There comes a time when plumbing, due to its appearance or malfunction, becomes unusable. But, replacing it with a new one, you should not rush to throw it away. Summer residents and home owners can easily make a garden stove from a cast-iron bath, which will not be inferior to factory models in terms of strength and service life.
Advantages of using cast iron
This type of metal is considered to be one of the best furnace materials. Its main advantages include:
- environmental safety. When heated, it does not emit harmful substances.
- Temperature resistance. An outdoor stove made of bricks can begin to crumble after a few years.
- High thermal conductivity. A cast iron fireplace warms up a room much faster than one built from other materials.
- Strength . Cast iron is the leader among metals in terms of strength. Even steel ovens are less reliable.
- Ease of use.
- fire safety.
The disadvantages of cast iron that you should pay attention to are brittleness and susceptibility to corrosion. In the first case, unnecessary mechanical influences should be avoided, in the second case, the surface should be treated with special solutions.
A home-made cast iron structure will not turn out very beautiful, so it is recommended to overlay it with brick or stone.
Preparation of materials and tools
To create such a miracle oven from the bath, you need to prepare:
- angle grinder (grinder);
- 2-3 circles for metal with a thickness of at least 1 mm, a diameter of 12.5 cm;
- electric drill;
- drills for metal with a diameter of 9, 11 mm;
- grinding wheels;
- files;
- a hammer;
- level;
- construction gun (for applying sealant);
- plumb;
- putty knife;
- Master OK.
Materials you will need:
- iron or steel sheet 5 mm;
- refractory red brick;
- grate;
- sealant;
- clay;
- sand;
- metal corner;
- bolts with nuts, washers;
- chimney pipe with a diameter of 12 cm.
Photo: the material is prepared, it remains to choose the purpose of the furnace and get to work
When all the materials, tools are collected, you can start cutting the container. For convenience, it can be turned upside down or laid on its side.
Users often search:
You need to wield the grinder carefully so as not to damage the surface.
Before you start sawing the bath, it is worth considering a few nuances:
- Marking will simplify cutting the product.
- The first layer of enamel is removed strictly along the drawn line. This will help prevent chipping at the edges.
- The next step is to cut the cast iron. Do this gradually, in small pieces of about 10 cm, so as not to overheat the grinder.
- When the bath is already sawn in half, supports are placed under each part. They will not allow parts to fall and damage the tool, material.
According to experienced builders, it is better to work with a grinder at an angle. So the enamel does not start to peel off and all the cuts will turn out to be smooth without burrs.
Subject to the use of a high-quality grinder, the processing of cast iron will take no more than 1 hour.
For a barbecue, you will need two halves of the bath: one part will serve as a fuel loading chamber, the other is necessary for cooking. For a sauna stove or fireplace, one half will be enough.
Step-by-step creation of a furnace from a bath
Without building experience, it is worth consulting with a specialist about all the intricacies of masonry and installation of parts, but it is better to perform work under the supervision of a master. So the product will turn out to be of high quality and fire safety standards will be observed.
As for the construction of the foundation, its type depends on the total weight of the furnace:
- For structures over 700 kg, a monolithic or strip base with a depth of 50 cm or more should be equipped. A formwork is constructed along the perimeter of the pit and covered with a layer of crushed stone or broken brick. Compacted. Filled with concrete.
- For small ovens, a brick foundation is enough. It is recommended to purchase cement grade not lower than M300. Bricks are placed with an edge, fastened together with a solution.
Now consider detailed instructions for the manufacture of each of the furnaces with different purposes.
For a bath
To create the necessary conditions in the steam room, the design must meet the following requirements:
- have a high thermal power;
- regulate convection currents;
- produce enough steam.
The procedure for building a sauna stove:
It is important to note that the foundation must have a protrusion on the borders of the furnace of at least 50 cm, and 1–1.5 m of free space must be left in front of the furnace.
An interesting idea is to make a bath stove from both halves of the bath. The second part will be needed as an extension for heating water, or you can lay out a Russian heater from it.
