a wall between the cars and your workshop area? Then you will have a "workshop" with an attached garage. This is how a friend of mine got around the insurance underwriter and has a wood stove in his workshop.
Or you could spend a ton of money and put in an outside boiler and put tubing under the concrete and have a real nice warm floor in your garage/shop!! You could also run some pipes to your house and heat that too!

[Michael Adelong]

It might be a good idea to run this by your homeowners insurance provider. They might nix the idea. But then they might not see any issues. Better to ask now than later. My .02

I just got my latest renewal package from my homeowner's insurance and spotted this provision in it.

"Alternative Heating Sources - A surcharge will now be applied to your homeowner's base premium when there is a freestanding, solid fuel burning unit located in your residence premises."

Make sure that you disclose this as soon as you install it.

Michael

[Andy London]

Andy, do you think that the insurance problem is because you are a proffesional? I had no problems at all getting insurance both for my shop here in Toronto and for my three buildings (one a shop) with wood stoves at Pellow's Camp in Northern Ontario.

No, it has to do with zoning. Although I have over 4 acres, the property is zoned residential and impossible to change. The insurance company said any residential property with a home that has an out building, can not be heated, no matter what the heat source.....called 5 different companies.

I have commercial insurance through a different company for theft but that's about all I can get.

[Frank Pellow]

No, it has to do with zoning. Although I have over 4 acres, the property is zoned residential and impossible to change. The insurance company said any residential property with a home that has an out building, can not be heated, no matter what the heat source.....called 5 different companies.

I have commercial insurance through a different company for theft but that's about all I can get.
What a strange rule! My shop is on a suburban lot. It is a large suburban lot by Toronto standards, but much much smaller than 4 acres.

[Bart Leetch]

No, it has to do with zoning. Although I have over 4 acres, the property is zoned residential and impossible to change. The insurance company said any residential property with a home that has an out building, can not be heated, no matter what the heat source.....called 5 different companies.

I have commercial insurance through a different company for theft but that's about all I can get.

Sounds like its time for a boiler in a brick stand alone building with insulated piping under ground over to the concrete slab & heat tubing under the shops concrete floor to me.

Or figure out how to shut off the heat for a week at a time or all the way up to & including all winter in all the insurance underwriters buildings & then show up & ask them how they like it.:eek: :D Oh & make sure all they have around to work with or on is concrete & steel & cast iron:eek: , make sure to remove all furniture & cabinets anything that is made in a wood working shop. Oh & they must stand on their feet no sitting down & they can't wear gloves. The fat cats are far to comfortable while taking our money. Wouldn't it be an eye opener to them & fun for us if this were possible?:D

Gee I wonder how many houses or homes on property zoned residential would have to catch fire before they wouldn't allow you to have any kind heat in them too? Are all the homes that burn down caused by outbuildings that have some form of heat?

All I gotta say Andy is "there's somting offwe skwooy going on awound here." (Elmer Fud)

Scott what type of overhead LP are you thinking of installing?

[Andy London]

What a strange rule! My shop is on a suburban lot. It is a large suburban lot by Toronto standards, but much much smaller than 4 acres.
A bit of a rant<G>

I bought this property back in 1986 because it was way outside city limits, I always wanted lots of room for a shop, place at the time for future kids to play, on a lakem basically ideal. Now I am part of the city however we have no city services, I can't even have a campfire in my back yard any longer cause the city folk think it's dangerous and don't like the smell.....in fact they are now trying to pass a law that we can't even have wood burning stoves....and to top it off I pay city rates, it's just stupid IMHO.

Bart, I asked about a wood doctor as I was seious about buying one and my insurance company of 25+ years without a claim said no water heat in an out building, could freeze up...... in fact we do not want any type of commercial business on your property. My reply was what about folks that work from home, that is no different....anyhow it's been a friggin battle for years.

I asked my assistant at the office to look into additional insurance as we purchased a few hundred thousand in computer gear for a new project we are starting, when I read the policy and if I took it for face value, I am covered for very, very little....I spoke with the agent and he said, "Well most customers do not read that stuff" well geeze man you have to ready it in case something does go wrong.

In any event, like my grandfather said, to heck with them, I am doing my thing":rolleyes:

[Frank Pellow]

Andy, I always thought that you folks in the Maritimes were more reasonable and had less bureaucracy than we folks stuck here in the middle of the country. I still think that this is normally true but I guess that there are some exceptions.

[Steve Clardy]

Heres Mine