Turn your mill dust into Dollars

[jpgreen]

Here's a good sawdust wood heater, that is based on 3rd world countries masonry sawdust stoves...  8)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMdRRhVJorY&feature=related

You could easily run a coil loop in the stove as well and heat your hot water, and run one all year around for hot water. Size the stove for your needs.

Now you'll have to build a dry house to keep all that valuable sawdust dry for winter ... :D

[Two-Lady-Sawyers]

Ok, I want one. Bet shipping from the UK is a bugger. Cost 323 British or about $490 US. Who here is going to be the first to build their own? All I need to know is at what point to attach the chimney.

[jpgreen]

He autta offer a set of plans for folks across the pond.

But that is an easy build, and I would put the flue connection 1/2 mid point of the barrel. The draw is going to come around the fire starter drawer (ash pan). You're not going to want that air tight. It may need a bit more venting from the bottom.

[Dan_Shade]

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/1974-11-01/How-To-Sawdust-Stove.aspx

I wonder if you could do this using a coffee can inside a regular stove...

[jpgreen]

Talk about a cheap- ultimate outdoor boiler- near totally smokeless.

You could build a cinder block out door boiler with an insulated steel hinged lid. Lift it open with your
backhoe, load in your sawdust and tamp it down with the bucket.

Probably burn for a couple of weeks at least...  ;D

[pineywoods]

All that's holding me up is I can't find a source of barrels with removable lid. I'm with jp green, bet one made with 55 gallon drum would burn for quite a while. Now if someone would just figure out a way to auger feed this thing from a large hopper.....

[Onthesauk]

Drawback would seem to be the fact that the fire has to burn out to reload.  Maybe done in conjunction with some sort of heat sump so you could reload it once a day and use the sump when it burns out?  I'm impressed with how clean it burns.  Suppose it is in effect, an open damper during the entire burn?

[woodsteach]

All that's holding me up is I can't find a source of barrels with removable lid.

Check with the nearest cabinet shop or furniture shop.  We have a cabinet shop and I just picked up 1/2 doz of 55 gal barrels with the removable lids.  Now I need to find a barrel for the inside.  This looks like a project for my metals/welding 1 class next week if things go as planned.

If anyone comes up with some plans/ideas to make this thing work let us know.

woodsteach

[djoslin]

At about 2:20 in the video is that a hole in the lid about the size of a dime? Very simple design and looks to burn very clean, I like it.

[ErikC]

 I have never seen that before. Very cool.  8)

[captain_crunch]

I have seen this done with coffee cans for camping heaters unbeliveable how clean they burn after inital lighting. I modified an old well pressure tank(avoid Galv ones) for a scrap desposal and heater at mill And Have thought about makeing it burn saw dust but I always seem to have a never ending supply of bark scraps. The sand on top is a new twist. amazeing how little ash is left after fire

[okie]

 This would be a very cheap stove to make! I have no knowledge of outdoor wood stoves but I would think you could make 2 stoves and tie them into one stack and keep one stove going constantly. You could keep the unused stove packed while the other is burning and the heat from the shared stack would help further dry the dust in the other I would think. That feller is a smart cookie imo

[Ironwood]

for most of us the challenge may be "dry" sawdust.

Ironwood

[sigidi]

As mentioned it is an idea from 3rd world countries, I was born in southern Africa and feel it should be pointed out he hasn't 'invented' this, but he has made the unit look visually appealing for all us 'civilised' so called 1st world countries.

That aside, as others have seen/commented keeping it going would be the biggest problem, as after each 'charge' it would need to be left to cool before re-loading. I'd say the sawdust most of us generate whilst milling would be more than adequate unless left outside in rain. I made a collection box for my Lucas a few years back as Wifey didn't like all the sawdust just lying around where I milled, but wanted it in her gardens to lie around there. ;) and I didn't want to keep picking up the sawdust - isn't that the way... laziness is the mother of all inventions ;D With sawdust straight from the log I'd  say the starting process may be slightly harder, maybe use a couple of fire lighters, but once it was going you would be fine as the heat generated while burning would 'dry' out the other sawdust, may even help to give it a longer burn time???

Having a continual feed wouldn't work so well as the sawdust needs compacting to 'slow' the burn down, this is why the thing takes so long to burn, how long would a solid chunk of timber that size take to burn?

As for plans, I've sent him an email to put forward the case of being prohibitive to buy a ready made unit and ship here to Aus, he can copyright the so I can't use them to sell other units if he likes, but will see what happens.

[bandmiller2]

What if a fella made a press where you could make sawdust "donuts"mayby 6" high and when the stove burned down but still on you could drop one or two in.They claim sawdust has enough lignin to bind it if under enough pressure.Frank C.

[den]

Plans are at
http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/19308

http://nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/rn/rn_ne208.pdf

http://www.hedon.info/TheFulgoraSawdustBurningStove

http://www.nothingugly.com/wordpress/?p=160

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/steel-workshop-stove.html

[jpgreen]

Many correct thoughts...

I saw one in the mountains in Cambodia. They were using rice hulls in a masonry one.  It was like 35 degrees there in November with a cold butt wind.

It has to be compacted to work like mentioned above. Auger feed will not work.

Green sawdust would work, and even help it burn slower once you got it going which would be more difficult just as burning green firewood, but would work.

I don't see why you could not build a dual hopper unit also as mentioned. Pack them both, fire one and when it's done fire tazer number 2 on stun Scotty, then reload number one whilst it's cool, and so on.

Skys the limit on this as all you need is a packed media, with a chimney hole through it, then vented out obviously. The vent draw would not need to be much.  Just enough for it to burn slow and hot.

[jpgreen]

  Suppose it is in effect, an open damper during the entire burn?

Yes- open draw. Just enough, and I bet it's just the air leakage/passage around the ash pan.

At about 2:20 in the video is that a hole in the lid about the size of a dime? Very simple design and looks to burn very clean, I like it.

Unlikely there's a hole. You want the exhaust to go up and hit the lid, then flow back down and criculate around to the flue elbow then straight up and out.

[captain_crunch]

Compressing sawdust under high pressure was how Weyhauser used to presto logs and they would burn in stove for long time. But they kinda dissapeared after pariticle board came into being. Sawdust off top of pile that has set a few days seems to work ok just don,t dig too deep in pile

[jpgreen]

To bad presto can't make a comeback and have particle board dissappear..  :D

I remember there was a Presto log plant in Sacramento Ca where I grew up.

[Smokey]

Bandmiller2... Unfortunately making pre-pressed doughnuts will not work in this type of burner.  It burns from the middle out not top to bottom.  There is a little bit of movement in downwards in the saw dust but not much(probably shrinking due to moisture loss). Sand/ash is packed on top to stop it from burning up fast from the top down.  The beauty of these stove's is that they are smokeless after initial lite up. All the smoke/gasses are forced to go through the burn chamber making them extremely efficient(can have a blue flame for hours).

The key theory in designing one is.... the taller the burner the hotter the burn, the wider the burner the longer it will burn, tall and wide will burn long and hot ;D

30gal drum works well in a 55gal drum for large stoves. they just will not last that long due to the gauge of steel used, maybe 5 years depending on the elements you leave it in and how hot you burn it. 

Smokey

[bandmiller2]

With a name like Smokey I've got to believe you,a fella would probibly burn his eyebrows off trying to load a burning stove anyhow.Possibly the donuts would be handy to load a cold stove if they would hold togather.I think the best solution has been stated ,have two stoves side by side same flue burn one reload the outher when cool.Frank C.