Masonry Heater Option

I'm always looking for ways to improve things. As we heat with wood exclusively, with a oil monitor back up. I was looking for ways to improve the heating in our house, reducing wood consumption, doing multiple things with wood, DHW, cooking and baking, longer burn times, just trying in general to improve the way I use wood. This is what brought me to this forum.

I've been reading here just about everyday since I have joined. All over the boiler forum, and the hearth room mostly, reading mostly what others or doing and so on.

I was wondering is anybody here was using a masonry heater? and if you don't have one what do you think of Masonry heaters?

The one I was looking was www.heatkit.com A real good friend of mine has one in his house and loves it.
www.tempcast.com another unit
www.canadiankachelofen.com

Benefits:
-easy on the wood pile
-no temperature spikes
-even heating
-oven, dhw heater available option
-utilizing the wood for max BTU much like a gasification boiler then storing the BTU's for up to 24hrs.
-clean burning
-safe as the fire is only present for 2 to 3 hrs.
-does not need electricity

draw backs:
-there not cheap $10,000 to $30,000
-permanent need a jack hammer to remove it
-does not heat like a boiler system, can't be zoned as a boiler storage system could be used.

Can one think of any other benefits or draw backs using these heater vrs other systems? What or your thoughts on these units. Or they to good to be true?

Sorry for beating a dead cat lots of good info there thanks

Byron

No problem in my house getting the unit on grad to help support the weight. I would have to remove the floor were I want the heater and pour a proper slab on grad. I'm always up for a challenge.

I think I may order up the core and build the stove myself. Time line for this project may be a couple of years. I have been looking at boiler systems but I don't think I can tackle a boiler system on my own. I can get a core for $6000 and then do all the masonry work myself. Keeping the project under $10,000. Boiler systems I've looked at $20,000 to $30,000 total investment. Also there a lot more complicated.

As for the DHW. I plan on putting the tank upstairs above the masonry heater, allowing it to thermosyhon. To help boast the tank when the stove is fired. I will install a couple of solar water heating panels. To Boast this tank during the summer. Here in the Yukon we have average 300 sunny days a year, so we got a lot of solar to take advantage of. The tank already has electric elements to keep it hot between firing, and when were lacking enough solar.

A wrap around bench would be a nice addition and very functional. Also greater surface area to release heat into the house and a little more stone for storage. A great place to sit on and relax the bones after a long day out snowmobiling and bison hunting at -40C.

I love the simplicity of these units. I don't mind firing a couple of fires a day as a worse case scenario. As all my wood I have is seasoned properly and takes a sheet of news paper to start the fire in my current unit with the split wood I us.

I do plan on installing a oven, maybe try and design a cook top also into the unit. Another savings using the wood oven vrs my current propane oven. Can't do this with a wood boiler.

There is a time lag when you light the fire to actual heating, more then a regular metal stove so to speak. But it isn't that great of a lag as the unit will have a glass front and through this door when the fire is full bore they do throw a ton of heat instantly. I have seen this for myself, or should I say felt the demo for myself.

Our main living area is open 800 squire feet, and two bedrooms upstairs. Just a small log built home in the woods. But we do deal with long winters and extreme cold snaps. I think this unit will solely heat our house and one season we would learn how much to stock the fire box according to the heating demand. Big deal if we over fire we open a window and get some fresh air. We under fire we build another quick fire. Being such a small place I feel our firing schedule may only need be every 24hrs, maybe 12hrs when it's -40C.

I like the fact that these units or bullet proof and if properly built, one it will out live the house, it will be around for generations.

The wood consumption will be lower then what I currently use. To factor in savings of 2 cord a year over 20 yrs. The current price of a cord delivered is $220x20yrs is a savings of $4,400. I don't buy wood but cut and collect myself plus I burn scraps off my mill. But $220 a cord is the going rate at the moment. That puts a value on my time getting wood.

Add in the price of electric for heating DHW and my investment would be paid back in 20yrs this is a conservative estimate but a true return figure. This doesn't include any cooking done on the heater, or replacement value of up grading a wood stove during the 20 yr term.

The money I save vrs a boiler system, I can upgrade my windows, add solar heating to my DHW, and hot tub, for the summer months. I will still have enough left over to purchase 20 cord load of logs delivered to the yard.

One big advantage of doing a wood boiler system is that I could heat my rental units on my property, and my hot tub. But if I convert the hot tub over to solar for the summer that would cut half a year of heating.

This my story, I think I have talked myself right into a masonry heater. Any thoughts on this theory of economics of a masonry heater?


Byron

Trust me . . . this is not beating a dead cat . . . although I thought the expression was beating a dead horse . . .

Dead Cat, Dead Horse, dead what ever, it's still a dead topic,
LOL

I think getting a engineered core system, is the way to go. Not to cheap out here. These cores or used as the bases it seems, then after one can finish the units as they see fit. Soapstone, benches and so on. I really like heaterkit.com because the have a "white oven" in the unit. This means that you don't build a fire in the oven then scrap the coal and ash out to the burning chamber, rather you just light your fire in the burning chamber and this heats the oven. I copied out of the planning guide the details of this see below. This was the selling point for me over tempcast units.

Domestic Bakeoven
New design optimizes
performance
akeovens are readily incorporated into
Contraflow heaters, and have become a very
popular option in the last few years. There
are two types. In the traditional “blackâ€
oven, flames pass directly through the oven, which is
then ready to bake after the fire is out.
In the “white†oven design that we have developed
for the Heat-Kit, the flames go around the oven
chamber instead of through it. This allows the oven
to be used at any time. The oven floor is
unobstructed, with no throat opening to the firebox,
and the interior remains clean, with no soot or ash
deposits. The closed oven chamber and airtight cast
iron/glass oven door gives helps to retain moisture.
The design has been refined over several years of
trials and feedback from users. Benefits include:
• oven floor is several inches lower, for easier
access.
• oven temperature now reaches up to 500° F.,
and will stay above 350° for up to six hours (see
chart from lab test - wood load for this test was
42 lb., previous fire was 24 hr.).
• we’ve added direct heat to the oven floor.
The oven operates for zero cost, since you are
firing the heater daily to heat your home. It can be
located either front or back. A popular design is to
have the heater serve as a space divider between
living room and kitchen, with the glass firebox
doors on the living room side and the oven on the
kitchen side.

Adios Pantalones said:

Other bonuses- you can have a cook oven in it.
There are hot-water options, though I don't know much about them.
There are other cool options like boot dryer cubbies, and heated bench areas. Tell me your old lady would not swoon over a heated bench in the winter.

Click to expand...

My old Lady? She's a sweet young lady, #1 wife, #1 mother, my best friend.

Yes she would also love the heated bench how do your think I talked her into letting me install one.

Were in our early thirties and live in our retirement home already, thats why I want to make it perfect as we love were we live, and if we decide to sell a improvement such as a masonry heater will only improve the value of our home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO6xhHHCzis&feature=related

Check this out, sorry I accidently also put this over in the Green Room so if you see it twice It's my fault. Think I may hook up my Blaze king like this. LOL