Masonry heater retrofit w/ emissions testing!

[jetsam]

I don't think all mass heaters are created equal and I highly doubt a "light" mass heater will be any more efficient than a freestanding woodstove.

Those popular diy mass heaters with no reburn must spend most of their time exhausting heated air out of the envelope. Probably nice to sit on, probably a net heat loss for the house unless you feed it constantly, or provide a way to block the air intake.

A simple snug firebox door would fix that, though it never seems to be part of the designs you see for them.

On the flip side of that argument, you can go on YouTube right now and see poorly insulated houses in Russia that were built around smaller masonry heaters and use them as the only heat source (though they mostly seem to feature some kind of multi-door air system that leaks some degree of combustion air into the house, according to the soot marks).

 

[tabner]

My father has a large off-grid post and beam house he has built on his own in northern VT. All the lumber he milled on site and the foundation is built from granite "seconds"he got cheap from local quarries, and moved and mortared himself. The house is built around a large masonry stove he built on site. It sits on ledge in the open basement floor, and extends up through the wide open second floor. I only have two old photos on here, and they don't do it any justice. Next time I'm up I'll get better photos and post them here. It's an incredible thing. Gotta weigh several tons at least. The white marble on the back are arlington cemetery stones that didn't make the cut because of imperfections. Theirs also a pizza oven on the back.

 

[SpaceBus]

I have seen one person design a "Russian" stove mass heater that could maintain the heating load of a house. I've seen one member on this forum that primarily uses a mass heater and it has a direct oven. The Russian stove designer I found can also include a cooktop in addition to an oven, direct or indirect. These have the long channels and complicated flue system, but I don't think they have the large "bells" like the mass heater in the video. I'll try and find the link to the designer and gallery.

 

[SpaceBus]

I found it

STOVEMASTER - Masonry Heater Gallery

www.stovemaster.com