Potbelly stove for 18' camper

[Spaceman Spiff]

I would keep a bucket of two of cut, and seasoned wood in the camper . . .

Hard to do if you have to move every 14 days.  In many jurisdictions it is illegal to transport firewood; they are trying to limit the spread of destructive insects.  Must use local wood or kiln dried dimensioned lumber.

Some of the people I know with stoves are using coal or charcoal.  Better heat output, easier to control heat output, and easier to store.

 

[RoamerRV428]

another thing to remember also if one lights a fire even in a little wood stove you can't leave it.

it kinda holds ya right where you are. You shouldn't be driving with it lit.
You can't just walk away from your van or camper and go with someone else for a day out while that little guy is blazing etc.....well we all know we should not

just saying in general that while they are great ways to heat they come with a great bit of responsibility also.

 

[Varmint]

I would think that any wood, coal, or pellet stove could be supplied fresh air via a small pipe through the outside wall of the van or trailer. You would want a valve to adjust the air flow or cut it off entirely. This would prevent sucking the warm air out of your living space to feed the fire. A 1" pipe with a ball valve should provide enough fresh outside air to make a small stove simmer all or most of the night.

 

[highdesertranger]

couple of points,

trying feed outside air to a woodstove only works on an air tight stove and it needs to be set up to do this. some are some are not.

the fresh air intake must be the same diameter or close to it as the exhaust stove pipe. a one inch pipe will never cut it.

highdesertranger

 

[ckelly78z]

On my home woodstove, I have been fooling around with burning wood pellets in a steel basket (inside of my standard airtight woodstove). A small 8x4x4 basket will hold about a quart jar (maybe 3#) of pellets, and burn for just over an hour, and you can add more easily to continue the fire. I have been thinking about building a basket about 3-4 times larger for extended burn times.

At my local TSC, wood fuel pellets are $6 for a 40# bag, --OR--, you can also use pelletized horse bedding (very near the same thing) that costs about $5 for a 40# bag. I would estimate that a 40# bag would transfer into two 5 gallon buckets for easy storage, and there is no cutting/seasoning required.

I also am experimenting with Nut coal, that is also about 6$ a similarly sized 40 bag at TSC, and has about twice the BTU rating of pellets for a hotter fire/longer burn times.