here the gas store tower. the upper barrel is near 500 liters full with woodgas, the under barrel is full with water and the water works like a flexible gasket so the gas cannot escape…the upper barrel was lifted up with a little winch while the gasifier delivers the gas.
the stored gas but is only sufficient for circa 50 minutes cooking with one burner.
i thought it would be longer because of the corner dates i found, i thought 3-6 days for cooking, but i think i have not considered the relative weakness of the woodgas and the nearly half volume of not burning nitrogen…for cooking with two fires it is shure best direct producing and using the gas with electric blower
interesting to see- the fresh produced and burning gas has an orange flame, the storaged gas burns completely blue how you can see on the fotos of the burner cups…
A Gasometer! Very cool. Does this give you enough positive pressure to run the burners?
This is indeed an incredible build. Good job. I posted an idea to run a winch powered gasometer a while ago here but never got to build it. But now you gave me courage 
Just one suggestion thugh. I have found an charcoal gas powered burner works much better if you drip water in the gasifier. Not only is the gas more caloric, its also faster burning wich helps to dump its energy in the cook pot more efficiantly.
An even better way wuld be to use pyrolisis gas for this. No nitrogen and it alredy has a smell to it!
Theoretically with pyrolisis gas you wouldn’t need to lift the Gasometer as the pressure from the gas exiting kiln would lift it enough. Maybe that depends on how heavy the storage bell is. I know Nighthawkinlight on youtube managed to let it lift itself.
That is the only gas storage device I would ever endorse. Thats pretty cool and well if there is a booboo, Rockets are cool too!!.
I’ve built a lot of “alternative” stoves on a few different continents. Never had any trouble with CO. But Also, usually I was working in houses that were not sealed very well. Usually in tropical environments. And the comparison was to having an open fire in the floor, rather than proven-clean propane.
Still, I think your woodgas exhaust is not going to be much different than propane. The fact that you can’t smell CO is a bit disconcerting. It wouldn’t be a terrible idea to have an exhaust system of some sort anyway…to remove heat and exhaust.
It wouldn’t necessarily have to be powered even.
The danger is in operator error. You have to build into your system the idea of what happens when someone screws up…not only when everything is done properly.
The fact is, we take the same chances with wood stoves and fire places. It’s just that these have been around long enough that we trust them more. We know how to use them.
Every year we have the Talladega stock car races here in ALabama. Every year they have 10 or 20 thousand people (or more) camping at the track. It starts getting cold that time of year and lots of people light a lantern inside their tent. Usually, the cleanup crews find at least one tent full of corpses at the end of the week long event. People turned on a lantern and went to sleep. Burned all of the O2 out of the tent and never woke up.
Stories like this make us afraid of the unseen killer CO, but I think it is much less dangerous than we fear…IF WE KNOW ABOUT IT AND TAKE PRECAUTIONS. If you use it to cook and then turn it off. Have some ventilation just in case. safety switch so you don’t get surprised…
that’s my 2 cents worth…maybe it’s not worth that much.
All the people I know who cook only on wood simply have 2 kitchens. WE have 2 kitchens. One for summer and one for winter. Even if we’re using propane.
About twenty years ago a man sold a gasifier plans. He stored the gas outside in a large bag set on end with a wood frame to support the bag. Indoors he cooked with the gas. Many years ago people in town cooked on town gas. That was where the saying or idea of commiting suicide by placing your head in an unlite bake stove came from.
the upper barrel has a weight of 20 kg and gives enough pressure. for make more pressure one can regulate with for example iron pieces on the barrel or for less pressure some pieces of iron on the chain of the winch
hi kristijan, with the water drip can be a good idea, but i have seen on our charcoal that umidity easily begins to make rust in the hopper when the coal is only a little bit umid…
i like very much on charcoal because we produce by ourself in the bread -baking oven, before thewood burns completely down to ash, i take the red glow-coal out and give it in a closen container, so without air it can not burn for longer . this i make several times while the bread is in the oven, so with only bread baking i get one bucket 25 liters of best charcoal without energy waste… the firewood is used only little branches with max diameter like a finger, so the charcoal has just the right size. i never had made woodgas with feeding wood in the gasifier , only with charcoal, it seems less work instead of make woodpieces by hand to the right size…of course the pyrolysis gas is lost for the gasifier.
i can imagine when making woodgasyfying and use and burn the gas direct it makes a lot of smoke too on the stove burner? in this case is needed filtering?
