This was an article I wrote in the late 1970s about making a barrel stove. I've changed the tense in a few spots and added some updates, but other than that, it is pretty much as I banged it out on my manual typewriter back then.

While this is as safe a barrel stove design as I've ever seen, I disclaim any responsibility for any stove you might build based on these specifications. Ever since I was a young child, I have had a great respect and fear of fire, having watched a neighbor's huge barn burn, with him in it. While I will always err on the side of safety, you might get a thinner walled barrel, or skimp on clearances, or hang flammable material by the stove. Build and use the stove at your own risk.

As a native Vermonter true to my breeding, I am frugal and willing to use a little "Yankee Ingenuity" to get me through tight spots. When the price of oil went up during the "oil crisis" of the 1970s, I did what many Vermonters did- I ran right to the store and bought a cheap Franklin Stove. I'm sure many of you know all about these imitation fireplaces, and how they in no way live up to their namesake or the original design.

Having been burned buying a stove that could not heat, I quickly invested a little more money in a couple of good books on wood burning stoves, and took what they said to heart. To cruelly condense their contents, good wood burning stoves have one major point in common, they are all "airtight." Air is admitted at only one or two specific spots and its flow can be controlled. The burning pattern of the wood is not all that critical in the average design because in burning there are trade-offs; such as efficiency vs. creosote. As a rule, the longer lasting and more efficient the burn, the more creosote is formed.

(Since the time of writing this article, catalytic filters have been made available to reduce emissions from woodstoves and reduce creosote buildup. Installation of one of these in the flue is probably a good idea, and may be required by your local building codes.)

Other things the recommended stoves have in common are good solid steel or cast iron walls, strong cast iron doors, an adjustable draft control, and safety features such as shields and extensions in front of the loading door to catch stray sparks. Interestingly, a double barrel stove is claimed to be about the most efficient stove, but is simply too large for the average home.

After reading these books, a lot of people would have made the intelligent choice and purchased a good expensive stove. I didn't. I looked at the prices and felt what little money I had scrunch deeper into my wallet, as if to hide. With stoves running over $300 and the average wood burning furnace priced over $1,000, in scarce 1970 dollars, it looked more and more like I had to make do with the Franklin stove or build my own.

Well, my yankee ingenuity went wild. I designed an outdoor woodburning furnace that ate its own smoke, had an estimated 90% efficiency and only had to be fired once a day because it stored its heat in a thermosiphon hot water system. It only had one problem... I couldn't build the cussed thing. The preheater and burner assembly were still out in my backyard when I sold the house years later.

I realized my limitations and tried something more practical. I bought a barrel stove kit consisting of a flue collar and a 5"'," cast door with built in draft control. This kit was recommended for a thirty gallon barrel It sounded reasonable, since a big stove wasn't what I had in mind. Having made this purchase, I have one sage bit of advice to others, don't go hunting for a thirty gallon barrel in Vermont. I found the last one and it was in no condition to be a stove. Apparently this size barrel is a rarely used, and fifteen or fifty-five gallon sizes are the only common sizes.

Disgusted, I went back to the junkyard and bought a perfect sealed 55 gallon drum that had been filled with printers solvent. By accident, I found that the solvent cleaned the paint off the outside right down to bare metal. I cleaned the outside of the drum and painted it with flat black barbecue paint. Now that the barrel was presentable, I brought it into the house and laid it on its side for a test fit.

Have you ever seen how big a barrel looks lying down in the middle of a 14' x l4' living room? Think of a reclining elephant near your couch, longing for your peanuts, and you'll get the idea. The barrel seems even bigger when you stop to think of the safety clearances needed between it and any furniture or walls. It looked as through I had gone down yet another dead end.

I put the barrel on end by the Franklin, sat down and pondered the situation. Hmmm... Somehow it looked less imposing standing there. Gradually, a plan formed. One end of the barrel had a screw-in bung that looked like a perfect draft intake. I took the barrel back outside, let it air out, and then filled it with water to flush out any leftover solvent and fumes. Once the odor was gone, it was an easy matter to trace the outline of the cast iron door and flue collar from the kit onto the barrel end that had the bunghole. Using a sabre saw to cut out the openings was a snap.

