The Future of Wood Stoves...Load & Leave

[Happy Stacker]

While the technology has been available in North America for a while on wood boilers and such automatic air control and peak burning control is not available in woodstoves here. But in Europe they are way ahead of the game. Check out this Danish stove...HWAM Autopilot http://www.hwam.com/hwam+adv-c8-/autopilot-c3-+2+versions/autopilot+ihs#

 

[Tar12]

Page not working for me.

 

[Happy Stacker]

Page not working for me.

Sorry about that. I fixed it

 

[Happy Stacker]

There is an Austrian Mfg who makes the Rikatronic...no remote tho http://www.rika.at/en/rikatronic/

 

[Tar12]

Interesting....like to know about burn times!

 

[Jags]

Interesting....like to know about burn times!

It sounds a lot better than it really is once you realize they do burn times in metric.

 

[diverscale]

But in Europe they are way ahead of the game.

Well I can't stand this ''europe is so far ahead of us americans'' anymore really that I hear everywhere. They have a chit-load of problems believe me. No offence to the original poster off course, I just had to get it out.

About those new ''smart devices'', it's getting everywhere, in the TV's in the cars, now in the stoves. I think that the more electronics automation you add to a product, the faster it will break, the faster it will be obsolete, and less control you have over it. Also, I'd rather have a real stove in a electric outage.

I like my good old manual air traps stoves. We went from smoke dragons to 80% efficient wood stove, which is pretty good IMO.

 

[Rearscreen]

I like the feature where you push the button and Woody the robot comes in and adds more wood to the fire. The get me a beer add on is extra unfortunately.

 

[sportbikerider78]

Well I can't stand this ''europe is so far ahead of us americans'' anymore really that I hear everywhere. They have a chit-load of problems believe me. No offence to the original poster off course, I just had to get it out.

About those new ''smart devices'', it's getting everywhere, in the TV's in the cars, now in the stoves. I think that the more electronics automation you add to a product, the faster it will break, the faster it will be obsolete, and less control you have over it. Also, I'd rather have a real stove in a electric outage.

I like my good old manual air traps stoves. We went from smoke dragons to 80% efficient wood stove, which is pretty good IMO.

There are some things they do much better and some much worse. It is often perspective.

I love the home building techniques. Simple, artistic and very long lasting. Also, expensive to build, but maybe not if you factor in their longevity.

There certainly is a focus on energy conservation...because it is expensive. Good to focus on conservation, bad because of the price and it hampers economic growth.

Europe is a big place. You can't compare places like Germany to Italy. Some places in Italy feel 3rd world. Like here in the US, some places in Detroit are 3rd world. LOL

 

[peakbagger]

Different markets make for different products. Generally these ultra modern European designs come with high prices. Nice for stove porn but expect most would not buy them.

 

[Happy Stacker]

Different markets make for different products. Generally these ultra modern European designs come with high prices. Nice for stove porn but expect most would not buy them.

Speaking of stove porn...how about this beauty. The Bavarian Iron Dog 05 Huraxdax will heat almost 1,000 square feet of your mansion and is 82% efficient...The reason I say mansion is it is a cool $ 4 million...lol http://most-expensive.com/stove

 

[mellow]

Sounds like you will be at the Wood Stove Challenge, will be plenty of forward thinking woodstoves competing for top bragging rights.

(broken link removed to http://forgreenheat.org/2018-stovedesign/stovedesign.html)

 

[jetsam]

I've actually been tempted to mod my BK that way. Since the stove already regulates input air to keep firebox temperature stable, all I'd need to do is to replace the fan rheostat with a room temperature probe, stovetop probe, and a fan speed controller.

I can't imagine that it will be too long before market pressure pushes BK into making fan kits that work that way, anyway. Even all the people who say that they won't buy a stove that doesn't work in a power outage cannot complain about that setup- if the power goes, you lose just the fan- which wouldn't have been working anyway.

The ''Load & Leave" thing is functionality that all of BK's wood stoves have already had for many years. (It is super nice. Put the wood in there, go about your business.)

 

[lsucet]

About those new ''smart devices'', it's getting everywhere, in the TV's in the cars, now in the stoves. I think that the more electronics automation you add to a product, the faster it will break, the faster it will be obsolete, and less control you have over it. Also, I'd rather have a real stove in a electric outage.

You do have a choice, A GENERATOR. New generations will love something like that. It is a reality. New generation don't want to do all this that we do, but if it has all this technologies involved, they will be more interstate. We are the first one telling them go on in life and be something, be better than me, be all you can be.

 

[begreen]

We do have this tech starting to show up in this country too. The Quad Adventure series is a step in this direction. And at the last woodstove challenge in DC we saw a team of students from the Univ of Maryland present the Mulciber, an interesting concept that won awards. This has been developed into the MF Fire Catalyst stove (which ironically has no cat in it). https://mffire.com/

In Europe there is also the Wittus Twin-Fire which is not automatic, but super efficient. The main issue with the European designs is that they have smaller fuel capacity. Most are designed as area heaters that you fire up when you are in that room or area. Burn times are comparatively short. The Quad Adventure III in contrast is a large 4.5 cu ft stove with a long burn time.

 

[jetsam]

You do have a choice, A GENERATOR. New generations will love something like that. It is a reality. New generation don't want to do all this that we do, but if it has all this technologies involved, they will be more interstate. We are the first one telling them go on in life and be something, be better than me, be all you can be.

An interlock kit is maybe $50. I plumbed in a quick connect and a valve off of the big propane tank that runs my cooking stove, converted my old Generac to dual fuel, and disconnected the neutral bond on the unit. Now it can run the whole house for weeks, probably, and it can run off of BBQ tanks or gasoline in a pinch. That kind of setup costs a fraction of what a whole-house generator does, and provides most of the functionality.

Naturally, the power hasn't gone out since I did all that, but I'm ready if it does!

 

[begreen]

The power requirements for many of these stoves is small. A good UPS would cover some for days. Others are designed with manual override for power outage operation.