Summer cooking stove

[Michael Conway-Brown]

I have presented what I think is a great idea for a wood stove design to Cubic Mini but they won't likely pursue it. So I will bounce it off you.

We heat and cook on a cookstove. But not in summer because it would be too hot in our house. My idea is to take a Cub or Grizzly, add a custom aluminum cooktop, and insulate all outside surfaces with the same rigid insulation used inside, including the flue pipe. That way only the cooktop gets hot. Voila! Wood fired cooking inside during the summer! I've never seen a stove like that. I think it would work. And work well.

I have already built an aluminum cooktop for the Cub installed in my 4x4 camper van. The original design has a faux fiddle that prevents cooking. I have offered to build and test a prototype but was turned down by Cubic Mini. Anyone know of a manufacturer that does consider new and interesting cookstove design?

 

[bholler]

There are quite a few heavily insulated European Cook stoves.

Any modifications done would need to go through the ul testing process and it's a large investment for a very small market.

BTW the clearances to combustibles on your stove are really really scary

 

[NorthernFireplaceFool]

I would rather have a lightweight cook stove you could take out when you park and fire up away from your vehicle. I am all for cooking with wood while camping where it works. I wouldn't be putting it in the van. That is sleeping, changing and relaxing space. I don't cook in my bedroom either. Either that or set up your kitchen on a small trailer hitch platform for hauling extras behind your vehicle. This eat least gets it outside your vehicle while cooking with it. Something small with a good back clearance would work well for you I would imagine that way.

 

[begreen]

Common sense says if one has to cook with wood in the summer, do it outdoors. In the old days, it was not uncommon to have an outdoor kitchen with a simple lean-to roof structure.

 

[Michael Conway-Brown]

There are quite a few heavily insulated European Cook stoves.

Any modifications done would need to go through the ul testing process and it's a large investment for a very small market.

BTW the clearances to combustibles on your stove are really really scary

I have never seen an insulated stove. Inside to keep combustion heat up, yes. Outside to reduce heating of house, no. I'd like to see reference to one to see.

My Italian wood cookstove is not UL or CSA listed. It is gorgeous and works very well.

My van stove install is surrounded by cement board. It is not combustible and doesn't get hot. No worries.

 

[bholler]

I have never seen an insulated stove. Inside to keep combustion heat up, yes. Outside to reduce heating of house, no. I'd like to see reference to one to see.

My Italian wood cookstove is not UL or CSA listed. It is gorgeous and works very well.

My van stove install is surrounded by cement board. It is not combustible and doesn't get hot. No worries.

I have been doing this a very long time and that isntall is extremely scary.

Aga and esse both make heavily insulated stoves in order to be used year round. But it means they are not heaters they are just cooking appliances really

 

[kborndale]

My van stove install is surrounded by cement board. It is not combustible and doesn't get hot. No worries.

How is that? I see lots of combustible things within 18" of your stove.

 

[Michael Conway-Brown]

But you have not used this stove in this install. Just conjecture. If the cement board got hot, I would change it. It works great the way it is. Even the freezer beside the stove is not getting hot from it.
I will look up the Aga and Esse cookstoves. My memory of Aga is that it is quite expensive. Don't know Esse.

I would rather have a lightweight cook stove you could take out when you park and fire up away from your vehicle. I am all for cooking with wood while camping where it works. I wouldn't be putting it in the van. That is sleeping, changing and relaxing space. I don't cook in my bedroom either. Either that or set up your kitchen on a small trailer hitch platform for hauling extras behind your vehicle. This eat least gets it outside your vehicle while cooking with it. Something small with a good back clearance would work well for you I would imagine that way.

The heater/cooker in the van is only for cold weather. The summer cooker I want to try is for my small house/cabin. I generally cook outside my camper van with a variety of stoves, simple and often wood-fired.

 

[Michael Conway-Brown]

Common sense says if one has to cook with wood in the summer, do it outdoors. In the old days, it was not uncommon to have an outdoor kitchen with a simple lean-to roof structure.

I have had an outdoor wood cookstove but the constant rain and humidity was hard on it. Rusted.

 

[kborndale]

But you have not used this stove in this install. Just conjecture. If the cement board got hot, I would change it. It works great the way it is. Even the freezer beside the stove is not getting hot from it.
I will look up the Aga and Esse cookstoves. My memory of Aga is that it is quite expensive. Don't know Esse.
often wood-fired.

It's not getting hot under normal conditions but if you ever had an overfire things would be quite different. Clearances are for safety under abnormal conditions which can and do occasionally happen.

 

[Michael Conway-Brown]

The stove in my van is the Cubic Mini Cub. About as small as a woodstove gets. 9-inch cube. 6-inch long wood. The custom cooktop I added makes it look larger than it is. I used their vertical mount with the bottom tray (open to see) that will catch any ash that drops.

Cubic Mini specifies 30-inches clearance above -- I measure 29 1/2-inches. They specify 3-inches from non-conbustable surfaces. I measure 2 3/4-inches. The rear and bottom have two layers of stainless steel protection with air space between.

The real test is checking the cement board guards when the stove is hottest: I can easily keep a hand on it. Just warm.

