Wood fired forced air in a wood shop?
Hey Guys, I am moving my shop over to my residence. I have a 1200sq ft detached garage I am going to use for a shop. I have an oil tank right outside the garage that feeds my house. My question is; Can I use a wood fired forced air unit or just oil fired. I have an endless supply of fired wood. What do you guys think I should do
Thanx Lou
Replies
free wood is good, but fires always scared me in a wood shop because of the danger of dust explosion
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My shop is a fair bit smaller than yours, but I have a basic woodstove in there and find that's all I need. It does take some time to light and maintain the fire at a comfortable level, though. When the fire's too hot, I just open the door and let it heat the house.
And it makes for a clean shop- in winter, at least. No reason for sawdust or scrap to hang around if you can burn it. If you buy milk in paperboard cartons, keep them- packed full of sawdust they burn really nicely.
If you've got an explosive concentration of dust in your shop, there are plenty of other sources of ignition, like all those open sparking brush-driven motors in your power tools. Adding an enclosed woodstove to that mix isn't really a big added risk. Good dust control is important for the health of your lungs, and if you're doing that even half decently there's little real risk of a dust explosion- except if you do your dust collection system wrong!
wood fired forced air unit -- Is this a wood furnace or just fan blown across wood stove or something in between??
Heat my barn shop with wood stove, has a fan and ducts up at the highest eave that blows warm air down to lower, farther away areas, that works well.
Never had any concerns about dust explosion as it gets hard to breath at the levels needed for ignition (about 30 grains per cubic foot). Sawdust from sawing is too corase, visible dust from fine sanding could produce an explosive mix.
A good test is to weigh out 4-5 grains or more (on your powder scale) of the finest dust you produce (scrapings from the inside of your dust collector bag) and put it in a plastic milk jug and shake - open and apply match held in pliers over opening of the jug. Explosive mixes will ignite. Know to use the pliers as once burnt the back of hand just holding the match there - milk jug is mini jet engine for a fraction of a second.
Also, do NOT throw a handfull of fine sawdust onto the fire (dont ask how I know this) - use the pack it into any type milk jug technique.
EDIT PS DO HAVE a CO detector in the wood heated shop. I have one in the barn as I also work on running cars there (with exhaust hose to outside), but once did have it go off due to the wood stove, had a peak 50ppm CO level on the readout.
Edited 1/11/2007 10:42 am ET by junkhound
my old shop had a wood stove, and it'd get real nice and hot...
the milk jug is a great idea, sawdust thrown in the fire causes a flash fire-kinda dangerous, and not much heat.
the CO detector is a great idea, and more important than a smoke detector IMO.
forced hot air from an external wood stove would work, but not as efficiently as a wood stove directly in the shop.Expert since 10 am.
Lou,
Is this a wood burning/forced air unit you already have?
I have a wood/oil combination dinosaur in the cabin that heats 2500sq ft. Not that efficent on the wood side and hard to regulate, but woods free and it keeps the chill of at -30C. This would probably be overkill for your shop....but if you already have a system....
If not, a wood stove with some air circulation would do for your shop. (with all of the aforementioned detectors, dust control etc.)
TN