With the basic stove positioned in a test fit, I had to figure out some sort of safe legs to put it on. To start, I decided to put a fire proof base of patio block on the floor under and around the stove. The barrel itself was placed on a tripod arrangement of angle iron and brick. Being frugal, I tapped into the 8" flue of my Franklin for the exhaust. I connected the flue to the stove using an 8" tee, reducing collar, short length of 6" pipe and a 6" elbow.

I decided to take some time, before adding the door and flue collar to the stove, and do the job right. Firebricks and refractory cement were purchased for my new improved design. Reaching carefully into the barrel through the door opening, I laid the bricks, forming a level floor on the bottom of the barrel with very little problem. I filled the gaps around the perimeter of the floor with pieces of broken firebrick and cement. The firechamber was finished by standing one row of firebricks on end all around the new floor and carefully cementing in between and on top of them.

The key to the success of the stove was made and installed next. This magical piece was made from an empty coffee can and a length of 4" duct pipe. The bottom of the can was partially cut away to create an opening the same size as the bung. The can was then screwed to the end of the duct pipe. This assembly was then in turn screwed in place to the interior of the bung, centering the openings, by the collar of metal left on the bottom of the coffee can. This created a draft tube leading to within four inches of the new floor of the barrel.

This draft tube works by allowing cool air to enter near the bottom of the firebox without requiring any hole in the body of the barrel. That, and the firebrick lined burning chamber, made the stove exceptionally safe, by preventing stray sparks or the fire burning through the base of the barrel.

A similar pipe was installed on the opposite side, this one 6" in diameter, with a tee just under the top of the barrel. With a little perseverance, I was able to fit this tee with a damper, the handle of which was on top of the stove. The pipe led to the flue collar and would allow the flue gasses to exit directly from the bottom of the barrel or, by changing the damper position, from the top of the barrel. The opening of the tee was placed directly by the door opening so that when the damper was open the stove could be loaded with wood without smoke pouring out of the door and into the room.

The idea behind the second pipe was to pull the exhaust air from the burning part of the fire, where the embers would burn any flammable gasses, reducing the creosote build-up in the chimney. The heat from the fire would still rise into the upper portion of the barrel, which would act like a radiator.

The bunghole was then fitted with a flat piece of metal attached loosely on one side with a single screw. Bending back a corner of this metal for a handle, I had improvised a primary draft control. I installed the door and flue collar. I originally thought that the draft control in the barrel stove kit door could admit secondary air, letting it be drawn into the tee in the internal exhaust flue, but I ended up just keeping that draft control closed.

The stove was finished! Wow! I cautiously put a newspaper into the barrel and lit it to see what would happen. It burned sedately and the smoke indeed went up the flue but there was not the heat or blowtorch effect I had anticipated. After a while it came to me that the hot gasses going into the flue were being diluted and slowed by fresh air coming through the Franklin. I stopped the problem by stuffing the lower part of the Franklin flue with fiberglass insulation. I lit another newspaper and some sticks of wood in the stove and heard the little monster take off into a roaring blaze.

Success at last... well not quite. I started watching the fire with pride. It threw off quite a bit of heat, yes sir, quite a bit- so much so that I couldn't hold my hand on the wall 21/2' in back of it. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a wet sponge and bucket of water and washed the wall to cool it down. This obviously would not be something I would want to do whenever I used the stove. I still had some 18 gauge sheet steel from trying to make my furnace. I put it between the stove and wall and ran the stove like that all that first winter.

The next problem I was concerned about was creosote. I don't have the full answer to this, but basically there was none, which meant my design had to be working properly in some way. I cleaned the flue regularly and very little creosote came out. My best guess is that the relatively cool sides or the upper part or the barrel condensed out most of it during slow or moist fires, where it was consumed by the next large fire. The thin coating remaining on the inside of the barrel seems to have formed a protective layer, because the stove never rusted out the way I had been told that barrel stoves would, and was in perfect condition after several years of regular use.

One thing about my design that bothered my friends was how I intended to get the ashes out of the bottom of the barrel. Thinking I was smart, when the stove first filled with ashes I let the fire die out for two days, then used an old shop vacuum to pull out the ash. As I was cheerfully vacuuming away I began to smell smoke. Getting my face out of the barrel, I watched in awe and terror as the exhaust of the vacuum erupted in a six foot tall geyser of sparks into my living room, worthy of a small town Fourth of July celebration.

