Ahmet Oguz Akyuz

Hopefully this is the right forum to ask this. I'm lucky to have a nice little tiny house, a picture of which from the inside is shown in the attachments. I wanted to share this picture because my question is about the glass door that you see in the picture. The wooden frame of the door is somewhat bent inside in its bottom-left corner. So when I close the door, about an inch of gap remains in the bottom-left corner. Assuming that I do not want to replace/rebuild this door just because of this small problem, what can be my options about fixing it. Is there a way to unbend and it make it straight?

Thanks for any opinion.

Hi There,

I have a small DC pump (12 V with 2 ampere max current). Its spec says the maximum height it can pump the water is 3 meters (10 feet). The flow rate is 900 liters per hour which is roughly 4 gallons per minute (I tested it and it seems to fulfill its specs). The pump output has a 3/4 inch fitting, which is the hose thickness that I plan to use.

Now, I do not need to lift the water 3 meters from the source (which is a small creek). But I need to water my fruit trees which are distributed in my garden. My question is, how long a 3/4 inch hose with a pump with aforementioned specs can push push the water through assuming that the water needs to be lifted about a meter from the source.

Thanks for any insights.

Well, thank you very much for the great answers. To reply to this point:

John F Dean wrote: I am confused by the statements  “if I leave the door of the stove open…”.  Are you talking about leaving the door open for a prolonged period?

Yes, my intention was to "sometimes" burn it with an open door to enjoy the fire as one does with a fireplace. Of course when I am sitting nearby and closely watching it to avoid a dangerous situation.

Regarding to this:

Douglas Alpenstock wrote: I am also confused. The whole point of a stove is to provide an engineered system for efficient, controlled, and safe combustion.

You are right. I think I thought if the fireplace in the main house can burn without smoke coming out, the wood stove can too. But they are entirely different designs. And I think in general fireplaces are designed to burn with an open fire.

The comment by John Weiland could be quite to the point:

John Weiland wrote: The cross sectional depiction of such cookstoves indicates the convoluted path that the exhaust must take around the oven (baking) compartment before exiting up the flue

.

I didn't think about this before. The smoke definitely takes a more convoluted path around the baking compartment. This is definitely not the case with a fireplace (or perhaps a wood stove without a baking compartment).

And my situation is very similar to Mike Haasl's:

Mike Haasl wrote: If I crack it open an inch, then it doesn't smoke out but when the volume of air that comes in through the door meets or exceeds the volume going up the chimney, I'll get smoke.

Only when I open more than an inch or so, the smoke comes out more visibly. I guess the issue is settled then. With such a wood stove design, one cannot expect smokeless burn if the lid is on -- which is not a safe way to burn it anyways.

I have a woodstove setup as you can in the picture below:



The chimney pipe, after exiting the wall, makes another L turn and goes up a few meters more. I think the overall height of the chimney pipe is about 4.5 meters (15ft or so). The diameter of the pipe is 13 cm (about 5 inches).

Now my problem is that if I leave the door of the stove open during burning, some smoke comes out of it. Is this normal and expected for a woodstove? It doesn't seem to be related to downdraft as I have an H-cowl which pretty much prevents the downdraft issue (also this happens in any weather regardless of the wind/pressure situation).

I am asking this because I have a fireplace in our main house and I can burn it without closing its door at all (of course it has a higher and wider chimney). I hoped to be able to do the same for my woodstove. Perhaps its design is faulty?

Any advice and experience sharing is very welcome.

Oguz

Thanks for the very helpful replies. At least I don't have to clean my spinach very carefully from this weed anymore.

The weed that is in the attachment is very common in my garden beds, especially amongst spinach. I want to find out what it is. Thanks for your help.

Thanks very much. You are right, I think it's mullein.

The picture is in the attachment. Anybody has an idea?

I am considering establishing a grape vineyard in my small plot in semi-mediterranean climate. I am looking for safe and aesthetic alternatives to using pressure treated wood as poles. Preferably I want to use wood instead of steel, plastic, or concrete. But untreated wood is known to rot in a few years. However, treated wood causes some concerns for me.

Are there any alternatives that you may recommend? Or are you aware of any research that indicates the degree toxicity released by treated wood?

Thanks,
Oguz

Dear All,

Thanks very much for these great ideas. The location where I want to install the tank is near the Aegean coast of Turkey and it hardly ever freezes. After seeing all these ideas and considering the cost, labor, and the visuals I think a partially buried tank is the easiest option for me. I've looked around and it looks like you can safely bury a surface tank up to 1m into the soil. This way if the tank is 2.5m tall, I will only see its top 1.5m. This may be acceptable given that it is the easiest solution. As long as the top of the tank is below the roof's water collection pipes and the pipes are snugly fit, the water should flow into the tank.