newbie needs help with masonry heater

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roger901

New Member
Feb 5, 2012
3
Central PA
I bought a house in PA 6 months ago that has a russian furnace. I've spent the last couple months, on and off, teaching myself how to use it without filling the house full of smoke. I measures approx. 2 ft wide, 6 ft. deep and 7 ft tall and is in the basement. Even though it has been a very mild winter here, even if I burn a fire twice a day, I never get enough heat to even feel it on the ground floor. The basement doesn't even feel warmer, even though the furnace gets quite warm in some spots on its surface. Three feet from the furnace, you don't feel a thing. Previous owner is deseased, so I can't ask him.

Any ideas why this thing doesn't heat any better than it does or can you point me in a direction to someone that can help someone new to owner a masonry heater?
 
How much fuel are you burning per firing? Is the basement insulated?
 
Welcome.

I'm far from being an expert, but masonry heaters are generally part of the living space. They abosorb the heat from a really hot fire and radiate it back out into the room. You probablyget won't feel much radiant heat, but it will be warm to the touch. Never seen or heard of one in the basement. First question that comes to mind, how dry is your wood? What kind and how long has it been split and stacked to dry? Are you burning it as hot as you can? Was it inspected when you bought the house? Wondering if the flue is clean. I have no idea how you would clean it with all the bends in the smoke path. Do you get smoke spillage just at startup? I would think once it warms up and you maintain the heat, draft shouldn't be a problem. Maybe call a good sweep. Is the basement insulated?

Also, feel free to post some pics. We like looking at that stuff.
 
We lived with a Russian massive heater in Japan for a couple of winters. Our house was uninsulated, board floors, woven bamboo ceilings and sliding doors for walls. In other words cold as heck. The heater did get warm and radiate heat, but the house air never did warm. You have to be in direct line of sight for these to give gratification in poorly insulated surroundings. We loved ours, but it was the room divider between the kitchen and living room. An ideal location. We kept it warm all winter.

Bone dry wood carries about 8,600 BTUs/pound into the firebox. Burn 20 pounds in an hour and you will have released 160,000 BTUs. Temperature rise of the masonry will depend on the mass heated, efficiency of the transfer of heat to the masonry, and how much energy goes up the chimney during and after the burn.

Get out your scale, moisture meter, and IR thermometer. Start weighing your wood, getting the moisture, and recording the surface temperatures of your stove. Record outside weather conditions and indoor temperatures. Start out with the largest load you can safely use and burn it as hot as possible. Vary load size. In a couple of weeks, you will be the most knowledgeable person on the planet regarding the best way to operate your heater.
 
Just thinking about your question a little more. Our current well insulated house has a concrete hydronic floor. It is much like a Russian stove turned on its side and spread out 1.5" thick. It will keep us very comfortable if it is only 80 °F. But only because we are in actual contact with the floor as we sit or walk around. Your stove in the basement may never serve adequately for comfort upstairs.

I would make sure the basement walls and sills are sealed and well insulated. Then use the masonry mass chimney for a steel convector wood stove. The wood stove will heat the air that you can move upstairs. Or, tap into the chimney at the next level and install a wood stove in the living space of the home. This use of the chimney is reversible if the Russian stove is put back into operation.
 
DSCI0607.jpg

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Here's pix. I'm burning 20-25 lbs each time. I will burn Fri. night, Sat morn. and night, and Sun morning and night, while I'm trying to figure this thing out.

Basement is not insulated, but the weather has been so mild this winter, its probably between 55-65 degrees all the time.

This weekend was the first I burned hardwood, and I don't think it was very dry...I got it from the hardware store in bundles. I've been burning all the scrap that was left in the basement by previous owner...2x4's, plywood, etc. House was inspected when I bought it, but no one including the inspector knew what to make of it. I found a local mason that actually builds russian furnaces to come and look at it, chimney sweep it for me and show me how to fire it up. It smoked like crazy for him as it had been doing for me, so he said he'd do some research and get back to me and never did. I figured out I had to leave the back side cleanout port cracked just till the fire had been burning 15-20 minutes to not get smoke, then I could close it. Fire seems to burn hot and fast, but I get more smoke out of the chimney than I expected to see, based on the reputation.

Flue is a little smaller than standard...it's 7-1/2" and it should be 8" according to the mason I referred to earlier.

The idea of weighing the wood, checking moisture content of wood and recording all along with surface temps from various spots on furnace makes a lot of sense.

That being said, I don't think this thing will ever be very useful for heating the house from the basement. I saw another russian furnace last Sun. in a neighboring town and that thing was 1/2 the size and put out 10 times the heat as mine.

roger901
 
It does look like the problem may be poor fuel, not enough fuel and basement walls sucking up a good third of the heat output. Add them up and the no heat complaint is understandable.
 
I'm glad to see you made it over! :)

As the others said above wood may be an issue along with trying to heat all of that mass, then the walls of the basement itself.

When you get some dryer wood, try making a small paper fire in the chimney's cleanout door to charge the flue and then build a regular fire in the heater itself. I suppose you could use that torch to charge the flue also. If it hasn't been inspected, you may want to check out the chimney's condition with a mirror while you are at it.