For cooking
At their summer cottage, you can not do without a barbecue or barbecue. And the opportunity to bake delicious bread, fry meat in the fresh air makes the owners equip small outdoor ovens on the territory.
Here is a description of how to build a barbecue step by step from the bath.
The sequence of work is as follows:
Some craftsmen leave the barbecue in this state, but to make your stove look beautiful, you still need to do the exterior.
There are several options:
- Clay whitewashing.
- Masonry of a whole ceramic tile or its pieces.
- Surface finish with natural stone, previously cut into pieces with a thickness of 10 mm.
The materials are attached to the furnace with heat-resistant adhesives.
A good solution is to install the chimney to the furnace through the drain hole of the bath, expanding it in advance, and only then weld it to the steel sheet.
For heating
In the country, it is easy to build a fireplace from half a bath. He can be:
- Built into the wall. Suitable if the house has brick walls. Significantly saves free space.
- Reclined (half-open). The firebox is located at a considerable distance from the wall. This fireplace does not need a separate foundation, it is mounted directly into the floor. Has good draft, the built-in ashpit.
The advantage of using a cast-iron bath for the furnace part is that the fireplace is obtained in the form of an arch and eliminates complex brickwork. The hole for the chimney is made at the top of the tub. The outer part is decorated with a fireplace portal.
When building a semi-open fireplace, the following recommendations should be taken into account:
- A cement mortar up to 15 mm thick is poured under the base.
- A metal mesh is laid on top.
- A layer of waterproofing is applied.
- Asbestos cardboard type insulation is laid.
- A pedestal under the firebox is being built. Suitable brick, aerated concrete. The binder mixture is cement mortar or heat-resistant glue.
- The structure is plastered. You can finish it with stone, ceramic tiles.
- Between the lining and the fireplace insert, a gap is left for the convection heating system.
- The chimney pipe is mounted in the hole made, removed through the ceiling, the roof. Often made in the form of a sleeve.
- From the inside of the firebox, the chimney is sheathed with heat-insulating non-combustible material.
- Finishing the bottom of the fireplace.
- The product is closed from the side and from above with a frame made of duralumin corners connected by self-tapping screws.
- The frame is sheathed with drywall.
- Holes are made in the lining for air ventilation.
When installing a chimney, it is important to take into account that with a pipe height of up to 5 m, the deviation angle is 45 0, over 5 m - no more than 20 0.
For waste disposal
An unusual decision to build an incinerator from an old bathtub.
The principle of its construction is similar to a street barbecue.
Scheme of placement of the furnace on a brick base
The alternative is to remake the old heater by removing all parts except for the grate and body. Part of the cast iron is welded to the base from the inside to strengthen the structure.
In such a fiery trash can, you can load waste directly from above. When burning, the stove should be covered with another part of the bath so that the smoke does not disperse throughout the area.
So do not rush to get rid of things that are out of order or have lost their appearance. In skillful hands, even an old bathtub will get a second life, it will become a functional stove that will last for many years.
More recently, I came across the brilliant idea of creating a garden stove from an old bathtub. The idea is so simple that any man can implement it. There are a lot of benefits from such a device, because it can be used as a stove, outdoor fireplace, barbecue and so on.
In order not to tire the reader, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the process of creating this country masterpiece.
For the oven you will need:
- old bath
- a pipe, it will also be a chimney;
- bricks, old and unnecessary;
- a sheet of metal with a thickness of 5 mm;
- grinder or any other device for cutting metal.
The first stage is the most difficult, since the bath will need to be cut across into two absolutely equal parts. In one of the parts, a hole should be made according to the diameter of the pipe. We make exactly the same hole in the sheet of metal that we managed to find. When the most difficult stage is left behind, you can proceed directly to the assembly of the structure.
1. We put one half of the old bath, in which there is no hole, as usual. On top of this half, place a sheet of metal. Attention! The hole should be in the area of the far wall. Now on the sheet, put the second half of the bath upside down, that is, so that the bottom looks up to the sky.