I looked at Aga cookers but found no wood-fired cookstoves. I also checked Esse. They have three woodstoves, none with external insulation, and all presented in terms of house heating.

I don't find any stove insulated externally to limit house heating. I still think it's a good idea even if the trolls don't.

 

[kborndale]

The cubic mini cub requires 20" clearance to combustibles which can be lowered to 3" with proper mounting and shielding according to the website. I don't believe that cement board is considered proper shielding. It's your stove and camper, u can do as you wish, I'm just pointing out that it is not within specs.

 

[Ashful]

The owners of my and most old houses solved this issue 300 years ago: summer kitchen. As begreen already noted, a small out building where all cooking is done in the summer. You move most of your ingredients and cooking utensils 2x per year, unless you keep them separately stocked, but it's the way it was done in this part of the country for many years.

The modern and simpler version of this is the outdoor grill, which can be run easily on dry chunk wood. There are also charcoal ovens made for outdoor use, or you could simply use a Dutch oven on your regular charcoal grill, fired with wood.

 

[Michael Conway-Brown]

The cubic mini cub requires 20" clearance to combustibles which can be lowered to 3" with proper mounting and shielding according to the website. I don't believe that cement board is considered proper shielding. It's your stove and camper, u can do as you wish, I'm just pointing out that it is not within specs.

I just talked with a certified woodstove installer and he said the cement board is what they use for shielding. My install is very close to specs. Just 1/4" out. And I have tested it with loads of red cedar to worst case with no problem.

I'd love to hear what you think of my idea about an insulated stove for summer cooking indoors too.

 

[Michael Conway-Brown]

The owners of my and most old houses solved this issue 300 years ago: summer kitchen. As begreen already noted, a small out building where all cooking is done in the summer. You move most of your ingredients and cooking utensils 2x per year, unless you keep them separately stocked, but it's the way it was done in this part of the country for many years.

The modern and simpler version of this is the outdoor grill, which can be run easily on dry chunk wood. There are also charcoal ovens made for outdoor use, or you could simply use a Dutch oven on your regular charcoal grill, fired with wood.

Thanks for your ideas. I too have had an outdoor kitchen with wood cookstove. But all supplies are indoors and any supplies outdoors encourage bear problems. I have a small propane stove/oven for inside summer cooking now but am looking for a way to avoid that fossil fuel.

I also have a collection of wood-fired or charcoal-fired outdoor cookers but with our summertime campfire bans I can't use most of them. A charcoal bbq is allowed.

I envision a stove like the one in my van, sitting on top of my existing woodstove in my house, flued to existing chimney, and only set up in summer. With full exterior insulation to keep the house cooler. I think it would work. I may have to experiment. Just looking for anyone who knows of a similar effort.

 

[kborndale]

I'd love to hear what you think of my idea about an insulated stove for summer cooking indoors too.

I would just use a propane stove. My oven is insulated and I try not to use it in the summer as it makes the house hot and it doesn't have a wood fire burning in it.

 

[EbS-P]

If I were to utilize an outdoor wood fired cooking appliance it would be something like a wheel rim stove. I don’t see the point of cooking inside when heat is not needed.

This channel uses at least two different wheel stoves.

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But the really I would get an induction cooktop (gas would be ok too) a wonder bag for summer and an outdoor grill.
https://www.wonderbagworld.com/

Taking and appliance made to radiate heat and then say no I want to re engineer it so that only one side get hot (which was probably the hottest side anyway) all to keep my house cooler I really think the low hanging fruit is how can I cook indoors less.

 

[begreen]

With full exterior insulation to keep the house cooler

That will only keep adjacent surfaces cooler. It does not reduce the amount of heat coming off of the stove that is going into the house. But if this is in a cold region where 12 months a year of heating is required, then maybe this is not that important.

FWIW, my wife's response was "that's nuts". She won't even bake in the heat of the summer.

 

[Ashful]

Just thinking about this from a purely high-school physics standpoint, you are converting wood fuel to heat, and that heat has to go somewhere. Like all forms of energy, it cannot be deleted or destroyed, it must be transferred somewhere.

So, you've insulated all surfaces except the cooktop and the flue outlet, essentially forcing most heat transfer in those two directions. But what makes you think a hot cooktop is not going to heat up your small space nearly the same as the stove did, before insulation? Reduced exposed surface area, sure, but still a similar potential energy (wood) being injected into the equation. It has to go somewhere, and only so much of that is going to be up the flue.

 

[Jim Lidster]

My pellet stove would do same

 

[bholler]

The cubic mini cub requires 20" clearance to combustibles which can be lowered to 3" with proper mounting and shielding according to the website. I don't believe that cement board is considered proper shielding. It's your stove and camper, u can do as you wish, I'm just pointing out that it is not within specs.

The problem with those clearances is that I don't believe these stoves are listed. So legally they need the 36" clearance that can be reduced to 12. Since it's not listed we don't know how they conducted the testing or if they did at all.

 

[River]

Aga and esse both make heavily insulated stoves in order to be used year round.

Are there AGA dealers in the US who sell solid fuel-fired ranges?

 

[bholler]

Are there AGA dealers in the US who sell solid fuel-fired ranges?

Not that I am aware of