Honestly - just had this conversation with a buddy 3 days ago. This is just my own humble opinion but I always preferred to have the door of my stoves pointing to the middle of the room. I just didn't like the side door style because it felt cramped against the wall when I was filling the stove or stoking it or whatever - plus there is almost always less flammable clutter in the middle or open area of the room/shop - lol.
I agree with keeping the stove as far away from the door as possible. Again - personal preference. I used to have a barrel stove but now, neither my township nor my insurance company will allow one. I LOVED my barrel stove heater! If done properly, they can be safe, effective, and last a good many years.
Just like anything else, I had to take mine to the next level (insert manly man grunt noises here). I bought the double horizontal barrel kit which is basically just a single kit with a set of legs that support a second barrel on top of the first. I did the common "through-pipe" method to the top barrel. This is where you cut several 1" holes (or whatever size you prefer) in the top plate of the barrel and the same corresponding holes in the bottom plate of the barrel, slide a length of 1" steel tube or pipe through both ends and carefully weld them in place, making sure the welds are air tight. This tube trick more than doubles the efficiency of the 2 barrel stove. Place a fan (we used a simple house box fan on ours) to blow air through these pipes and you have yourself an awesome heat machine!
I also highly recommend several inches of sand on the bottom of the barrel and a layer of fire bricks on top of the sand and around the sides of the barrel. The sand and firebricks will double the life of the sides of the barrel. Otherwise, the sides and bottom will rust out much more quickly.
The second one I built was for a friend. Since mine had built up a lot of creosote on the tubes, we cut out an inspection/clean-out door in his top barrel. Then we took a scrap piece of plate, cut a circle out of it just a little smaller than the diameter of the barrel, we cut the same pattern of holes as the top and bottom plates but these holes we cut a tad larger with the plasma cutter so the edges were rough. We placed this plate inside the barrel via the clean-out door and ran the tubes through the plate as we were installing them. This plate didn't get welded to the tubes. What we did was we drilled a hole in the very center of the plate and a corresponding hole in the center of the front (or top) of the barrel and ran a solid rod through the top or front end of the barrel and welded it to the inner plate. This gave us a scraper plate that, when you pulled and pushed that rod in and out, the plate would slide back and forth on the tubes and scrape the creosote buildup off of the tubes and keep it much more efficient. Plus he could use the door to remove the buildup after he scraped it. It worked awesome. I always wished I had done it to mine after seeing how well it worked for his.
Going with the double barrel doesn't increase the footprint at all and let's face it - it's otherwise unused space directly above the barrel stove anyway - right? Either way, best of luck with this project. Be sure to post some photos when you have it finished.
