Dowling Stove Works

[Battenkiller]

I found this YouTube clip about Dowling Stoves that I thought might be of interest to some. They are individually designed and made in a small fabrication shop. The designs supposedly get very complete combustion just by the layout of the firebox and air path - no fancy baffles, firebrick or secondary burn chambers. Just pure radiant heat, coming right at ya. And they are very beautiful... in a purely functional kind of way. Check out how clean the glass is. I want one!

 

[dafattkidd]

That is crazy. It looks like some sort of futuristic space ship. Also i loved how like 3:20 into the video the workers were listening to Bon Jovi.

 

[Renovation]

Thanks for posting that, it was great to watch. It broke my heart when they painted it black. There must be some durable finishes that would let that great steel show through.

Regardless of the technical merits, it's great to see a hands-on stove business, and one that is bringing American stove aesthetics into the 21st century. I'd love to see the technical leaders move into that sort of updated, modern-but-tough look. Or at least one. Maybe Blaze King, since few would cry salty tears over losing the old look. (Diving under desk.)

Someone like Lee Iaccoca said "It doesn't cost any more to build beautiful cars than ugly ones." I'd think the same would be true of stoves. But perhaps most stove buyers like them better the way they look now.

 

[littlesmokey]

Nice stoves, great designs that reminded me of Rennie MacIntosh and the early Arts and Crafts movement. It also has the elements of early Shaker stoves. The basics are always there, it seems and the design is in the packaging. George they are truly "modern" in design, but very traditionally in concepts. Only problem is, they are Scottish, Rennie's home, and not likely available in the US. Nice website:http://www.stevedowling.co.uk/dowlingstoves/index.html

 

[begreen]

Looks like a very seat of the pants operation. I don't see any reburn systems which makes me wonder how they manage anything near 80% efficiency. I'd like to see some instrumentation on the stove and flue. With no firebricks, baffle plates, secondary tubes or even rope gaskets, some of these stoves look like fuel suckers, though I did see secondary air ports on some of the designs.

 

[Battenkiller]

Looks like a very seat of the pants operation. I don't see any reburn systems which makes me wonder how they manage anything near 80% efficiency. I'd like to see some instrumentation on the stove and flue.

Yeah, I wondered about that as well. They claim to design based in part on intuition. Maybe they intuitively feel they are getting the efficiencies they are shooting for. %-P

The basic idea is to shape the stove in such a way that there is lots of turbulence created inside the primary (and only) burn zone, which would foster a very complete combustion because of the even mixing of air and fuel gases. That would work up to a point, I suppose, but I think the stove could be very particular regarding how it was loaded, and I'd think you wouldn't want to fill it much past the halfway point because that might kill the mixing in the space above the wood. I'm guessing, of course.

What most impresses me is the effortless skill these guys have with their tools. They aren't using anything I don't already own in my tiny metal shop. No plasma cutters, machine brakes, robotic welders - just some good, heavy steel plate, a cutting torch, a few welders, and some grinders. And lots of experience using them. I've got plenty of scrap steel plate around here, but I don't trust my welding skills to keep the things from going "sproing" in the middle of the night. Otherwise I'd like to make my own stove of similar design, just for grins.

It's nice to see the spirit of the shop-built steel stove still thrives in Scotland. There is so much that can be accomplished through experimentation and iterative design concepts, that is the great beauty of the steel stove. But there is little incentive for a stove company to do that when the designs they already have pass the EPA testing procedure just the way they are. Sadly, that brings innovation to a standstill, and we are doomed to using increasingly more complex and sophisticated heaters while simpler and more elegant solutions remain unexplored.

 

[Renovation]

Nice stoves, great designs that reminded me of Rennie MacIntosh and the early Arts and Crafts movement. It also has the elements of early Shaker stoves. The basics are always there, it seems and the design is in the packaging. George they are truly "modern" in design, but very traditionally in concepts. Only problem is, they are Scottish, Rennie's home, and not likely available in the US. Nice website:http://www.stevedowling.co.uk/dowlingstoves/index.html

Thanks for the info, LittleSmokey, very cool. I missed the Scottish aspect--that's my own heritage.