Matt
 
Good pictures. Looks like the firebox may be a wood stove with brick surrounds. Do you think this Russian stove may have been designed and built by the homeowner? Does the city have a file on your building and any permits that may have been issued? Depending on the city, you may be better off not asking. Might find a drawing or sketch. I see the chimney originally had a circular breech.

One thing our Russian stove had was a clean out at every shelf. We could run a cleaning tool down the length of each smoke shelf. We didn't have much soot, but I wanted to make sure it was clear before the first use. Are you able to follow the smoke path and clean all?

We started ours by building a kindling fire in the base of the chimney. Then we lit the main firewood charge on the opposite end. I think ours burned pretty clean, but in those days, I wasn't really paying attention to the finer points of wood burning.
 
In addition to the above, after the fire has burned out, the sliding damper should be closed all the way to keep the heat from going up the chimney. I would guess this is owner built, because although the masonry looks OK, the siting is all wrong. These stoves need to be in the living space as they are "line of sight" or radiant heaters. I think a professional would know that. The notion that heat rises doesn't apply to radiant. I'd say much more than 30% of the heat produced is being absorbed and conducted outside by the block walls. The surface temps. of the masonry are not high enough to warm the basement air because it has little mass to absorb the radiant. Best solution? Finish off the basement and have a nice, cozy family room.

Ehouse
 
Judging from the circular patch in the side of the block chimney, looks like someone may have had a wood/coal stove or furnace connected to the chimney at one time?
Is the chimney even lined with anything? Looks like you have a few things to check out prior to burning in that thing.
 
After thinking about it, maybe heating a finished basement was the original intent, and that's why it's there. It looks clean and ready for work down there. Is there another heating system for the rest of the house? How are you doing hot water?

Ehouse
 
Wonder what is under it. That's quite a bit of weight for the middle of the basement floor.
 
Yeah, I don't see any sign of a footer, and is that a crack extending from the floor below the loading door and ending two bricks (or three) above the clean out? Questionable clearance to the summer beam, and what's the clearance to the block chimney?

Also, you're calling it a masonry heater and then a Russian fireplace which it appears to be because of the layout of the smoke chambers, so you've done some research, or gotten info. from the seller. Seems strange that they would give you no more information or you would not inquire about it before buying the house.


Ehouse
 
IF your masonry heater is sound; i.e., no cracks, proper venting
(mine has an 8" chimney), etc. the two problems I see for
smoking and not heating are

1. It's in a depressurized basement which is bad for most any
heater let alone a slow to warm up masonry one

2. As someone pointed out, the basement is unfinished. All
that exposed concrete and uninsulated wall is soaking up the
radiant heat. You'll never catch up without insulating your
basement.

Although it hurts me to say this, if finishing your basement
is not an option for you, consider bypassing the masonry
heater and adding a metal stove (gets hot, heats fast but
eats more wood).

Aye,
Marty
 
Marty S said:
IF your masonry heater is sound; i.e., no cracks, proper venting
(mine has an 8" chimney), etc. the two problems I see for
smoking and not heating are

1. It's in a depressurized basement which is bad for most any
heater let alone a slow to warm up masonry one

2. As someone pointed out, the basement is unfinished. All
that exposed concrete and uninsulated wall is soaking up the
radiant heat. You'll never catch up without insulating your
basement.

Although it hurts me to say this, if finishing your basement
is not an option for you, consider bypassing the masonry
heater and adding a metal stove (gets hot, heats fast but
eats more wood).

Aye,
Marty
Click to expand...

Marty do you heat your whole house with a heater like this?
 
I heat the open floor plan main floor (1540 sf)
and loft (400 sf) with a main floor TempCast masonry heater.
It doesn't heat the basement. This shouldn't surprise anyone.

A Harman TLC 2000 wood/coal stove is in the finished basement.
This thing will heat the whole house.

Aye,
Marty
 
Marty S said:
Here is the TempCast doing its thing.

Aye,
Marty
Click to expand...


Wow. That is incredible. Marty, do you have any threads explaining your TempCast? How it works, how much wood you burn, what kind of burn times you get out of it etc?? I don't mean to high jack this thread so maybe if you could start one or show me a link to one. That is really cool.
 
Do a search on threads posted by Marty S. He's posted a lot about his masonry stove.
 
Roger901, that link above to http://mha-net.org/ might get you some good information, and I believe they have a forum that you would be able to ask this question to.

One thing I have picked up along the way in researching these stoves is that after the fire has burned down all the way, and the stove is still warm, the flue damper needs to be shut so the air does not move all the heat up the chimney. Now this could also create a condition of possible co buildup if not done at the proper time, so please ask those in the know before practicing it. You could be loosing most of your heat out the chimney if there is still air moving through it after the burn, just like a fireplace will suck the cold air out of the house. You wouldn't happen to have a regular fireplace upstairs that you are using also?

I will also agree that the basement is probably acting as a big heat sink, and you will have to run that thing quite a bit just to heat all that concrete, before you will gain any heat upstairs.

Good luck and keep us posted as you hopefully make progress.
 
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