[GSBN] Masonry Stoves info

[Andy Horn]

Hi all

A collegue of mine is looking at building his own Masonry Heater Stove on a
farm near a place called Knysna, where one has long periods of winter chill
and an abundance of firewood.

 

Masonry Stoves need a bit of planning and careful design with all their
channels in which absorb the heat and then slowly release it over a long
time. Using high thermal mass materials as centrally located as possible
would I assume be key, but the intricacies of the flues and physics of
calculating the relative sizes of everything remains a mystery.

 

They are very common in Europe and less common in North America. Although
you have the North American Masonry Heater Association. It appears that
recently people have been experimenting with building a large portion out of
cob. See this example of a cob masonry heater:
<http://www.firespeaking.com/portfolio/cob-masonry-heater-at-cob-cottage-com
pany/>
http://www.firespeaking.com/portfolio/cob-masonry-heater-at-cob-cottage-comp
any/

 

Some also integrate a copper coil for heating water into the fire chamber,
which would be most practical.

 

There is only one company in South Africa which builds these kinds of
stoves. They are in Somerset West. <http://www.biofire-fireplaces.co.za/>
http://www.biofire-fireplaces.co.za/. The owner is a german master stove
builder who charges European prices. R80 000 (approx $8 500) for an average
stove. He will only build them with conventional masonry. One would hope to
be able to self build for a fraction of this cost I imagine, but obviously
one needs to do it right.

 

So I was wondering if anybody on the StrawBale network might have had some
experience with this (using cob or other natural building methods), and
might even possibly have the formulas and example plans.

 

thanks

Andy Horn



 

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