I'm considering building a wood stove out of a 55 gallon barrel with a non-standard pipe design, where the stove pipe enters through the front of the barrel and runs along the top to the back. On the front, there's still a vertical section to get the smoke away from the operator's face and to create a draft.
I'm looking for some opinions on whether this design is reasonable and can be expected to work, or suggestions for a different design that accomplishes the same goal better.
Context: This is for a temporary outdoor tent sauna. The idea is to stick the back of the barrel into a tent-like enclosure (with a metal sheet "wall" around the barrel), pile up rocks on it, and splash some water. Having the pipe come out of the front avoids running it through the tent, eliminating the need to create an additional opening for the pipe and ensuring that no combustion products leak into the tent.
Best Answer
At my last home one of the fireplace stove inserts had at least a dozen horizontal pipes that also had rock wool on top to baffle the heat going up, the hot air was injected low in the fire box to increase the efficiency it kind of sucked getting it started because of the baffle. Once it started the heat took all the smoke up and out. the baffle was part of what made the stove meet Oregon’s efficiency standards so it can work and although tough to start it may work better for your plan on heating rocks stacked around the back of the drum.