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Innovative I-Beam Shop Stove
"I've never seen a stove as good as this one on the market," says Curtis Fowler, Yreka, Calif., who built his own wood-burning "I-beam" shop stove with the help of his friend Mandell Day.
The home-built stove has two unique features: the sides are made out of heavy-duty I-beams and it has a fan-driven air exchang
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Innovative I-Beam Shop Stove FARM SHOP Handy Hints 17-6-11 "I've never seen a stove as good as this one on the market," says Curtis Fowler, Yreka, Calif., who built his own wood-burning "I-beam" shop stove with the help of his friend Mandell Day.
The home-built stove has two unique features: the sides are made out of heavy-duty I-beams and it has a fan-driven air exchange system that sucks hot air down from the ceiling, blows it down the out-side of the flue, and through the stove before it's blown out into the shop.
Each side of the stove is made out of two 26-in. long pieces of 10 by 4-in. I-beam stacked on top of each other. The top, bottom, and back of the stove are covered with 3/8-in. thick steel plate.
There's a 12 by 13-in. door on front with a sliding draft opening built in below it. Legs are made from 2-in. dia. pipe. The main flue pipe is 6-in. dia. It's covered by a 10-in. dia. flue pipe that runs up to within a foot or so of the ceiling.
A Dayton 2-speed squirrel cage fan mounts at the top of the outer flue pipe and blows warm air from near the ceiling down through the outer pipe to a housing made out of galvanized sheet metal at the back of the stove. From there, the warm air is pushed through either side of the stove, along the outside of the I-beams, which are also covered with sheet metal. As air passes down through the flue and through the stove, it picks up heat so it's hot when it comes out the front of the stove.
The 2-speed fan is wired into two thermostats that mount on the inner flue pipe. The fan's low speed is activated when flue temperature reaches 120? F and shuts down when temperature drops to 1 10? F. The fan's high speed kicks in when flue temp reaches 160? F and shuts down when it drops to 140? F.
"It's so efficient I don't have to build much of a fire to heat my shop. I seldom build a big enough fire to kick in the high-speed thermostat since that puts out so much heat I have to open the door. The only parts I bought new were the fan and thermostats, which cost about $60 when I built the stove 10 years ago. Everything else was left over from other projects."
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Curtis Fowler, 403 Walters Lane, Yreka, Calif. 96097.
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