I quickly came to my senses, shut the motor off, gingerly brought the hot vaccuum outdoors and took off the top. The dust strainer looked like it was made of Swiss cheese. The embers left after two days had come to life in the forced draft of the cleaner and eaten right through the filter. This method of cleaning wasn't going to work. Instead, I recruited the aid of another helpful coffee can. I drove a nail through its side, near the top, and crucified it to the end of a length of wooden strapping. I put the can in the stove and dragged it along the bottom with the strapping. It was then just a matter of pulling the can out and dumping the ashes into a metal bucket to empty the stove. Ten or twelve scoops emptied the firechamber in short order.

That first year I found the stove somewhat less than satisfactory for a couple or reasons. First, the door opening was only 5"x7". There was an awful discrepancy between the trunks of the trees I had cut and the size of that door. Yep, you might even say it gave me splitting headaches. Second, that big sheet of metal being used as a heat shield in back.of the stove wasn't the best looking thing to have propped against the wall. I also learned that a big sheet like that acts like a sounding board. If I happened to be around the stove when I sneezed, it sounded like there was a thunderstorm going on.

There were some good things about the set up though. With the firebrick lining, the back shield and the fact that there was no way any coals or sparks could get out or the stove, I felt much safer than I did using the Franklin. The amount of wood burned was phenomenally low, and the front of the house stayed quite warm, although the draft control needed tweaking, especially on cold nights. I was definitely on the right track.

I kept thinking about the fire being hotter on cold nights, and took a hint from the atmospheric damper on the little used oil furnace in the basement. On cold days, the flapper on this damper would open wide, while on warm days it would stay closed. The difference in inside and outside temperatures made the inside air more bouyant, like a hot air balloon, on cold days, and it would pull up the chimney with greater force.

My solution to the problem was to install a flue damper on the horizontal pipe leading from the barrel stove, in addition to the already existing damper in the main flue pipe from the franklin stove. Partly closing these dampers introduced enough turbulence into the exhaust gas flow that the fire burned more sedately and cooler during those below zero nights.

I did learn some things that winter, like how not to start a fire. If the stove was full of wood, I used to start the fire by rolling up a couple pages of newspaper, lighting one end and shoving it down the draft pipe. This was very effective because the draft pipe then became a blowtorch playing at the bottom of the wood.

I usually had to keep rolling and adding newspapers for about five or ten times to fully start the fire. One morning I got up and found I had to restart the fire, so I started my usual routine. The weather that day was a little warm and the pull up the flue wasn't too great, so I was watching down the draft to make sure the fire caught. I don't know if you've ever seen a stove back-puff but this one decided to backpuff just then. Fortunately, I was wearing glasses, but when that puff of smoke and bits of burning paper came roaring back out the draft tube into my face I knew I had done somethin' stupid.

My hair is really thick and almost like a mane. Well, in the space of about a second, I had a rapidly receding hairline, not to mention thin eyebrows. Being a true liberal intellectual ready to accept swift retribution for my sins and not yet averse to corporal punishment, I had the good sense to beat myself about the head to put out the fire. I ended up a little more clear headed about how I wasn't going to start fires in the future.

It wasn't dangerous, but sometimes when a warm front moved through, the cuss would backpuff a little in the middle of the night like a baby fart, just to be ornery, making the house smell like a smoked ham. I finally broke it of that habit by having the dampers open overnight and closing down the draft to regulate the heat. I also put a small rock on the draft control to keep it from being moved around from some stray downdraft.

That summer I decided to make a couple of improvements. I knew the stove was worth it because by letting me shut off the oil burner, it had paid for all its materials the first week I used it. The first priority, I decided, was that I had to increase the size of the loading door. What was inexpensive, fairly large and preferably made of cast iron? The answer came in a flash. A chimney cleanout door would be the perfect door! Another trip to the masonry dealer and $12 made me the proud owner of an 8"x 10" cast iron door with frame.

I removed the old door and placed the new one over the hole. I was safe, the new door would fit, but I had to cut back the tee in the exhaust pipe and eliminate the damper in the barrel. This was an acceptable compromise because I had found that the damper and secondary air inlet were only effective at very high firing rates, which overheated the house.

I made the necessary modifications and drilled the new door frame and top of the barrel to accept six screws. I wanted to make the stove even more airtight than it had been, so I cut out twin gaskets of asbestos paper to fit between the door frame and barrel. (People freak out about asbestos now, but properly used it was safe, and not anywhere near as bad for the lungs as the granite dust from the granite sheds and mines, which contained mildly radioactive particles.) I put one gasket on the barrel and liberally applied furnace cement to the top of it. I then placed its twin on top of that and topped the sandwich off with the new door. As I screwed it in place, excess cement oozed out but the cement remaining made an airtight seal. I wiped off the top and thought to myself "Gee, I never needed a barrel stove kit in the first place!"

