European Thermal Mass stoves.

[TeeDee]

Does anyone have knowledge of European/Russian thermal mass Stoves? The sort of large ceramic / tile thing you'd find in small homes in very cold areas. Great big masses of thermal sink construction that holds the heat in the homestead.

I'm wondering if they are configured in any certain way ? Any sort of methodology to how the burn chamber and vent exhaust runs? Anything like a rocket stove but just with a Tonne of thermal mass sitting around it?

 

[Toddy]

I have friends who built theirs (in a greenwood bender type home, but huge) using the bricks from inside old storage heaters. They covered that with clay. They piped it using old field drains.
Very economical on the firewood, very comfortable to have in their living space too

I'm pretty sure they found plans online.

Indeed did ....cannot mind his name, fellow in eastern Europe, building his own house a few years ago, and he posted it here....not build one into his home ?

Lots of interesting links out there....like this, which is a pretty good explanation, I thought

The masonry stove or thermal mass heater - RCM Cad Design Drafting Ltd.

Over ten years ago, I met Chris Hedderson from Rocky Mountain environment Technologies outside the Denver log home show. Chris had an outside booth with a masonry stove (modular refractory kit) fired up within a large tent. While it was a very cold weekend, I recall how toasty warm it was inside...

www.rcmcaddesign.com

Mother Earth news has an article too on the Russian style which also produces hot water.

Build a Russian Masonry Heater From Bricks – Mother Earth News

Learn everything you need to know to build a Russian masonry heater with bricklaying know-how and masonry fireplace construction details.

www.motherearthnews.com

 

[Toddy]

Looking quickly online all I see are these upright style ones. My friends is more organically shaped rather like the rocket mass heater thing with the huge water tank. Their piping runs through what is their big wide seating area/sleeping pad on bitter cold nights.

 

[SaraR]

'Kakelugnar' got a long, intricate smoke channel to transfer all that heat to the body of the stove and they are really very heavy. You used to have to redo them every so often to keep the smoke from leaking out into the room, but that might not be a problem with modern versions.

 

[TeeDee]

I have friends who built theirs (in a greenwood bender type home, but huge) using the bricks from inside old storage heaters. They covered that with clay. They piped it using old field drains.
Very economical on the firewood, very comfortable to have in their living space too

I'm pretty sure they found plans online.

Indeed did ....cannot mind his name, fellow in eastern Europe, building his own house a few years ago, and he posted it here....not build one into his home ?

Lots of interesting links out there....like this, which is a pretty good explanation, I thought

The masonry stove or thermal mass heater - RCM Cad Design Drafting Ltd.

Over ten years ago, I met Chris Hedderson from Rocky Mountain environment Technologies outside the Denver log home show. Chris had an outside booth with a masonry stove (modular refractory kit) fired up within a large tent. While it was a very cold weekend, I recall how toasty warm it was inside...

www.rcmcaddesign.com

Mother Earth news has an article too on the Russian style which also produces hot water.

Build a Russian Masonry Heater From Bricks – Mother Earth News

Learn everything you need to know to build a Russian masonry heater with bricklaying know-how and masonry fireplace construction details.

www.motherearthnews.com

Thanks Toddy - perfect!

 

[stevec]

I used one once in Finland, it was made of some sort of blue quarry stone. As well as the usual damper arrangements it had a diverter for want of a better word. When you start the fire it runs straight to the chimney for maximum draw, once things are going properly, you pull the leaver and send the waste gas through the stone to heat that.

 

[TeeDee]

It makes me wonder exactly how thermally efficient the standard Metal Fuel burners are for optimising heat generation from fuel over the longer term.

Sure all material TURNS to heat output , but are we just sending it straight up the chimney.

 

[Robson Valley]

I've burned everything wood-fired from open fire places and pits, to AirTites of sheet metal to log burners and pellet stoves.
The "mass stoves" will suck up a lot of heat but as ballast, the rate of release will be far more constant and consistent than I've ever used. The warm floors and constant warmth are serious attributes.

They look like an absolute bitch to clean out. How often. What the Hello do you do with the wind howling at -20C and the stove is so choked with ash that you have no choice but to stop and let it cool and mess with it?????

I'll bet a bottle of Alberta Rye that it will take an hour (the whole bottle) to get the stove hot enough to begin to warm the house again. From Canadian experience, I can tell you that your whole house will be pretty dang chilly by the time you light the match.

Up the chimney or through the walls, you are still going to lose the fire-generated heat. Spend some money on an extra couple of inches of insulation.

In this day and time, I'll place my bets on the compressed, ultra-dry wood pellet stoves. I ran a Harman P38++ for 10+ years and burned at least 100,000 lbs pellets. From a clean-out cold start, I'll guess that it cost 10kg pellets to reheat the 1/4" thick steel plate body of the stove. That's 2-3 cans of good ale. Then the heat exchange blower would come on.