2. Our miracle oven is almost ready and it remains to add reliability to the whole structure. The edges of the bath-stove must be tightly fastened. Bolts, preferably large ones, are suitable for this. The holes for the bolts, of course, are better to be drilled in advance. As a result, it should turn out so that the metal sheet will be tightly clamped between the two halves of the bath.
3. It's time to build a chimney. We insert a pipe into the hole on the upper half and lower it a couple of three centimeters below the metal sheet. If the holes for the pipe turned out to be of a larger diameter, then you will have to be smart in order to fix the chimney. A zealous owner who does everything in good conscience will probably resort to welding and do the right thing. For greater reliability, welding seams are sealed with sealant.
4. So the garden stove from the bathtub is ready, the last touch remains - the creation of a pedestal. We make a stand for the stove from bricks, stones and other materials that you have on the site. Do you have construction debris that you still can’t take out? So turn on a little imagination, because your brainchild deserves a comfortable installation site.
That's the whole trick. Although it can be improved a little. For example, in order to make the firebox easier to clean from ash, you can put a grate on the bottom. But to achieve good retention and heat transfer, just like in a real oven, you can use a stone sheet, which is laid directly on top of a metal sheet.
Now you can cook everything your heart desires in this oven, from ordinary cereals to fragrant bread.
By the way, it is perfect for cooking jam and other summer preparations, which are so nice to get out of the pantry or cellar on a cold winter evening.
Of all home-made stove devices and structures, a cast-iron bath stove is best suited for a home steam room. It cannot be said that a home-made heater made from an old cast-iron stove has an exquisite design or is very convenient to maintain. You can’t argue here, home-made does not look as impressive as modern cast-iron boilers, but it heats up no worse, and in the construction of a bath, a stove from a bath will cost an order of magnitude cheaper than a heater made from industrial cast iron.
Why build furnaces from a bath
At first glance, the idea of a homemade cast iron heater looks rather unusual and strange. Why make a stove from a cast-iron bath with your own hands, if you can buy a factory-made steel boiler-stove. In fact, there is a rational grain in such an undertaking:
- Any metallurgist will confirm that thick-walled cast iron casting is ideal for arranging stoves, fireplaces, boilers of various designs and models;
- A good cast-iron boiler costs fabulous money, while building a furnace from an old bathtub will take a maximum of a couple of thousand rubles and several days of work;
- The semicircular section and shape of the bath body are ideal for organizing the combustion process, there are no stagnant zones or sharp corners leading to local overheating of the bowl walls.
It is clear that the body of the bowl should not have cracks, metal chips or through corrosion. Due to poor machinability, brittleness and low ductility, cast iron is quite difficult to process, cut and weld in the artisanal conditions of a garage or cottage. Therefore, in order to make a stove from a bath with your own hands, some practice will be required. At least, it will take a long time to select the mode in order to weld the cast-iron walls of the furnace by electric welding.
Preparing a cast-iron bath tub for remodeling
The first stage of building a heater, regardless of its design and size, always begins with the removal of layers of old paint, limescale, rust, all that debris that has accumulated on its surface over decades of operation.
Some masters recommend burning the body on wood in the open air. The stove is set on bricks and a small fire is kindled. It will take a long time to heat the cast iron bowl, at least 2-3 hours, until the remnants of pollution burn out. In this way, it is possible to get rid of stubborn odors and at the same time “open” the surface from lime and rust that have accumulated.
Cutting a cast-iron bath body into blanks
Cutting cast iron, especially thin-walled, is quite difficult, the material itself is soft and low-plasticity, with the slightest overload or excessive pressure it can crack in the most inappropriate place.
The body is cut in the following sequence:
- The cut line is marked on the enamel surface;
- An electric drill and a thin drill drill through holes in the corners, at the break points of the marking line. On a rounded surface, drilling is performed every 4-5 cm;
- On the markings made, they pass with a file or a sharpened blade of a hacksaw for metal in order to remove the enamel and prevent chipping of the coating;
- The last stage is the most responsible. The cast-iron bath is laid on a flat, absolutely flat surface and cut with a grinder along the marking line.
