DIY charcoal?

Kelpie

Kelpie

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My heater woes continue. Currently leaning towards a charcoal-fuelled device as I would, I hope, be able to reuse my 1" flue from the now-dead Wallas.

Anyway, charcoal is not always easy to find, at least not in winter in the north of Scotland, and especially proper lumpwood rather than those briquettes that are about 90% incombsutible material, or so it seems.

IIUC, charcoal is made by heating wood in the absence of oxygen.
So, what's to stop me putting some chopped kindling into a sealed tin (I'm thinking a biscuit tin or old paint pot) and sticking it in my woodburning stove at home for a few hours. Will it explode? Will the wood inside remain stubbornly non-carbonised?

Most importantly, if I make a video of it and put it on youtube, will I become famous ???
 
You can make your own charcoal, although a few acres of hardwood forest could be handy.
I have just sold my Pansy charcoal stove, and although it was nice, they don't kick out much heat for a full time liveaboard in the winter. (Hurley 24' so a bit less volume than a Vega).
A 2nd hand Webasto 3kw is going in instead, £100 on fleabay, and I would rather worry about battery issues than dick about with a charcoal heater after last winter freezing, and after experimenting with wood, smokeless fuel etc in it, which I do NOT recommend, I am still cleaning soot off everything.
In your position I would move heaven and earth to rebuild the Wallas, anything can be repaired (I presume it was a 12v blown air heater).
What was the Wallas like when it was working properly? Would you get another if you could?
This is a subject close to my heart, let me know how you get on, cheers Jerry
 
I make my own charcoal in a 500 gallon fuel tank, you can make a bit of artists charcoal in a biscuit tin but it would be a bit tricky to make enough to fuel a stove for a few weeks.
 
jerrytug said:
You can make your own charcoal, although a few acres of hardwood forest could be handy.
I have just sold my Pansy charcoal stove, and although it was nice, they don't kick out much heat for a full time liveaboard in the winter. (Hurley 24' so a bit less volume than a Vega).
A 2nd hand Webasto 3kw is going in instead, £100 on fleabay, and I would rather worry about battery issues than dick about with a charcoal heater after last winter freezing, and after experimenting with wood, smokeless fuel etc in it, which I do NOT recommend, I am still cleaning soot off everything.
In your position I would move heaven and earth to rebuild the Wallas, anything can be repaired (I presume it was a 12v blown air heater).
What was the Wallas like when it was working properly? Would you get another if you could?
This is a subject close to my heart, let me know how you get on, cheers Jerry
Click to expand...

Hi Jerry,
my deceased Wallas was a fairly elderly model last produced in the 80s, and no spares are available for it. It was a handy wee thing to be fair, starting was a case of clicking a switch so you could wake up, turn it on, and 20min later get out of bed and find the boat was toasty warm. I will miss that.
Kuranda have been suggesting from the outset that replacement would probably be a good idea. When it arrived with them, it had been damaged in transit and the PCB may have been damaged which I think is the end of the story. I cannot buy a direct replacement as they have changed the shape and it would no longer fit in the space without major carpentry work.

This leaves me with a 1" flue and a cold boat... so a charcoal heater looks like it might be the answer. Should be very easy to install and unlike the Wallas will not make a clicking noise continually whilst running (that used to annoy me).

In an ideal world I would investigate a wider range of options but I need to do something about this ASAP.
 
Croak said:
I make my own charcoal in a 500 gallon fuel tank, you can make a bit of artists charcoal in a biscuit tin but it would be a bit tricky to make enough to fuel a stove for a few weeks.
Click to expand...

I would be making a wee bit every night at home when the fire is on. I'm sure over time it would add up.
How much charcoal do the Pansy type heaters go through?
 
As a kid I used to make it and sell it.

Pit in the ground, light fire, add wood, allow wood to ignite, drop cast iron lid on top, regulate air intake via a flue, there were also 2 small chimneys _ as little air in as possible, yet keep some smoke flowing.

Dirty job and spent hours at it and didn't make much money, but was good quality charcoal.
 
Well, that's me made the decision- have purchased a Pansy charcoal heater. Hope to have it by the end of the week.
First test batch of charcoal currently roasting in my stove in the house. I used two old tin cans back-to-back.

The Pansy uses a 1" flue. I'm looking at using a length of eberspacher exhaust to connect this to my existing flue and deck fitting.
The current flue has an aluminium tube. I'm wondering if flexi eber exhaust will actually be more heat-resistant? If so, perhaps I should buy a longer length and take it right up to the deck-head.
Should I install a length of flue above the deck as well?
 
The Pansy will put a lot more heat up the flue than the blown-air heater so aluminium tube might not stand it.
The main point of my posting is to point out that if you do put an extension above the deck make sure it is insulated, otherwise you will have a cold air plug which will make lighting difficult.
On my charcoal heater (home-made) heater to deckhead was flexible Eberspacher exhaust.
I had about a metre of flue above deck, copper pipe with a home made "H" cowl on top insulated with exhaust lagging.
 
You can get lumpwood on line for around about £20 for 20 plus kilo-and there is one supplier who happily delivers up here for no surcharge-IV63!
Flue pipe is readily available as on inch diameter 2mm thick stainless exhaust repair pipe on e bay-any length-other dias. to choose from plus some firms can mandrel enlarge pipe end to fit over existing pipe end.
 
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Gordonmc said:
The Pansy will put a lot more heat up the flue than the blown-air heater so aluminium tube might not stand it.
The main point of my posting is to point out that if you do put an extension above the deck make sure it is insulated, otherwise you will have a cold air plug which will make lighting difficult.
On my charcoal heater (home-made) heater to deckhead was flexible Eberspacher exhaust.
I had about a metre of flue above deck, copper pipe with a home made "H" cowl on top insulated with exhaust lagging.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Looking at getting a length of 24mm eber exhaust to go to the through-deck fitting. The fitting is a bronze screw-down mushroom vent and is actually more like 50mm wide or so.
I'm wondering if I ought to use a wider diameter tube above deck level, seeing as that would fit better over the mushroom vent, or will this do funny things to the draw of the flue?
 
You say charcoal is difficult to come by in winter - could your Pansy burn peat, and would that be available?
 
I do have a stash of peat, but I would rather avoid using it in as small a heater as the Pansy. It leaves behind a large amount of ash so would clog up quickly, I imagine. I actually avoid using it in my woodburner at home for that reason.
I have heard of people using peat on their Pansy to keep it going through the night, though.
 
A wee update.
Just fished out my tin-can charcoal roaster from inside my stove. Worked absolutely perfectly. It's a small quantity but very happy with the quality, not a hint of brown left at all. Quite good fun really :)
 
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