How To Use Wood Stoves (And Use Them Safely!) Part Two
In 1976, veteran arctic outdoorsman Ole Wik wrote How to Build an Oil Barrel Stove ... and that worthy book—which found an enthusiastic readership—now appears as just one chapter of Ole's latest effort: Wood Stoves: How to Make and Use Them. Ole's lived in the Alaskan bush, "where self-sufficiency is still a way of life", for 12 years, "always with homemade wood stoves", and he writes with great authority on the subjects of building one's own stove or making an existing one perform exactly as you want it to. In MOTHER NO. 48, we printed—at some length—Ole's advice on the general use (with an emphasis on safety) of wood stoves. The following excerpts from Ole's new book—which may be the only one ever published on the design and construction of wood-burning stoves—will give you a further example of the thoroughness and precision with which Ole Wik puts his ideas across. Read on and learn ... and remember: There's much more wood stove wisdom where this came from!
January/February 1978
By Ole Wik
From Wood Stoves: How to Make and Use Them by Ole Wik, copyright© 1977 by the author. Reprinted with the permission of Ole Wik and of Alaska Northwest Publishing Company, Anchorage, Alaska.
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PHOTOS (EXCEPT AS NOTED) BY MANYA WIK
ABOUT STOVEPIPES
The most obvious function of the stovepipe is to carry smoke, water vapor, and fine ash from the firebox to the atmosphere. But another function, equally important, is to create the draft — or suction — needed to keep air flowing through the firebox.
Many times I've set up our little laundry stove outdoors in the summertime, when it is too hot to have a fire in the cabin. It might seem that a stovepipe would be unnecessary out there in the open air, but without a pipe, the smoke can't tell the difference between the stoke hole and the stovepipe port, and the fire burns sluggishly. As soon as a couple of sections of stovepipe are attached, however, the smoke moves up the pipe and fresh air moves into the firebox to take its place. The oxygen perks up the fire, the stovepipe heats up and draws still better, and the combustion cycle goes on and on.
A stovepipe acts like a siphon, but in reverse: It moves smoke from a lower to a higher level. Like a siphon, its effectiveness is proportional to the difference in elevation between the two ends. In practical terms, this means that a stovepipe can be made to draw more strongly by simply adding another section.
Most commercial wood stoves take pipe five, six, or seven inches in diameter, but four- and eight-inch pipes are also stock items at many hardware stores. Stovepipe is sold open so that it nests for shipment and storage. It has a special selflocking seam that snaps together at the time the pipe is to be installed (Fig. 1), making a solid, safe unit. Some stoves come with tapered pipe that is designed to nest one section within the next. In some units, the whole set fits right inside the firebox when not in use.
Stovepipe comes in two standard finishes — galvanized and black. Galvanized pipe has a shiny, silvery surface when it is new, but if the pipe is heated past a certain point, the zinc coating alloys with the sheet-steel base and the luster is permanently lost. Black stovepipe has a shiny, blue-black color which also dulls with use, an application of stove polish from time to time will restore the sheen and keep it looking nice.
Black stovepipe is less expensive than the galvanized type, but it is also made of a lighter-gauge steel which burns out more quickly. Stovepipes usually burn out first along the seam, and a pipe with reasonably sound walls often has to be discarded just because the seam no longer holds it together properly. I always buy the longer-lasting galvanized pipe. When a section starts to burn out, I replace it immediately rather than risk a house fire. The old pipe may get a few more uses the following summer when we fire up the stove outdoors, but when it becomes unsafe, I junk it without regret.
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