Advice! Usually, in order to avoid pricking, the body is cut along the contour, leaving several jumpers a couple of centimeters connecting the two parts of the cast-iron bath.
The remains of the jumpers are cut around the stone or removed with a grinder. It is worth remembering that when cutting cast iron, a huge amount of black metal dust is formed that can eat into the skin of the hands like soot. Therefore, before you start making your own stove from a cast-iron bath, you need to stock up on respirators and protective clothing.
Options for building a heater
For heating and heating a bath, you can use three types of stoves based on a cast-iron body from an old bath:
- A classic two-chamber stove with a firebox and a closed-type heater;
- Fireplace stove with screen;
- Dome stove, the most complex and interesting to make with your own hands.
The decision on which version of the cast-iron bath stove to use in the steam room is made based on the size of the bath and the method of heating. For example, cast iron fireplace stoves are great for a sauna, while a classic two-section stove can be used for heating a sauna room and even cooking.
Cast iron heater for a large steam room
Ideally, if you have experience and skills in working with metal, you can try to build a two-dome furnace from an old bath, as in the video. In this case, to make a real cast-iron firebox, you will need a full-sized bathtub, at least 180-190 cm long.
At the heart of a similar stove for a bath from a cast-iron bath, a whole body with a cut off short side or “back” is used. The bowl is placed upside down on a base lined with fireclay bricks on vermiculite cardboard. The design of the stove does not provide for the presence of a blower or a grate; firewood is laid out in layers directly on a heat-resistant base.
According to the device and principle of operation, a cast-iron stove from a large bath is almost identical to a Russian stove. The chimney or pipe for the removal of combustion products is located directly at the loading window of the furnace. The firewood laid out by the woodpile burns in layers, and the hot products of combustion go around the cast-iron roof of the furnace along a horseshoe-shaped trajectory and are removed through the chimney in front of the furnace.
Note! Asbestos tapes, basalt cardboard and heat-resistant sealant are used to seal the joint between the body and the heat-resistant fireclay base.
The cast-iron bath is lined with red brick walls. The remaining space between the ceramic cladding and the cast iron body is covered with foam glass granules. The upper plane is covered with a metal sheet. Due to the huge weight of the cast-iron body and brick shielding, the whole structure heats up no worse than a real Russian stove. According to the reviews of the owners, heat and smoldering coals in the cast-iron combustion chamber remain for a day.
Simple dome stove
If we are talking about heating a room with an area of up to 10 m 2, then instead of an uneconomical fireplace, you can try to build a do-it-yourself stove from a cast-iron bath of a single-dome type.
To make a firebox, you need half a cast-iron bath of a standard length. As in the previous version, a massive body is used to equip the combustion vault, but in this case, the size of the combustion chamber is half that, which means it warms up faster.
The combustion chamber also does not provide for the presence of a grate, so you have to kindle such a furnace with the help of a small woodpile laid in the depths of the furnace. After the firewood burns out and traction appears, you can lay the chamber at half the volume. It is no longer possible, cast iron is still not a brick, so the roof of the furnace can crack when overheated.
Cast iron bath fireplace stoves
Of course, it is not necessary to build a stove from a bath on half a wall of a bath. For a small steam room, you can completely get by with a small fireplace with a hearth loaded from a dressing room.
To make a small stove from a bath with your own hands, you can adapt the third part of the body of a standard bowl or use one of the small-sized models 120-130 cm long.
Note! The bodies of cast iron bathtubs are ideal for making fireplaces, including fireplace stoves for saunas. Subject to the technology of assembling the chimney and designing the heater, such a stove will heat no worse than an industrial design.
The cut off rear part of the body is installed on a foundation of heat-resistant bricks or blocks. The area for laying firewood must be covered with a stainless steel sheet, while the space for firewood must be pushed to the maximum depth inside the body. In the process of fuel combustion, hot gases will flow around the wall or the former bottom of the cast-iron bath, thereby increasing the efficiency of the furnace.
