I see there is no place for Masonry Heaters. Not a Fire Place, Not a Rocket Mass heater, not a Wood Stove. Surely I'm not the only one out there with a Masonry Heater? Here is a couple of pictures. Firebox with fire. View of front View of backside in the kitchen. It has a "white" oven. Our Heater is a 2 story job. Here is the 2nd floor. I looked at Rocket heaters before we built. To me a Masonry heater seemed a better answer. Uses very little wood, the only attention once you light the fire is about 2-2 1/2 hrs later when all the flames are gone you have to close the air supply. Why no Love for Masonry Heaters?
This is something i'm really interested in. If I fulfill my plans in the future of building a place in the north woods, this will be something i will seriously consider. At some point, I am going to research this more in the future and try to come up with a design !
Love yours and will most likely be building one when and if I build. Here is my buddies. His is two stories too with a similar fireplace outside the bedrooms on the lower level and a double sided upper level. Kitchen side with pizza oven. Living room side
The thread "are we all doing it wrong" about heating his place on .6 cords of wood got me thinking. I took temp readings of my flue pipe as it exits the masonry heater. Here it is. 115 deg F. This is while my firebox is going with a fire for over an hour. I took some temps on the back and the front of the heater on the first floor too. I know that the temps on the brick will rise for about 5-6 hrs after the air for the fire is shut off. The flue however will get colder. fire on back side below oven, oven is at 350 at this point. about a foot above fire box
This is incredible. Every so often I come across these, obsessively read about them, then get sidetracked and forget about them for a year only to find them with the same wonder all over again.
Is the combustion so complete that a 125* flue temp does not give you trouble with creosote? I understand the mass and it's great advantages, but those flue temps confuse me.
That's an external temp, so internal is probably near double that...my Kuuma furnace runs similar temps...maybe just a touch higher.
[Probably near the same for masonry heaters] The minimum temp of flue gases that a rocket stove can run with is super low compared to our steel stoves, below 200° F. 180°-ish comes to mind, but might be lower, can’t quite recall. Yes FR, the combustion is very efficient, with nothing but the lightest and least amount of fly ash being left. Peter van den Berg over at Donkey32 on Proboards (and many other of their members, like Matt Walker- a member here, too) have extensively proven this. The action of the “double ram’s horn” is both turbulent and mixing, and the pressure differences between the “firebox” and the riser (where this turbulent burn occurs) drives the system. If the temp goes to low, the thing can stall.
This is one of Peter van den Berg’s many videos from a quick google search- I picked this one to show the double ram’s head flame, and the force it exerts, for lack of a better term. This is an open system for experiment only. There would be a masonry “bell” or housing (or the ever present 55 gallon drum) built over this to absorb and radiate heat. Typically, the setup has an exhaust outlet below the level of the fire box when fully constructed.
I recognize those doors. Looks like a stove from Eric at Solid Rock in MN. I have an SR-22 with two doors and a black oven. Great appliance for all the reasons you mentioned. We need a MH thread for sure.
Masonry heaters fascinate me. My problem is I want an open fireplace, wood stove, wood gasification furnace, passive solar house and also a Masonry heater. All this stuff fascinates me.
We have a passive solar home, masonry heater, and wood stove. The 3 compliment each other well. Passive solar includes east west orientation with a 2 foot overhang on the roof to ensure solar energy is captured in the winter and shed in the summer. We used as much thermal mass as we could afford by tiling the floors. I may consider some masonry on walls eventually. We literally designed the house around the masonry heater. They’re extremely heavy and need additional thickness in the slab. I made sure to run a 2nd flue through the foundation of the heater for a wood stove in the basement which I added later. Last winter we had a week of very cold temperatures but lots of sunshine. I turned the heat off that week to test our setup. We had no trouble keeping everything comfortable and on some days it was a bit too warm with all that sunshine! There are often days when the outside temps are in the 40s but the heat doesn’t run due passive solar gain. No experience with wood gas. I too find that fascinating. I did make a small gasifier “tube” to make my own lump charcoal. Just fill it with chunks of wood (usually splits of cookies) secure the lid and put it in the masonry heater. Breathes fire from the holes once up to temp and leaves you with charcoal for steaks!
Seems like there’s a lot of info to sift through on the internet about masonry heaters. Does anyone know of any good and verifiable sources? I want to see and study design and maybe see some plans. Also, I haven’t seen any sizing charts/info for homes showing square footage and heating calculations. Info on codes and reg’s would be good as well.