The only piece of the original kit I was still using was the flue collar and I could have eliminated that by cutting slits at the end of the pipe and folding the remaining metal out 90 degrees. Making a second set of gaskets for this, along with a metal retaining ring, would have easily substituted for the collar.

The only problem left was the heat shield at the back of the stove. I attacked this by purchasing six 3" long 1/4" fully threaded bolts, 18 nuts and 6 lockwashers to fit. I then cut a 3 foot square section from my piece of 18 gauge sheet metal. I had a friend hold this piece, centered, to the back of the barrel. Using a 1/4" drill, I drilled a hole through the sheet and the barrel about four inches down from the top of the barrel. By putting one of the screws through these holes, the sheet was then suspended in position. I drilled a similar set of holes 16" under the first set.

Pulling the screw out and taking the sheet off, I started the assembly procedure. Opening the door, I reached in the barrel and poked two screws into the new openings. Back on the outside I put on two nuts and tightened them down so that the screws stuck out the back of the stove nearly their full three inches. I then put on two more nuts, turning them onto the screws only about half an inch. Next putting an the square of metal then two lockwashers and two final nuts.

Tightening the final nuts made the metal stand out away from the barrel over two inches. Curving the ends of the sheet around the sides of the barrel, I drilled two more sets or holes on each side. I followed the same stand off procedure with these holes, maintaining the same spacing. The six screws made the sheet rigid, forming a perfect heat shield. I used the stove like this for years and was satisfied with everything but its appearance, but for less than $75 it doesn't look so bad. If you were to copy the design your cost should be about $45 or less. Folks with kids would want to fold the edges of the sheet steel and cap the screws to prevent the little ones from cutting themselves.

A few final tips on building and operating the stove might help you. First, the stovepipe coming out of the stove for the first 3 or 4 feet is an important radiator of heat, mine had an elbow in it which seems to have made it more efficient. Second, don't overload the stove with wood, hoping it will go all night. The wood turns into coals and you'll wake up in the middle or the night enjoying a 90+ degree sauna.

I loaded mine normally at night and the oil furnace would kick on once in the morning before I got up. This kept my basement warm and the pipes from freezing. When I got up, I pulled the coals near the exhaust vent over to the air intake and added more wood, opening the draft and damper full. Within ten minutes the fire was roaring and I turned the draft and damper back to normal. If you do get the stove too hot, dump some water on it, or if its going out of control, pour water down the draft hole. (Don't open the loading door immediately or you'll get a face full or smoke and live steam.)

To start the fire safely, put about five sections of newspaper in the stove on top of the wood you plan to burn, then light another section and toss it in, close the door, open the draft and damper full.

RESPECT ALL SAFETY CLEARANCES, Generally, plain stovepipe should be at least three diameters away from any combustible material (including your ceiling!) If in doubt, use the hand test- if its combustible (this includes wallboard and fake brickwork), you must be able to hold your hand on it comfortably when the fire is at its hottest. Then, Just to be sure, invite a volunteer fireman to supper and ask him to check your installation out. Don't forget the area between the roof and ceiling. I used a metalbestos chimney and was totally unsatisfied with the recommended clearances because they didn't pass my hand test. I increased the clearances and put another 3 foot square metal piece on the ceiling around where the flue came through to act as a firestop. I painted this piece with white high temperature paint to blend it into the ceiling.

Finally, expect to replace the draft and exhaust pipes after about every three seasons, as these get cherry hot and bent out of shape by throwing wood on the fire. That's all! Roll out your barrel and have fun making a stove like this.

Rory Cat sitting in front of the stove after a few seasons of use. Note that the barbeque paint fades with heat, and the area near the downdraft tube has been cooler than the rest of the stove. The height of the firebrick base and sidelining at the bottom is also readily apparent. Use of the metal shield allowed me to reduce clearances safely to about a foot from the wall. Pea gravel covers the patio block on the floor.

I'm curious. This web page has been getting a large number of hits. If you have constructed a barrel stove like this I would be interested in your comments. You can email me at stove@electricrailroad.com

Go to http://www.green-trust.org/for more woodburning and alternate energy info.

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