Wood burning stove that loads from the outside ?????

[dave1949]

Here is another useful link:
http://www.dnr.mo.gov/pubs/pub781.pdf

Good drawings and write-up.

Here is another link:
The Masonry Heater Association Home Page - Information on masonry heaters, manufacturers, and masonry heater builders

I agree with Reg, masonry heaters have a lot going for them. It takes a little thinking outside of the box at first. If you are thinking of building new, now is the time to check out and sort through everything under the sun.

I have a 3 ton Tulikivi soapstone contra-flow fireplace that I think very highly of. It really works well in our passive solar house. It doesn't load from the outside as you want to do however.

Dave.

 

[Old Paths]

Outdoor Wood Heater Bradley Enterprises Homepage

I looked at these last year, prior to our moving to new home. I believe the price is approx $1500, it is forced air to inside house...As opposed to outdoor wood boilers.

Hope it helps!

Jerry

 

[ultrarunner]

Look here maybe:
Kachelofen ceramic tile, european fireplaces

My friends in Germany had a kachelofen in their living room. Their house had a central hallway where the firebox was loaded from. A little different than you are envisioning, but a known solution. No mess in the living areas.

He also had a heat exchange water tank on the outside of the firebox, he circulated his baseboard/radiator hot water through that. His oil furnace hardly ever needed to run.

They brought wood into the central hallway and stored a day's worth in a wood box. Of course the interior wall behind the kachelofen (masonry heater) has to be a non-combustible like masonry brick, etc.

These heaters provide a very gentle radiant heat, are never hot enough to burn you, in fact they are often surrounded by a wood sitting bench.

You would get the same effect with a USA-type masonry heater at lower cost, perhaps not as pretty. It takes a mason who knows what they are doing with thermal expansion and so forth. They are built on-site and require a thicker concrete slab portion below them for support - like you would need for a chimney pad.

If you want, a masonry heater can include an oven for baking if your family is into homemade breads, etc.

Dave.

Thanks Dave for the link...

The Ceramic Tiled Heater I designed is a Kachelofen... I didn't think anyone would know the name...

It is my favorite heat source and one that provides even radiant heat throughout the day very efficiently due to the thermal mass...

I cool weather, I only stoke it once in 24 hours with very little wood... in cold freezing weather it gets stoked every 12 hours and often burns continuously throughout the heating season with very low emissions... options include a bake oven and many different architectural features...

The one downside and it can be a big one is it takes hours for a cold oven to throw-off usable heat due again to the thermal mass... slow to warm and slow to cool.

The favorite place in the house is against the oven tiles on a winter night... it warms you like nothing else...

 

[dmccarty]

When we designed our house we looked at masonry heaters but we could not justify the cost. I forget the brands but I think one or both of them were made in Europe. HUGE things that are efficient and very nice looking. But given our climate it just was not worth the money.

Instead we built a hearth that is about 18 inches tall with a black granite slab, Ubba Tubba(sp?), as the hearth top. On the granite rests a decent wood stove. The wall behind the stove is made of brick. The brick wall goes into our bed room and the study to kick a bit of heat in those rooms. The brick does hold some heat but the mason built an air gap between the to brick faces so its not as efficient as I would like. But the mass does hold heat. We also have finished concrete floors which really do suck up the heat and hold it.

By having the stove sit on a hearth it makes it easier to load and clean out ashes. It also makes for better viewing of the fire. The stove and the TV are on the same visual plane when we are sitting on the couches.

What I don't have yet is a way to nicely store the wood in the house. I am using five gallon buckets to bring in the wood which looks ugly. I think I figured out how to handle this finally. I am going to build a box/bench out of cement board. The outside of the box will have Ubba Tubba granite tiles to match the hearth top. Inside the box I can store the wood. And the wifey can sit on the box to get warm next to the stove. At least that is the current plan.

We use this stove to heat our 2400ish sf house all winter. It works well.

We did run a six inch diameter PVC pipe from outside the house, under the slab and terminating just behind the stove to bring in combustion air. With the stove running you can feel the air being suck into the house from the pipe if you carefully get your arm back there. Don't touch the stove. This works very well.

My FIL built a huge fireplace in his house that they use for heat. The fireplace has a great deal of mass and I would guess it is about 8'x8' and is used as a room divider between their living and dining room. He also put a PVC pipe under his slab for combustion air. The pipe terminates in a register right in front of the fireplace. The cold outside air is suck right into the fire. Works well.

He stores his ready to burn wood on the side of the stove. Its a bit better looking than my current setup but it still is not great.

I have seen some two sided insert fireplaces that might do what you want. Or just design the fireplace to use an insert on one or both sides so you can access as desired. Getting the door on the back side of the fireplace is going to be interesting since it is not commonly done. Who would supply the door?

Later,
Dan