Thoughts on a pellet stove for a large shop

[Oaktree]

Is the shop insulated??
My shop is 57X45,, and up to 22 feet high,,

I modified a "Papa Bear" type stove to "SUPERCHARGE" it,,
That stove does almost zero towards heating my shop.

Two big wheelbarrows of dry hardwood (like oak),, will raise the shop temp maybe 10degrees F,,

My shop is all steel walls, but, I do have six inches of ceiling insulation.
I insulated the ceiling to keep out summer heat,, that was successful.

I'd say the difficulty in heating stems more from non-insulated steel walls than with any shortcomings of the stove. Pretty large building too. I have a Fisher Mama Bear in my 24 x 24 shop/garage and it does a decent job heating it. Yeah, if it's below 20 it takes a few hours to get there (detached building that's not normally heated), but it does the job. This is in northern N.H.

 

[jyoutz]

I’ve never understood the appeal to pellets. For what they cost you might as well burn propane and not waste time carrying it.

Pellets have been cheaper than propane for me. I can buy 2.5 tons of pellets for $750 and heat my house all winter, using propane only when I’m gone for several days. I can’t heat all season for $750 worth of propane; probably double the price. A few years ago I was able to bring in natural gas, so I no longer have either pellets or propane.

 

[MattB4]

I have both a wood stove and a pellet stove. I put in the pellet stove 5 years back because I was getting a bit old to be cutting and splitting wood for my Winter's heat. I still use the wood stove when the weather gets really cold but the handiness of the pellet stove is a major positive.

The pellet stove lights itself and can be turned off if the house or outdoor temperature rises enough. It is hard to turn off a wood stove other than to allow it to burn out. The pellet stove is great for those days in early Fall and Spring that a few hours of heating is all I want.

The downsides of the pellet stove is the high cost of pellets in my area plus having equipment to get and unload the pallet. I just was looking recently and it is now running close to $350/ton. My usage is around 1 ton per heating season. When I put the pellet stove in the price was closer to $200/ton. The pellet stove also requires a bit more attention to maintenance and clean out. Like others have mentioned I deal with the weight of the 40lb sacks by pouring the pellets into two 5 gal buckets before bringing inside for easier handling.

 

[Snobdds]

It's like they got everyone hooked on cheap pellets and then raised the price to the point of it longer being economical.

It will be interesting to see if pellet stoves are still a thing in 10 years.

 

[5030]

50lb bags would mean I'm the only person in my house that can feed the stove.

They only come in 40 pound bags, not 50. 50, 40 pound bags to a ton skid.

Been heating my machine and fab shop with a multi fuel (pellet and corn) stove for years now as well as the house. Same units in each and I own a large woodlot and I am always culling trees from storm damage and I give away all the saw logs as well as everything 3" in diameter. All the rest gets roasted in the burn pile.

Having said that, I do have PEX in floor heat in the shop as well because no biomass stove will run longer than maybe 2 days with refilling the hopper so if I'm not out there, the PEX in floor heat keeps things from getting too cold. Only have propane here and normally, 2 500 gallon bottles at 85% full, lasts the entire winter.

Don't expect any biomass stove to be able to heat a shop (unless it's very well insulated and mine is), to a toasty temp, not gonna happen with a biomass stove that outputs only 85K btu running wide open.

Mine will hold the temp in the shop (20 x 40) at a comfortable level but certainly not at a sweat temp.

 

[David in KY]

Knowing that 90% of your heat goes out the chimney, have you considered a rocket mass heater. It burns a fraction of the wood (or pellets) and depending upon the design, keeps the majority of the heat inside the structure. In lieu of building it yourself (as many do) there are commercial units available. Here's one for example:

Liberator Rocket Heater

The unit above acts much like a traditional stove, unless and until you build the MASS to absorb, and then over time release, the thermal energy. This puts the heat into the building, and not into the outside atmosphere.

- These things use much less fuel in relation to traditional stoves.
- They emit much less smoke and pollution.
- They burn the creosote in the main combustion cycle, so no build up in the chimney.

The guys on Permies.com (permaculture website) have been pioneering the Rocket Mass Heater initiative and made great headway in design efficiency. Here are a few links:

Permies.com- Rocket Mass Heaters
Youtube video explaining RMH
Wiki- Rocket Mass Heater




.

