A home-made wood-fired sauna stove is a worthy alternative to factory analogues. Not every fan of bath procedures can buy a metal potbelly stove or build a solid brick heater, for which there is not always enough space. Having the necessary tools and skills, you can make an iron stove yourself at home or order a welder to a friend. The purpose of the article is to tell how to make a stove for a bath from a large diameter pipe or gas bottle with your own hands.
Choosing the design of a homemade stove
Home-made metal stoves for a bath are welded not only from pipes or cylinders, but also sheet steel - which one has in stock. Of the sheets, a rectangular body is usually brewed, inferior to a cylindrical one according to the following criteria:
- The complexity of manufacturing. An iron pipe is almost a finished firebox, and sheet metal still needs to be cut, cut into billets and assembled into one piece by welding.
- For the same reason, the price of a round product will be less, unless you do all the work yourself.
- The cylindrical shape of the sauna stove from the pipe is better in terms of heat exchange with the surrounding air.
- A circular section is always preferable to a rectangular one in terms of flue gas movement.
- The flat wall of the fuel chamber will last less and burn out faster than a pipe of the same thickness made of the same steel grade.
The problem of manufacturing a furnace from a pipe or gas cylinder is decided to be solved in 2 ways: to make the case horizontal or vertical. Both options have the right to life and have their own pros and cons. A vertical stove for a bath is more compact than a horizontal one and is appropriate in a steam room of small sizes, where each square meter counts. But it is inferior in combustion duration and heat transfer efficiency, which is important.
You can find more information about the designs of self-made bourgeois stoves of long burning in the corresponding article.
During combustion, most of the heat rises, the side walls do not warm up so much. At the top, the surface area of the exchange is small, but there is a way out through the chimney, where the heat rushes with joy. The processes in the horizontal design of the furnace do not go well, where the chimney pipe is far away and along the way to it, the hot gases will give part of the heat to the semicircular body arch.
The efficiency of a horizontal metal furnace, welded from a pipe with his own hands, will always be slightly higher than vertical.
A similar situation is with the burning of firewood. Inside the vertical firebox, the flame covers the entire fuel array, if you do not cover the air supply with the ash pan door. But you won’t flood the bath, because the task of the heat source is to produce a lot of heat in a short period of time. In a firebox, elongated in length, the flame moves from the front to the back, burning wood gradually and more efficiently. One caveat: such a heater takes up more space and is not suitable for any steam room.
How to make a horizontal stove in a bath
On the Internet, you can find a lot of information on the manufacture of various furnaces for a bath from a metal, including drawings and videos. The information is not always complete and understandable to ordinary people, there are many repetitions. Therefore, the photo and drawings below show a working copy of a metal bath stove made by our project expert Vitaly Dashko from a 0.5 m diameter cylinder with a wall thickness of 5 mm.
A bath heater from a cylinder is somewhat easier to manufacture and more convenient to use, this will be explained later.It is possible to weld the furnace in the bath in the same way from a DN500 pipe (diameter according to the external dimension - 530 mm).
For the work, it is necessary to prepare the following additional materials:
- sheet metal (Steel 10-20) 4 mm thick - on the doors;
- asbestos cord - to seal the doors;
- pipe section DN150 for the chimney pipe;
- rebar made of low-carbon steel of a periodic profile, a diameter of 16-20 mm is suitable;
- corner 25 x 3 mm;
- suitable metal for legs;
- door handles purchased.
Note. If the same furnace is made from a DN500 pipe, then in addition you will need sheet steel 5 mm thick for mounting the side walls of the firebox.
Recommendations for the selection of metal
In order for the bath stove to turn out reliable and last for many years, you need to choose the right brand of metal. Since such heat generators are usually assembled from materials at hand or purchased at scrap metal, high-carbon or alloy steel may be among the scraps, which is extremely undesirable. The best option is steel with a carbon content of up to 2% (St10, St20).
When welding high-carbon metal, the seams can crack immediately after the parts have cooled. Another point: this steel is tempered and can be pinned by exposure to high temperature at maximum operating conditions. This leads to deformation and rupture of the welds. It is better not to mess with alloy steels, unless you are a professional welder.
Distinguishing a low carbon metal is quite simple. It is necessary to bring the edge of the sheet to the rotating circle of the emery machine to study the color and behavior of the sparks. They should be light yellow and roll in a straight line, as shown above in the photo. If the color of the spark is closer to white and it scatters in different directions with many "stars", then the material contains a high percentage of carbon. A dull orange, red or bright white color indicates that the steel is alloyed.
The order of work
It does not make sense to list all the necessary tools for work; it’s enough to mention the welding inverter, an angle grinder (grinder) and measuring devices. Instead of a grinder, a gas cutter is also great. The first operation is a section of the side of the cylinder along the factory weld with pre-filling with water. We get an open doorway for installing grates in the firebox of the stove and the cut-off part where the doors should be placed.