The only local one that I've seen is a standard log burner, wrapped with 2 layers of bricks. One of those thermionic(?) electric fans on top for circulation. Off the grid? Heavenly.

 

[Toddy]

I know that my friends use a tiny amount of firewood, and their home has 'no' insulation worth talking about. It's all open and airy. It baffles the weather it doesn't stop the weather, iimmc ?
They're still warm.
I think they use about a fifth or sixth of the firewood that my brother does to heat his three bedroom house with a woodburner stove.

M

 

[Broch]

The trouble with wood burner stoves is that you have to over-heat the room it's in if you want to heat a house with it - even if it's got a back-boiler.

As far as efficiency goes, a modern (as in the last 5 years) stove is between 80 and 90% more efficient than older stoves (according to the test data used by the marketing people). They now have quite complex gas recycling and burning flows using baffles - having said that, the flue on the hut stove still gets quite hot! But if you trap too much heat you don't get the draw that ensures you burn the gasses - probably leading to a far less environmentally clean burn. I can't turn our stove down so that it will stay in all night because the 'dirty burn' that would result is no longer legal.

If anyone is tempted to install a DIY mass stove, make sure you put in a CO alarm

 

[TLM]

I used one once in Finland, it was made of some sort of blue quarry stone.

Soapstone, it is used because of the easy working and it does not split easily with large temp changes.

 

[Tengu]

I have some heater blocks if you need them

 

[TLM]

They look like an absolute bitch to clean out. How often.

Not really the flue channels are arranged so the ash does not collect into difficult places, you take the ash out from the bottom as in any fireplace. Slightly more difficult is carbon residue in the channels if wrong type of wood is used or if the stove is not heated upto a high enough temp every now and then.

 

[Kadushu]

There are a couple of efficiencies which can get muddled and lead to confusion. One is the burn efficiency - are all the combustibles fully combusted, free from particulates, CO, etc?
The other is thermal efficiency - is the heat produced by combustion going where you want it? Is it heating the room, water, oven, etc, or disappearing up the chimney?

There are also 2 types of rocket stove which can make seeking information tedious/confusing. One is the camping, fast burning, open flame stove type not relevant to this thread. The other is for indoors use and features a heat exchanger with a huge area to cool the exhaust gases as much as possible. This is the type Toddy is talking about and can be so effecient that the exhaust is cool enough to touch. In such a setup the flue has a horizontal outlet and the exhaust doesn't 'draw' in the traditional sense of a vertical chimney.

 

[Toddy]

There are a couple of efficiencies which can get muddled and lead to confusion. One is the burn efficiency - are all the combustibles fully combusted, free from particulates, CO, etc?
The other is thermal efficiency - is the heat produced by combustion going where you want it? Is it heating the room, water, oven, etc, or disappearing up the chimney?

There are also 2 types of rocket stove which can make seeking information tedious/confusing. One is the camping, fast burning, open flame stove type not relevant to this thread. The other is for indoors use and features a heat exchanger with a huge area to cool the exhaust gases as much as possible. This is the type Toddy is talking about and can be so effecient that the exhaust is cool enough to touch. In such a setup the flue has a horizontal outlet and the exhaust doesn't 'draw' in the traditional sense of a vertical chimney.

That describes it so much better and more clearly than I did
It's not upright like those tiled European 'wall' stoves, it's a kind of low recumbant sleeping dragon kind of thing It's not a fierce drawn fire either, it's a burn it and let it go out, doesn't need constant feeding. It's literally a huge great warm mass that gives off a very comfortable heat for very little work. Really, really efficient.
I wish I had room for one.

 

[Broch]

I wish I had room for one.

And I think that sums up the problem for all practical purposes

 

[Herman30]

@TeeDee Are you talking about something like this:
(this one is from Estonia)

Russian old stove:

 

[Toddy]

I think those are very much in the same vein, but those are cooking stoves as well, while the ones my friends have is really just a big warm mass in their living space. One they kind of sprawl out upon when sitting/resting and it's cold out. Their's is more like a sandstone rock that's been in the sun all day long, and is a lovely place to sit in the evening

 

[TeeDee]

@TeeDee Are you talking about something like this:
(this one is from Estonia)

Russian old stove:

Yes - more the sort of thing featured in the Video.
I appreciate that many UK houses cannot easily accommodate such structures but equally those that have larger buildings often install a wood burner and seem to omit the thermal sink element.

I wonder how much of a Midway step could be made between the Two types - Bigger than a Modern aesthetic stove - smaller than a massive unit of thermal material. A Goldilocks type stove if you wish.

 

[TeeDee]

The guy that makes these ( which I appreciate are a million miles away from what we are speaking about ) makes these - I've wondered if I could provide him with a direction to design in ( efficiency over aesthetics ) if he could design something more viable to heating.

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