 

[MattB4]

Wood has a btu value. Thermal mass heating schemes does not change the physics. Rocket mass heaters are not going to warm a space any better than a traditional air tight wood or pellet stove does. Though you will never stop the snake oil purveyors.

 

[David in KY]

Wood has a btu value. Thermal mass heating schemes does not change the physics. Rocket mass heaters are not going to warm a space any better than a traditional air tight wood or pellet stove does. Though you will never stop the snake oil purveyors.

Where is the "snake oil" in the MASS?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

It's like they got everyone hooked on cheap pellets and then raised the price to the point of it longer being economical.

It will be interesting to see if pellet stoves are still a thing in 10 years.

My first pellet stove, they were about $150 a ton. Now at $350 ton.
I would not use one for a shop, but like it in my family room.

 

[mx842]

Pellets are great but kinda expensive compared to free wood from your land. Ken Sweet

Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I know I heated my old shop with a homemade boiler type stove but that's not an option for me now. I lost all my pex I had in the old floor. That was the best of both worlds because I heated the floor and also got the radiant heat off of the firebox too.
I've also been looking at mini split units but the cost for a unit the size I need would be through the roof.
My shop is 57X60 and divided into three separate parts. Well actually it's just 44X60 that is to be heated because one side is just a lean to that's 12 wide and 60' long. The inside of the part that needs heat is divided into three parts. The first 20' in the back has a divider wall separating the front from the back. Then I have a lean to on the right side of the main part of the building that is all enclosed that I use for my machine shop machines. The ceiling in there has 9' high walls. The walls in the main part have 14' high walls with a 3/12 pitch roof, and it is all open. I had spray insulation done with 2" on the wall sections and 3" on the roof parts. It's really tight all accept at the two big doors on the front and back. There are no windows but I have 2, 3'-man doors one on the front wall and one on the back. I'm trying to fine some kind of door sweeps for the big doors because they are roll up doors and there is about a 21/2 inch gap at the top. I know there will be a lot of heat loss because neither of the big doors are insulated.
That's what I've got and how to heat it is still on the table. I'm thinking now a mini split in the machine shop section because I think that part will be the easiest to heat and to cool. The other 2600' or so well, I don't know.

 

[therrien]

I'm at the point where I need to put some heat in my new shop. I have plenty of wood that I could use but I am also looking at pellet stoves. I don't know much about them, but I like the Idea of being able to load up and not have to worry about it for a couple days. I'm not trying to keep it 85 degrees in there but would like to keep the shop 50/60 degrees so that my machines stay happy, and my pipes don't freeze.
It seems no one builds a stove that doesn't have a glass door on it. I don't care about looks or sitting around watching a fire burn, I just want the heat. I could build a stove and it may lead to that, but time is getting short, and my shop is still not all the way tooled up yet. I know I couldn't afford gas or electric and I don't generate enough used oil to keep a waste oil burner going so my options are limited. Just looking for ideas about the pellet burning stoves. The idea of not having to have a full-blown chimney appeals to me because they just vent through the wall.

Many towns go by National fire code which states No solid fuel burning devices in garages. No wood stoves. Pellet stoves can get tricky because of how they are defined as solid pellet fuel burning device. Does your shop hold vehicles? Is it a garage?
I put a pellet stove in my garage legally with outside combustion air but it takes a long time to heat the garage. I wish I put a ceiling mount propane heater in with outside combustion air with a similar through the wall chimney. A friend has one and the heat is fast and More controllable. Less work also.

 

[MattB4]

Where is the "snake oil" in the MASS?

View attachment 826430

The snake oil is that a mass gives you more heating than not having a mass. People conveniently forget that warming that mass up takes energy. Heating a space is all about heat transfer.

 

[mx842]

Is the shop insulated??
My shop is 57X45,, and up to 22 feet high,,

I modified a "Papa Bear" type stove to "SUPERCHARGE" it,,
That stove does almost zero towards heating my shop.

Two big wheelbarrows of dry hardwood (like oak),, will raise the shop temp maybe 10degrees F,,

My shop is all steel walls, but, I do have six inches of ceiling insulation.
I insulated the ceiling to keep out summer heat,, that was successful.

