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shed heater

W

wallace

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I've always struggled with moisture in my shed, I have alot of machines and hate this time of year. I thought about adding one of those chinese diesel heaters but my shed is 15m by 5m and I thought it might be like a fart in a cathedral. I also thought of a woodburner but I sometimes dont go in for days and wanted something I could leave running. I saw one of these military tent heaters for sale and they looked like they might fit the bill. They run of various fuels.

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You light them with a bit of wick on a wire and shove it in a hole in the burner, leave it for 5mins then its away. They certainly chuck some heat out. I put 20ltrs of diesel in a barrel to see how long it lasts running continuously. I have it set on its lowest setting 1 but it goes to 6 for diesel, the max setting is 4 for heating oil/kerosene, it must burn hotter. They come with 7 lengths of chimney, I chopped a couple up and welded them to create the bends.
I checked temps in various places whilst running and the base section only gets to 35 degrees, the chimney gets to 120 degrees. Alot of heat goes up the chimney so having as much of the chimney inside is better. I was thinking of a spiral flue maybe or some kind of heat bank would work better.
 
I may be going in the wrong direction, here, but if it's moisture that can affect bare steel surfaces, would a dehumidifier be of benefit? And there is a bit of heat exchange, too.
 
I think you've got the right idea about having a long section of flue inside the workshop rather than diving outside at the first possible opportunity. You might want to see if you can stack some heavy masonry around the flue, too, to absorb the heat when its on, and give it off slowly once the heater goes off. Diesel doesn't burn very cleanly, so if you can run it on kerosene you'll save yourself lots of cleaning of parts inside the burner.
 
One of those heat powered stove top fans to circulate the air a bit might help perhaps?

I wonder if you can make a chimney stack from storage heater bricks? Certainly our wood stove via a insulated concrete block chimney provides heat up though the centre of the house many hours after the stove has gone out.
 
I just got 40lts of kerosene for £26 so thats half the price of diesel already,
 
The price is about right though for only 40 litres is good. I use kerosene heating oil for c/h and can buy at the minute for 58.36p but that's on a 1000 litre order
 
Even at 20°c on the flu all that heat is perhaps mostly going up the chimney.
What if you look upon the flu as a heating element akin to the glowing coil in a fan heater, would there be a benefit to putting a vented enclosure around it with an exhaust fan to pull the air past it.
Be interesting to see how much draught it would take to cool the flu pipe ?
Cheers, Andy
 
I had no idea until today that you can buy a heater for tents. Sounds slightly barmy as people in tents are almost outside.
 
AJB Temple said:
I had no idea until today that you can buy a heater for tents. Sounds slightly barmy as people in tents are almost outside.
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Think Alaska. Quite, quite,de rigour out there. If they were not so equipped, the users would be popsicles come the dawn. Mind you, we are not talking about a Force Ten out of Blacks; think more Army cook tent. You can stand up, all 20 of you
..
 
toolsntat said:
Even at 20°c on the flu all that heat is perhaps mostly going up the chimney.
What if you look upon the flu as a heating element akin to the glowing coil in a fan heater, would there be a benefit to putting a vented enclosure around it with an exhaust fan to pull the air past it.
Be interesting to see how much draught it would take to cool the flu pipe ?
Cheers, Andy
Click to expand...
Huw about riveting some alu L section both inside and outside of the pipe. This would allow heat to transfer through pipe wall.
 
I moved the flue to go through the roof, If I can find some flexible flue for a reasonable price I might try a coil flue. I am going to stick a fan pointed at it to see if I can take some more heat, the flue is 140 degrees c. My shed was a very comfortable 12 degrees, I was doing some donkey work and had to remove my jumper :oops:. My shed is quite long 15m and the far end was down to 8. But it was close to zero outside so I am pleased so far. There are some drafty areas I can improve.
Adrian these are standard nato issue, for squaddies on manouvers, the guy had loads of them and judging by the size of his warehouse he must buy alot of army surplus.
I might try bulking out the fuel with some oil maybe.

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The eco fans do push air but not a lot, we have one atop of our wood stove. In my shop I have an electric fan behind the wood stove pushing the heat to the other side of the shop, makes a big difference. Three settings, so when the stove is roaring I set it at the third level.
 
For moving a lot of hot air quickly I can see the benefit of a lecky fan but would you want to leave one running all night?
 
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