# Propane in wood-burning type stoves



## Patches

Technically, Im not Patches. Im her younger son, but I was hoping you would help me out.
Most everybody here probably has some experience with how much better wood burning stoves heat as compared to normal central-heating units with ductwork etc. The metal stove absorbs the fire's heat and radiates it as shortwave radiation, alot like sunshine- rather than heating air, which is then expected to heat you. (If youre writing a book, dont quote any of that- its just the way I understand it). What Id like to know, is if you had a propane system run inside a metal heating stove, with an open flame burning inside, would the effect be similar to burning wood? I dont know why it wouldn't be, but the real question is whether or nor this would be at all cost-effective. Could any body help me out or share an experience?


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## Michael Kawalek

Hello Son of Batches
I don't think it's worth the trouble of converting a stove to propane just for the heat. It would probubly work better with a regular propane heater that is just warming the air. The thing that's so wonderful about a woodstove is the massive amount of heat that it can produce quickly, but you have to put up with the widely fluctuating temperatures as the wood burns down. Wood can be so much cheaper than propane that you'd spend a lot of money on gas to get the same effect. In the long run I'd think you'd spend less money with a conventional propane heater that was set on a relatively low setting.


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## farminghandyman

I would say yes, but the efficiency would probably suffer in practice, they at one time made conversions for coal stoves (usually the larger units in basements that had the large round pipes that would radiate out from the center of the top of the unit), and they make conversions for other early boilers an such, but the efficiency was very low (many times less than 30%), I guess it was OK when propane and NG was very cheap in cost.

I bought a few of the unvented LP wall heaters for the barn, and had a blue flame unit and an infrared, unit, basically the flame heated a ceramic plate, I took the blue flame out and replaced it with a second infrared unit, and the diffrence was basily the diffrnce of the flame heating the ceramic plate or not, I felt the infrared was more effecent than the blue flame units, nore comrfortable any way,


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## Windy in Kansas

I tend to agree that efficiency would suffer. Gaseous fuels generally have a lot smaller flue than a wood burning unit. Using gas in a wood burner would lose too much heated air as a result of the over sized vent.

At least you are thinking and that is what gives new inventions and improvements to us in general. Good job, keep it up.


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## Harry Chickpea

"Technically, Im not Patches. Im her younger son, but I was hoping you would help me out."

(smart-aleck answer ahead) I don't think any of us can turn you into your mother. 

Seriously, of course the idea would work. There are any number of fireplaces that are designed for the use of either gas or wood, and there are multi-fuel furnaces.

Efficiency - propane burns incredibly cleanly if the flame is properly set, or ceramic or some other material is used to convert any "off" products of combustion into water and carbon dioxide. Radiant propane heaters are not vented at all, so the burn is effectively 100% efficient. Any time you introduce a flue or heat exchanger, some of that heat is lost to the outside.


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## Patches

Hey, thanks everybody. I should have explained the situation though. The stove is going in a boat, a thirty-foot cabin cruiser, so hauling wood cant be done. The boat is going on Grand Lake next summer and will be my new residence. The stove needs to heat roughly 250 square feet, all one room. Im building it (growing up in the family metal-fab shop ruined me. Off the shelf is never good enough) and building to be efficient. Between body heat and passive solar radiation let in via double-glaze, the propane stove will do pitifully little even in December. However, I hate the cold. Since the cook stove is gonna be propane anyway, Ill heat with propane too. I dont mean an open flame as in gas/fumes floating through the house, but a propane flame burning inside the stove, heating the stove, which then radiates the heat. Thanks for any experience.


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## Harry Chickpea

Please reconsider. Propane on a boat is not a happy combination. Propane will sink to the lowest parts of the boat if there is any leak. Once there, and a spark is formed, "kaboom!" Alcohol stoves were commonly used onboard when I was growing up. Second choice was a kerosene stove or in distant third, a white gas stove. No boater I ever saw used propane, and for good reason.


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## Ross

Sungel makes RV and boat fireplaces (not a great heat source but they do make heat) burning gelled alcohol. Very reasonable prices and no venting needed.


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