Ice shack stove size

[icedrill]

We have a 16’ camper converted to a shack.  Our stove is 22”long, 14” wide and 12” high.  Pretty large for size of our shack.   Problem is it seems to take a long time to heat up.  It’s made out of 1/8” thick steel.  Is it just taking a long time to heat up that thick of material?

[Fisherman 1]

Maybe wrong but with that size stove pipe, most of the heat is probably going up the pipe.   Almost looks like a mini crematorium, lol.

[badger132]

There are 3 parts of heating up:

1. The wood may not be dry, and will really take off once you have heated it up and driven off the moisture

2. Your stove is pretty heavy. It is a chunk of iron to get warm

3. The pipe heats up and drafts better, and the greater draft causes a hotter fire.

We used a similar sized stove to heat a 12X20 wall tent. We were burning dry pine, it was burning well in 5 minutes, and in 15 minutes we had the pipe hot, and it was time to damp it down. Is that faster than what you are seeing?

[icedrill]

That is a 6” stove pipe, usually run with the damper half shut once fire gets going.   I would say in about 15 mins there’s a good blaze going.

So with our setup, would you guys recommend us trying anything different?

[Gunflint]

I love a thick heavy stove.

That looks good to me. Just want nice small dry wood to start hings out.

[Rebelss]

I'd like to know what kind of wood you're burning....can make a big diff. Wood like willow, some pines, elm, old cedar do not give off high heat output (BTU's) like  others do. Just curious.

[badger132]

You never did say what you consider a long time to warm up. Since you have a real building, you need to warm up all the mass of cold walls and floor too, before you will feel warm.
A stove like that, with dry wood, split into smaller pieces to start, you should be able to have that stove roaring like a freight train in 5 minutes.
Does it draw well? If you have a long pipe, sometimes you need to work to warm the pipe enough to start a draw. A friend has a 20 foot plus pipe in his house, and he burns newspaper until it starts to draw- takes a couple tries if it is real cold.

[icedrill]

On a cold day, it’s about half an hour before things get warmed up, maybe being too fussy. 
We use mostly dry poplar, and we can get a real good fire going in short order, stove and pipe work well, just thought maybe it should be quicker.  Thanks for the reply’s

[icedrill]

One more thing I think it needs, is a baffle.
Question is, should the baffle plate be open to the rear of the stove?   Or should it go tight to the back wall and be open at the front?

[Rebelss]

A baffle plate is typically angled up towards the front of the stove.