The depth of a standard cast-iron bathtub ranges from 40 to 60 cm, so the fireplace body will easily fit in the wall between the steam room and the dressing room. The back side of the body must be sheathed with metal, covered with a fine-mesh stainless steel mesh, and the filling of the future heater can be laid.
The classic version of the cast-iron bath stove
One of the most popular models is considered to be a two-section combustion chamber, made according to the standard scheme with a firebox, a blower, an ash pan and a hot chamber, where, in fact, most of the released heat is collected.
The design of the furnace consists of two sections - upper and lower, each of which is equipped with its own door. For the manufacture of one stove, one full-size cast-iron bath, 180 cm long, is consumed. The body is cut into two halves, which are interconnected along the contour of the side. A sheet of steel, at least 10 mm thick, is laid between the sections. A steel pipe for the chimney is welded into this sheet, which is led out through the location of the drain hole in the bottom of the cast-iron bath.
Features of the furnace assembly
The two sections are connected to each other only mechanically, any attempt to weld or glue the cast-iron halves will lead to the destruction of the structure. For assembly, parts of the furnace are stacked on top of each other, holes are drilled around the perimeter for M10 bolts and connected using spring washers. The joint line of the steel sheet and the edge of the upper chamber is sealed with a heat-resistant fireplace sealant.
In the bottom part of the lower compartment, which is also a firebox, a window for the grate is cut out. Grid-irons are made of a usual square pipe 20 mm thick. The front walls of the upper and lower chambers are cut out of sheet steel with a thickness of at least 5 mm; doors and latches are also made from it.
The design is very simple, the only thing you need to pay attention to when assembling a furnace from a cast-iron bath with your own hands is welding. All parts are hung and installed on the body by welding.
Note! It is necessary to carry out welding work only with direct current, with specialized electrodes of the UONI13-55 type.
The walls of the cast-iron bath are quite thick, so you have to spend several hours choosing the right mode of operation. The seam is obtained as if soldered, but the strength of such a connection is sufficient to withstand any thermal loads.
Conclusion
Making a stove from a cast-iron bath is much easier than laying out a domed heater, a fireplace or a brick heater. On average, it will take three full working days to manufacture one full-fledged oven with brick and tile lining. The quality of the work of such a stove is practically in no way inferior to the factory iron casting.
Cast iron is an ideal material for building a stove from a bathtub for cooking various dishes with your own hands on a personal plot. But since cast iron can be processed only in industrial conditions, then to make something from it with your own hands, you should use finished cast iron products, for example, an old bathtub.
Advantages of cast iron:
- resistant to high temperatures;
- has a high heat capacity;
- not subject to corrosion.
It is quite difficult to make a furnace from a cast-iron bath, this process requires attention and patience, since the bath itself is strong, but has a fragile structure.
Making from an old bath
An oven of this type is two interconnected halves of an old bath, located on top of each other. Therefore, you first have to cut the bath in half.
Attention! Before starting work, remember that cast iron is a very fragile material, and any, even minor damage, can ruin it and make further processing impossible.
To divide the bath into two identical parts, it is best use a grinder, drawing a cutting line in advance and accurately measuring the distance to the edges. Only then can you carefully start cutting the bath. Stock up on several cutting discs, as one may not be enough.
The most important thing to remember is: take your time. If you want to achieve an even and smooth cut edge, you should not rush anywhere.
Main stage: installation of the furnace
The most reliable way to fix the oven and give it stability is. It should be massive enough to ensure the immobility of the entire structure.
After fixing the lower part of the furnace, a sheet of steel about 6-10 mm thick is placed on it.
But keep in mind that the rate of heating of the furnace will depend on its thickness. It is he who will serve as the separation between the firebox and the oven, as well as the hob. Also, it is necessary to make a hole in it for the chimney, which will be welded to it later.