A Tulikivi Brought Back from the Dead

Let us know how it does and some more details on how many sq feet you are heating with it. Would also love to know the story on why the stones sat for 22 years.

That's a beautiful stove. Never heard of Tulikivi before. Check this out, neat stuff.

Never quite followed how they operate and the exhaust gas flow in one of those but always wondered how you clean them out. Are those two bungs for that?

Beautiful! Hubsch!
I love the Tulikivi and looked long at hard at installing one in my house up here in the NC mountains. Finally figured it was just too much heat for this area.
It is a great design and a great looking stove. The most efficient wood stove in the world.

Wow, that looks great in there!

jatoxico said:

Never quite followed how they operate and the exhaust gas flow in one of those but always wondered how you clean them out.

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The exhaust is routed through the stone mass to extract as much heat as possible. You burn a short, hot fire to heat the stone, then the fire burns out but the stone releases heat into the space for many hours. With small, dry wood and the hot fires, I wouldn't think you would have to clean the flue much at all. My BIL has a Russian fireplace, I'll have to ask him about this.

Tulikivi's as well as many other European stoves used to be designed to be dismantled and rebuilt it needed. Some are even built with a clay mortar.
"The clay mortar, used for its elasticity, unlike cement based mortar never set hard and so dismantling and rebuilding a Kakelung was a relatively straight-forward operation."
Glad you were able to put it to good use.

Woody Stover said:

The exhaust is routed through the stone mass to extract as much heat as possible.

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This is the part I wonder about. How to clean all the passages which don't seem too accessible. If the stone extracts all the heat then the exhaust temps should be low. Even at startup before things warm up there must be a time where creosote can form.

jatoxico said:

This is the part I wonder about. How to clean all the passages which don't seem too accessible. If the stone extracts all the heat then the exhaust temps should be low. Even at startup before things warm up there must be a time where creosote can form.

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Not really. The idea is that they have a hot, short burn with the stove mass (bricks) absorbing the heat as the gasses go through the chambers. This will burn off any creosote that might have been created during the start of end of the burn.
I spent a year looking at a masonry heater and there is a Tulikivi mason less than an hour from me. The heat/cost ratio is quite bad IMHO and the kicker for me was that they should be placed in the center of a large room. I've got the large room but do not want a stone or brick mound in the middle of it. I spoke to 3 of the top builders in Canada and they all said not to put it on an outside wall. To much heat loss. As to that is the insurance question and the cost. I dropped the idea after that.

I've got a thing for masonry heaters (maybe excessive), and have been studying them for the last 5 years or so. The heater you have appears to be the kind that was built to go in a corner - that is a 90 degree angle. Usually the heaters are away from walls and are rectangular in shape. The 90 degree pattern creates triangular shaped flue channels.

Also a triangular space in the back is created where the outlet pipe may be placed. This heater was designed to fit into tight spaces. Great design for small or tight spaces. Disadvantage - masonry heaters heat best when centrally located in an open type of space. Masonry heaters have little clean-out doors built into the channels that a vacuum head can be stuck in to get the ash.

Your Tulikivi is a contraflow design. Masonry heaters can have their flue channels orientated in many ways. A contraflow has the passage positioned vertically - that is the burn goes straight up hits a barrier then goes straight down (contra = 180 degree turn). What they call a Russian fireplace has the channels positioned horizontally above the firebox - the burn goes right, goes up, goes left, goes up, etc......

A friend of ours has one in his home. He fires it twice a day and it keeps the entire three floor house comfortably warm even in the coldest temperatures we get in this area. The trade off is the extreme cost. I think he said his ran almost $15,000. With my Jotul, I could buy kiln dried oak for over 10 years to heat my home, and cut none myself, and it still wouldn't make up the cost difference. It just didn't make sense to entertain the idea for a stove like that in our home.

What crazy circumstances led to this work of art being left in pieces in the woods?

CentralVAWoodHeat said:

I think he said his ran almost $15,000

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Yup, I got estimates in that range or higher. No one seemed to believe me. The only way is to DIY but in Canada, you can't get it approved easily of it's DIY.

burnbabyburn139 said:

Hey Everyone,

Hope you all will enjoy this Tulikivi I just finished the assembly on. After years sitting in pieces out in the woods and unloved I was able to assemble this gorgeous heater the way it was meant to be when the stones were originally cut in 1994.

Thank you

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That's gorgeous!

Bravo! Beautiful heaters. Friends downeast have a masonry heater (centrally located) that heats their home efficiently and even allows them to cook in an oven on the kitchen side of the heater. Heaters like these were what heated the palaces of Russia, Germany, and Scandinavia for many years!

I wish I had a $15,000 nugget in the accessible areas of my timber....

If you don't mind me asking, how many hours do you have into this build and what was your final cost?