Debbie Salemink

The cat

The burner

The drum unfinished will be clayed completely

What I ended up with it is very different than most of what I've seen but works very well here, just in case it helps somebody else, here's the info.

for one the space is very large 70 square meter downstairs with an open stairs to upstairs 3 meters high and slightly bigger.
The climate is Portuguese and at the moment 3 degrees Celsius. Their are lot's of gaps in windows and doors that we haven't got around to fixing yet.
But it's warm inside at this moment.




How we started you can read in this thread, the best one was based on Iante's version from the book but that still didn't completely make it in such a big space.

Our drum is bigger than most.
Our exhaust goes through the wall facing the wind side of the mountain the house is build on overlooking the Tagus river.

We finally doubled the feed of the one in Ianthe's book to fit the large drum, a whole brick by a whole brick by a whole instead of half because that way we can burn more which I thought a larger space would probably need.
We shortened the bench to one meter and heightened the vertical exhaust outside to 3 meters, (no rain or wind cap because until it hasn't seemed necessary but we may do during the next storm).
We stopped buying wood and went back to the dried branches and dead wood we find by the river (works much better in our case, takes less chopping and the notches, because of our larger feed aren't a problem anymore).
The large feed has another advantage and that is that we can push large chunks inside to burn horizontally so that at times it gets even hotter, faster and we can cook food on it.
It's incredibly warm here now, never any smoke back. We use more wood than before but I think we are still saving at least 70% when compared to a fireplace and creating much more heat that radiates a lot further.

Next year we'll rebuild this version to skip the bench because we seldom sit on it and we will use the exhaust to create floor heating instead. Again thanks for all the help and info you've given me!
Hope you're all warm and well until the spring shows it's first smile!

Thanks for the replies. It's difficult to find 'real' facts about these things. The beams that where given to me are old creosote treated beams.
I live in Portugal and under European pressure all these beams have to be replaced with concrete as they have been given the label 'highly dangerous' which is how I'm treating them for now. But it's so funny how these laws work, because they are being replaced, removed and than spread to everybody to use or if nobody wants them they are being resold for 20 euro each at wood shops...the railway guys that brought them said 'don't worry, the creosote wore out a long time ago' and they weren't wearing any protective clothing while removing them....everybody here (close to the railways) is building sheds and putting them in their vegetables patches,
(so what a silly law because if they are that dangerous, now, with these new laws, they are even more dangerous) people are very happy that they got them for free and when I try to get any info online I get get anything from extremely dangerous to nothing even close to a hazard. They are really nice and very useful. Would sanding them with the right protective clothing help?

Today a few of the railway guys that work here gave us, even brought them to our house for us to use, 20 beams. they are very inspirational and i can think of 220 ways to use them but I know they're poisonous! Can we use them in our garden? Is there any safe way to treat them and use them or should we silently get rid of them (we have children )? thanks for any feedback!

Hi Erica,
Thanks for your replies. I watched a lot of your videos when I build it and they helped me a lot! I think you're right about the space. It's very large and opens from the first floor, where I build it, right up to the second floor.
I get the smoke back only in the beginning nowadays and when I light it up and open the door to outside it keeps burning fine but if I close it it dies and I get smoke back. Rainy weather seems to make it worse. Once it's burning which takes about 30 minutes it keeps going the whole day and night without problems. If I start it up the next morning when it's still warm it will just fire straight into rocket position and burn fine but if I let it cool down it takes more attention.
The first one I build (which was the start of this thread) would start to cause problems once there was some coal building up in the burn chamber, the new one actually works better when there's some coal build up.
I filled my riser with clay and sand (no perlite) and it's much larger (thicker) than most I've seen as a compensation to my larger drum. This takes a while to heat up but gets very hot and after an hour of 2 burning can cook a complete meal (even brown rice and lentil) in about 1 and half hours or pizza in about 10 minutes. However the horizontal (not vertical!) exhaust never gets hot enough to warm a bench and the clay I put around it is not even completely dry after one month of burning!
So I have a very hot drum, that can actually cause burns when you accidentally touch it but the air is already very much cooled down when it get to the exhaust.

I like the fact that I can cook meals on it and it heats our house enough (living in Portugal, where winters are cold but nothing compared to Canada!) I'm still kind of jealous of the butt warming bench so I'll probably build a second one with a bit more knowledge and hopefully a fully functioning bench, but I may keep this one for cooking and heat in my kitchen

It seems to be running beautifully again the last week so I would guess that rainy weather somehow affects stove. No rain-cap on the outside exhaust maybe?

That's the smartest thing to do if you live in a place where this is possible.
In Amsterdam the government decides where you can live based on your income and family size and unless you buy a house which is to expensive for most people, you may not live in a smaller house if your family has for instance 3 kids. (which is my situation)
That gives you rent class of around 600 euro which for an average income is very high. adding school costs, books, electricity and heating, it doesn't leave much for food or clothes. Getting into debt if very easy for a lot of families there just by not being able to afford the books or the electricity bill in which case high cost are continually added.........most the people I know that are in debt there, didn't get there by owing anything special just the basic things that in some point of their lives they stopped being able to afford....

I think if you want to make it even better everybody should be advised to take safety into consideration and to put a carbon monoxide monitor inside, close to the heater and one outside close to the exhaust, if that doesn't reach above all windows.
And that might be a bit of an expense but when everybody is starting to build their own that could safe lives.