Masonry heaters (Earthen Ovens) in Serbia

[precaud]

It's always interesting to see woodburning practices in different parts of the world.

A friend of mine who lives in Serbia sent me this link showing traditional ovens and heaters in Vojvodina, a Belgrade suburb. They have been used there for generations. She doesn't have one (she has a cast iron wood cook stove which heats her whole house), but loves the look and feel in homes that have them.

http://translate.google.com/transla...ljane+peći+u+Vojvodini&hl=en&lr;=&prmd=imvns

Apparently most of them are stoked from outside the home, with wood stored in sheds or garages.

 

[Ehouse]

They're beautiful. If stoked from outside, is the heat brought into the heater by water, or air with the chimney inside the house?

Ehouse

 

[precaud]

They're beautiful. If stoked from outside, is the heat brought into the heater by water, or air with the chimney inside the house?

No air or water collectors, they're just high-mass direct radiators.

 

[Ehouse]

Ok , I think I get it. The fire box door is outside. I like the one with the penguins!

Ehouse

 

[begreen]

I saw this style stove in Bulgaria and in the Emperor's palace in Vienna. This is a shot of the business end of the stove in a Bulgarian museum house. The other side went into the bedroom. It looks the same, but with no openings, just radiated warmth.

 

[Sisu]

Interesting stuff! I once stayed a month on an old farm in the Czech Repulic in Central Bohemia that had a masonry cookstove with a large cermic platform overtop the flue channels for sleeping on in the winter. My relatives in Finland have various masonry stoves and my wife's relatives in Croatia also heat with wood (masonry and hot water heating). Wood heating is still pretty popular in certain parts of Europe, especially where it is cheaper vs gas etc.

 

[Burn-1]

Very cool and the wall paper on them is a testament to their relative safety.

 

[begreen]

Here's some examples that I saw in the Hofsburg Palace in Vienna. This is in the emperor's winter palace. It is huge. Every major room had a heater, some with too. In the bedrooms there were some wildly baroque models. Imagine casting that porcelain? The stoves were all fed from behind via a series of hidden corridors and the stove tenders had a respectable position, but they never saw the royals. The heating bill for this place must have been outrageous. The palace would go through a minor forest of wood annually. These stoves were inspected in 1946 and found to be still in perfect working order. Though now the palace is centrally heated without wood.

 

[jimbom]

...Wood heating is still pretty popular in certain parts of Europe, especially where it is cheaper vs gas etc.

And like this side of the pond, wood gives the user independence from natural and political forces that disrupt supplies from time to time.

 

[Sisu]

...Wood heating is still pretty popular in certain parts of Europe, especially where it is cheaper vs gas etc.

And like this side of the pond, wood gives the user independence from natural and political forces that disrupt supplies from time to time.

Very true. The wood users in Central and Eastern Europe must be pretty happy right now, compared to those relying on gas.