Has anyone used an old Brick Wood Stove for heating? Some people called them masonry stoves. Are they as good as some people claim. Small hot fire heats up masonry/brick stove, that then radiates heat for hours without the fire. Supposedly uses way less wood then the standard metal wood stove.
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Have built a couple of masonry heaters. They’re expensive to build and heavy. Best built during new construction, or as the house is being built. They are composed of a series flus that when superheated, retain the heat, and dispense warmth throughout the day.
They have been used in Europe for a long time due to wood shortages.
Realistically, you’ll save two cords a year most.
Expect costs of 10-20 grand for the build.
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l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
Some friends have one. They call it a Russian Stove. They live at 10,000 ft altitude in Colo on the North side of the slope. I kinda like it, but as others have noted, these stoves need to be built during initial construction to avoid some real remodeling headaches. Sometimes the back door to the house is left open during the day, and they don't have to stoke the thing frequently, like I did with a steel stove.
These have always intrigued me. We've heated with wood for years but the issue with a standard stove has always been keeping the house warm while we are at work for 10-11 hours per day. If built right I have a hard time believing you're only going to save a couple cord a year.
They say everything happens for a reason. For me that reason is usually because I've made some bad decisions that I need to pay for.
I've got a buddy over on the next ridge. He's got a massive masonry heater in the center of his house. It takes about 3 days to get up to temp and then a bushell basket of wood is good for 12 hours.
Good news: the mason that did his construction is still available. I'll be hunting him down shortly for the build at my place.
I researched the Tulikivi long and hard when I was desigining my house. Like someone said, you burn a hot fire for 30 minutes, and the house stays warm all day. You burn one fire in the morning and one fire at night. It does not take 3 days to get the Tulikivi up to heat.
However my house is in the NC mountains and I determined that it was not cold enough here to justify a Tulikivi. I would have to keep a window open half the time I was running the stove to cool the house down.
This stove is made in Finland, a modern and wealthy Western industrial country. And very cold. In Finland, ten percent of the new houses are heated only with a masonry stove, also called the "Finnish fireplace."
I surrounded my stove on three sides with concrete sidewalk blocks and piled rocks on top. It seems to work fairly well. I have toyed with the idea of building a brick enclosure which would look a little more professional but I don't look at it much anyway (it's in the basement). The stove sits on a cement floor as well. GD
Scandinavian "tile stoves" are real big over there, I would think they would know something about heating efficiency. There is some stuff on Youtube, but I don't know anyone who has one. Logic would tell us that a stove's mass, once brought up to temp, would modulate the temp cycle of burning solid fuel. Also, it seems to me that masonry products, to some degree, may provide a catalytic action, equaling more efficiency. Wood and coal do not really burn, they say, the wood or coal get up to a certain temp and then gasify. So the longer the firebox could maintain the critical temp at which the fuel gasifies, the more efficient the burn, more btu's, less smoke, creosote etc. The firebrick liner in the firebox of big boilers in a sawmill, burning hog fuel, glow near white hot, you need to wear welding goggles to look into the furnace.
Well this is a fine pickle we're in, should'a listened to Joe McCarthy and George Orwell I guess.
I surrounded my stove on three sides with concrete sidewalk blocks and piled rocks on top. It seems to work fairly well. I have toyed with the idea of building a brick enclosure which would look a little more professional but I don't look at it much anyway (it's in the basement). The stove sits on a cement floor as well. GD
I seriously thought about doing that. Spent many hours figuring out how to stack up block around and above the stove to add thermal mass. The girlfriend really disliked the idea. Plus my stove is in my living room above a full basement. I could have put a couple of posts on the basement floor below to support the weight.
Finally, I decided not to do the masonry surround but the idea still is intriguing to me.
A friend of mine has a Russian Fireplace/ Stove. I was visiting 1 day in late winter. He told me to check out the built in dutch oven. It was about 100 degrees inside it. He told me that he hasn't fired the unit up in 5 weeks. It throws a 15' flame through the flue system when fired. Amazing.