Then you need to cut the iron into workpieces of certain sizes, focusing on the drawing of a metal bath furnace:
An important point regarding the question of how to correctly place the chimney pipe on the furnace body. To avoid large losses of heat, do not fit it to the back, as different craftsmen do. It is better to cut a hole and weld the pipe on top, departing from the edge of at least 150 mm, as shown in the drawing. This will allow flue gases to circulate in the rear of the firebox before going out and in this way to transfer heat to the bathhouse more intensively.
According to the dimensions indicated on the drawing, it is necessary to make a grate from the reinforcement, having welded to the 2 longitudinal rods a lot of transverse ones with a step of 45-50 mm, as is done in the photo:
The design of this metal furnace for the bath provides for the support of the lattice at 2 angles attached to the inner walls of the firebox by means of electric welding. Grid-irons should not be rigidly attached to the corners, but simply lie on top, as shown in the sectional drawing of the furnace:
In the cut-off part of the case, grinders cut openings where the door frame is installed. Ribs are welded to the doors from the inside, then canopies and purchased handles. A sealing asbestos cord is inserted between the ribs. It is better to install the doors in place after the grate is installed in the home-made oven and the cut part is hermetically welded into place.
Due to the fact that the cylinder has rounding on the sides, a gentle rise in the hearth is formed from the inside in front of the ash pan door. Thanks to him, a metal stove for a bath made from a cylinder with his own hands can be cleaned easily, ash can be easily scooped out. In a home-made stove from a pipe in this place an uncomfortable threshold will appear, so the door should be placed as low as possible.
To protect against hard infrared radiation coming from hot metal walls, as well as in accordance with the rules of the bathhouse, the expert recommends protecting the casing with a net, filling it to the top with stones. Simply put, to make a home-made heater surrounding the oven on all sides except the front. Not any stones will fit for filling, but recommended for a bath:
- talchochlorite;
- basalt;
- river pebbles;
- white or raspberry quartzite;
- gabbro diabase.
Potbelly stove with a portable fire chamber
The design of the previous version of the heater involves heating the bath inside the steam room, which is not always convenient. There are many factory-made models on sale that have a so-called remote firebox, which allows you to perform all manipulations from an adjacent room - a dressing room. There you can safely store firewood.
Anyone who is able to make a home-made metal furnace from a pipe can easily weld a remote firebox if necessary. The algorithm of work is preserved, only the doors are installed on the front of the firebox artificially advanced forward. Details and indicating the dimensions of the metal furnace for the bath is shown in the drawing:
In both designs, the amount of combustion air is controlled by opening the ash chamber door. Regulation can be optimized if a simple fixture with a spring-loaded damper is integrated in the door. It is easy to craft from a piece of pipe with a diameter of 57 or 76 mm and a piece of thin metal. A 6 mm hole is drilled in the pipe, the axis of the same wire is inserted there, and a metal shutter is welded to it. The end of the axis is fixed with a nut with a spring, as shown in the figure:
Vertical furnace boiler
Vertical iron stoves made of pipes are also in demand among fans of bath procedures, so you can not ignore them. Another thing is that a lot of materials on the assembly of various simple bourgeois have been published on the Internet, it makes no sense to repeat them. But there are products that deserve attention for their originality, for example, a home-made stove - a boiler with a built-in heater, whose diagram is presented below:
The unit perfectly solves the problem of lack of space in the steam room, since its vertical case contains 3 chambers - a fuel one, a heater and a tank for heating water. True, the capacity of the combustion chamber is small and in the process of heating the bathhouse you will have to make several downloads, but this is a retribution for saving usable area. Again, if desired, the dimensions of the firebox can be increased by removing the water boiler or making its volume smaller.
Tip. The total height of the furnace for the bathhouse and each chamber individually can be selected by yourself, the main thing is to maximize the capacity of the furnace. Then the burning time from one bookmark of firewood will be longer.
The procedure for the manufacture of a vertical heater is as follows:
- Trimming and machining the ends of the DN500 pipe, cutting openings for doors.
- Preparation of round metal blanks with a thickness of 5-10 mm on the partitions, bottom and cover.
- Processing of cut parts and manufacturing of oven doors from them.
- Welding grate from reinforcement.
- Assembly of a metal bath stove.
Conclusion
Although a home-made stove made of steel pipe looks ugly in a bathhouse compared to factory “brothers”, it will give you a decent money saving.Even in the case when you buy all the materials, and entrust the work to the masters for a fee, you will get a potbelly stove half the price than in a store. Despite the fact that it is almost impossible to find a heater with a wall thickness of 5 mm or more. And the unpresentable appearance of the unit is easily hidden under a heater.