Masonry heaters - sort of. Would this work?

[smirnov3]

With all this talk of Masonry heaters, I got to wondering why nobody made a pseudo-masonry heater using some of the same technology as the wood fired furnaces.

ie instead of having a super-hot fire in a huge masonry fireplace, have a super-hot fire in a water-jacketed steel stove.

The whole contraption will weigh less (because water has a heigher heat capacity, so you need less of it to store the same omount), so it should cost less to install.

And you could even put a fake stone facade on it, to make it look more like the real thing.

 

[Andre B.]

Here are two there are more and many homebuilt units.

(broken link removed)

(broken link removed to http://www.woodboilers.com/heat-storage-tank.asp)

 

[Corey]

I don't think you will ever get a super hot fire in a water jacketed stove. In a good masonry design, the interior masonry could approach the temperature of the fire, which means the air inside is very hot and leads to easy secondary combustion. With any type of water jacket design, the interior walls would be no hotter than boiling water...unless you run a pressurized system, but that is a whole other can of (dangerous) worms. The cool walls would lead to smoke condensing out of the flue gas and an overall cooling of the flue gases which would make secondary combustion much harder.

I guess if you had some way to isolate the combustion from the water...like a standard brick firebox that radiantly heated a large mass of water. The key would be to stick with a good secondary combustion firebox and use that to heat what ever mass you desire to store the heat whether it be masonry, sand, concrete, lead, water or what ever.

Corey

 

[sstanis]

Masonary stoves are set up internally, through "snake like passages" for 2nd combustion and heat absorption. There greater internal surface area allows for better heat absorption. A good anology is the human large intestine, which is coiled many times over itself and inside itself. If one where to stretch the human intestine to completly flatten it out. It would cover a tennis court. So, yes the thermal mass of masonary heaters allows for heat abosrption. Take a look at goethermal heat pumps, all those coils buried in the ground increase surface area.

 

[Burn-1]

You could always go this route.

Home-made masonry heater

I especially like the oil tank stove. It burns five foot logs and only needs a 6 inch flue plus he notes
you can always cut a floor register in if need be.

Rig it up with a blower and maybe we could get BB to ditch the Englander.

 

[BrotherBart]

You could always go this route.

Home-made masonry heater

I especially like the oil tank barrel stove. It burns five foot logs and only needs a 6 inch flue plus he notes
you can always cut a floor register in if need be.

Rig it up with blower and maybe we could get BB to ditch the Englander.

Ooh. Ooh. Got have me one of those pups!

 

[Andre B.]

With any type of water jacket design, the interior walls would be no hotter than boiling water...unless you run a pressurized system, but that is a whole other can of (dangerous) worms.

Fireless steam locomotives.
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/steam21.html
(broken link removed to http://www.nrhs.com/web_exclusives/fireless_cooker/)

Really a very good way of storing energy.