#MASONRY HEATERS PDF INFO PLUS#

Masonry heater - new stove based on an old design.

In the meantime, before I build one, I am simply going to pile large rocks around the wood stove. This is not a project for one new to masonry (see resources section). Surround your heater core with stone, brick, stucco or tile. Considering that masonry heaters are efficient and emit little pollution, the United States should take a closer look. Although these effective heaters were and are still popular in Russian and northern Europe, the United States has never had a wood shortage, so the masonry heater has been pushed aside for the wood guzzling metal stove. Burning releases about the same amount of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane as would occur if the wood were decomposing naturally on the forest floor.* Yet wood is a sustainable energy source, only when proper wood lot management is employed and when its energy is extracted efficiently and cleanly. Wood is a renewable resource and absorbs CO2 as it grows. In the past hundred years dirty coal, then oil replaced the masonry heater.

In northern Europe, 500-600 years ago, a long-lived cold spell caused local wood to become scarce and masonry heaters became common due to their efficiency. The masonry stove has been around in many different forms in almost all ancient northern cultures, from the 7200 year old Kang bed stove in China to the Hypocaust in ancient Rome. And like a wood stove, a masonry heater can exhaust through a metal flue pipe. A well-designed masonry heater can easily outperform most all EPA rated metal wood stoves. In a well insulated home, a masonry heater will use 1/3rd (or much) less wood, then a home heated with an old fashioned metal wood stove. A masonry heater always burns wood at the highest heat, if you desire less heat, you simply use less wood. If you tamp down the flue on a metal wood stove you increase the emissions of pollutants as the combustion of the wood is incomplete. Metal wood stoves must be tended to continually and fluctuate from peak high temperatures, to no heat, when the fire is out. In really cold conditions, you might need to light two fires a day. Because the stored heat radiates slowly from the masonry, it is only necessary to light a fire once a day in most circumstances.

#MASONRY HEATERS PDF INFO PLUS#

A metal stove gives out its heat rapidly, thus never allowing the inside combustion temperatures to achieve the 1100 degree F plus needed to ignite all the gases. Add a storage battery (the masonry) and you have a very efficient, non-polluting heating system. A slow burning, low temperature, low oxygen fire produces tar and hydrocarbons, a fast, hot, air-fed fire burns the pollutants up. Igniting and then drawing the heat out of the combustion gases turns almost every ounce of wood into energy. If the volatile gases are not fully combusted, they escape as wasted heat and polluting particulate emissions. When burning wood, about 30% of the generated heat is supplied by the wood solids and 70% of its heat is contained in released gases. At these high internal temperatures, the hydrocarbon gases ignite, leaving very minimal pollution. The temperature can reach 2000 degrees inside some masonry heaters (vs 700 inside a metal stove), yet they stay comfortable to the touch on the surface. Inside, masonry stoves burn hotter than metal wood stoves and their winding maze of flue (baffles) warms the surrounding masonry, which then emits heat for 18 to 24 hours. Masonry Heaters Also known as masonry stoves, kachelofens, Russian fireplaces, Finnish fireplaces, Swedish stoves, tile stoves, contra-flow fireplaces, radiant fireplaces and mass-storage fireplaces.

Masonry heaters pdf info