i am relatively new with gasifying, only since summer 2020, and have only built 4 gasifiers, the others all downdraft, only the cooking gasifier is a updraft model because i hope i must not shake the gasifier to avoid plugging in the hearth- therefore the nozzle is only some centimeters above the grate , so on one side the grate is protected from the heat and on the other side the ash falls down without shaking, in opposite to downdraft design, where a more oe less high reduction area is under the nozzle and needs vibrations or shaking for not to plug…
Pete, I used one of these in '08 for a few months before the group I was working with a group that bought one of Vesa’s gasifiers from Finland. Yes, it came with a stove, complete with D-cell igniters.
hi kristijan, a thought again, with generating more energy with hydrogen by waterdropping is generally a good idea, but when storing the gas in my gastower it can be possible that the different gases are dismixing caused by different weight of the gas and at least only the hydrogen , when finished woodgas in the barrel , comes out at the cooker and than -big bang?!?
what do you think about as chemistry expert?
another thing with the gas tower with the “water gasket” in winter it can get frozen the water and the system not works because the upper barrel gets blocked…
we made the observation with ash-water, also water with added wood ash in quantity that the water after a few days becomes like detergent-like soap water-not get frozen at -7 degree celsius… it was not colder last winter so we couldnt make more obsevations …
this ash water in the under barrel could work well for not get frozen…and also is a good detergent to wash because you can make it by yourself , cost nearly nothing and is free from poisoness chemicals…
ciao giorgio
hello woodgas friends,two days ago we made the first try with a electric fan for blowing the gasifier, the experiments wit propeller shaped ventilators were really disappointing…they were not able to move the air throug the conus pipe. yesterday we tried this kind of ventilator what you can see on the foto and this works really very brilliant!!! lightning the gasifier throug the glowing charcoal in the retangular box works pretty well, after very short time good gas was produced with nearly a half meter long flame, i think enough pression for two cooker cups.
on the foto in front is a 12 v electricity hand generator made from the motor and gear from a window wipper from a truck, we use always for experiments… for working than with a fotovoltaik panel how explained…combined with a regulable current delivery system for regulate the turn of the motor.
the motor is 12 v from a car… from the propeller application what cools the water refrigerator when the engine is off. the 12v motor in this way we use is cooled by the airstream.
the air shuffle wheel is from a hoover , i think my 12 v motor needs about 40 watt?
it was no sun so i could not try by solar paneel the electric need, only approximately by the needed power to turn the generator by hand…
looking for alternative energy sources will become always more important in the near future i think, all energy will become more expensive …
my english is not so good but i hope you can understand though
ciao giorgio
Hi Giorgio, not even close to a expert
I dont think you need to worry about gases separating. Gases like to stay in “solution”. Think of it this way. Sugar is more dense thain water, yet sugar will never just fall down if you leave syrup or honey on the shelf.
You may be carefull useing ash as your antifreeze. The compounds that prevent freezing like potasium and calcium hidroxide will react with the CO2 in the gas. Great for extracting the useless CO2, but the resaulting products will fall out of solution making it useless as antifreeze… Since you got stainless vessels, maybee just use salt? Theoreticly shuld last till - 15c…
Or don’t use water at all…
hello kristijan, this is a very interesting information about to leave the -in the gas - useless nitrogen!
how it works? immediately or after a while? will say when i lift up the gasometer barrel the reaction is while i am doing, and in this way i can bring more burnable gas in the barrel?
or it happens after a while, so the upper barrel sinks down, when the nitrogen goes “away” , and where it goes? - increase the ash water volume?
chemistry was never my strong side…
salt water is with my stainless barrels not the solution, because it is not aisi 316, it is only 305… also not salt- sea -water resistant…but freezing here in middle italy is not so a great problem , only maybee for some days or a month… in this colder time we cook on the wood stove and on the gas storage i can leave the water when is frost -danger-because of eventually damage of the barrels, they are relative thin walled…
because of the relative short time -50 minutes -of using the stored gas i think so…bigger cooking how lunch i use direct the gasifier for cooking and have gas a lot, when not more used for cooking i fill up quickly the gas tower, and this gas is than used for short cooking as breakfast and dinner…so i think it makes sense and i must light the gasifier only one times a day…it remains only to resolve the problem with the security switch what needs a greater diameter…
i have seen here in the forum a lot of your projects, very impressionant-gratulation!
also your way to your self sufficient farm is from my sight the best for the future, we began this 30 years ago…
hello bruce, water is the cheapest, the barrel has 700 liters… fill with for example oil or others what not get freeze is expensive…only solution would be to use a double walled container, where the “gasket” liquid is only between the two walls , so is needed less liquid…
but i think gas pressure is less …