My stove mod was to create a lower chamber to allow the stove to have air fed under the wood.
It probably doubled the BTU output.

I've been looking for big wood stoves but haven't had much luck. Everything I've seen on Craigs list and marketplace is rather junky and I don't like anything new I've seen in my searches. Right now, I'm thinking to just do something to get by for a while and maybe build something later on as time permits.
I have this big piece of pipe that's 30" round and 6' long that I've been thinking about building something out of. This pipe has 3/4" thick walls. I'm thinking about standing it on end and putting some kind of grate at the bottom with a door for cleanout. Then at the top I'll take about a foot of space and use that as a dead space that will collect heat and put some kind of fan to blow hot air out and into the room. I'm thinking of putting a thin sheet of SS plate with a bunch of holes like what's inside most of these new-fangled stoves they are building today, right under the heat exchanger. My thinking is that if I can get that ss sheet hot enough it might burn off some of the smoke and gases before it goes up the stove pipe. This is just a though, but I am collecting parts to maybe someday build it.

 

[David in KY]

The snake oil is that a mass gives you more heating than not having a mass. People conveniently forget that warming that mass up takes energy. Heating a space is all about heat transfer.

Given the same fire/ BTUs, the RMH keeps more (MUCH MORE) heat inside the space, instead of directly out of the chimney. That's not snake oil nonsense as you previously alluded.

 

[Snobdds]

The snake oil is that a mass gives you more heating than not having a mass. People conveniently forget that warming that mass up takes energy. Heating a space is all about heat transfer.

Keep in mind, there are three was to transfer heat.
Convection, conduction, and radiation.

Don't show us your blind spot.

Radiant heat may take longer to warm up, but it also takes less energy to maintain that same output. I can heat my shop with 70* water all winter and have everything inside 60*. I can open the doors for an hour and only drop a degree.

 

[D&D]

I've been looking for big wood stoves but haven't had much luck.

Outdoor boiler with fan coil units inside ?

Central Boiler 50K Btu Fan Coil Unit, Heat Exchanger | Wood Furnace World

50k Btu fan coil unit includes housing, fan, heat exchanger coil and louvers. Btu range: 20k-50k Btu. Approximate dimensions: 16-1/4"x17"x13-1/4". Ships Fast!

www.woodfurnaceworld.com

 

[mx842]

Many towns go by National fire code which states No solid fuel burning devices in garages. No wood stoves. Pellet stoves can get tricky because of how they are defined as solid pellet fuel burning device. Does your shop hold vehicles? Is it a garage?
I put a pellet stove in my garage legally with outside combustion air but it takes a long time to heat the garage. I wish I put a ceiling mount propane heater in with outside combustion air with a similar through the wall chimney. A friend has one and the heat is fast and More controllable. Less work also.

I won't deny that those propane shop heaters will do a good job. We had one in another shop and I liked it. But that was when you could get a 300 gallon tank filled for a little over a hundred bucks. Now it would probably take at least $800 to fill one up. They do heat well but they burn a lot of fuel in doing it.
My shop is not a car shop it's pretty much a sheet metal shop. I wouldn't say that I would never work on my truck or the wife's car every once in a while, but then it would only be to change the oil of rotate some tires, but I don't see me leaving anything like that for any period of time because I don't have the spare room.

 

[rob in ore]

I put a used pellet stove in my shop/garage. It's an insulated, 3 car garage with a 10 foot ceiling. I was able to add a pipe to draw combustion air from outside so have less concern about gas and paint vapors igniting. I've been very happy with it although here in western Oregon I only need it occasionally.

 

[Jchonline]

I also put in a minisplit in my shop. Very cheap to heat. DIY MrCool 240v. Easy install.

 

[MattB4]

Given the same fire/ BTUs, the RMH keeps more (MUCH MORE) heat inside the space, instead of directly out of the chimney. That's not snake oil nonsense as you previously alluded.

But it doesn't. People delude themselves. In fact not enough heat leaving means that combustion gasses build up on exhaust spaces. Rocket mass stoves are no better and some cases much worse at heating a space. But you will never convince the true believers.