Your Environment and Masonry Heaters

There is continuous debate around the world about the significance and substance behind the issue of global warming.  And although most scientists around the world who study climate agree that global warming is occurring, I am not going to enter that debate here.

Rather, it is wise to look at the overall bigger picture.  I can remember as a grade-school student learning about various kinds of pollution.  We looked at everything from noise pollution (loud, disturbing sounds) to visual pollution (too many, or obnoxious blinking signs, etc.) to the more common air pollution and litter.

Pollution of any kind is a disturbance to most healthy people.  Really, who wants to walk down a sidewalk and see trash lying around everywhere?  Who would enjoy loud boisterous music when she is wanting a quiet stroll in the park?  And who would think the smell and appearance of smog is one of the benefits of living in a big city?

A disturbance like excess noise or smog doesn’t have to cause a specific illness in order to be unhealthy.  The mere fact that it is a disturbance makes it unhealthy for a given individual.  Indeed, loud, blasting music might be a pure pleasure for the one who turned on the radio, but it could raise the blood pressure of someone who was looking forward to a quiet day or who just doesn’t like that kind of music.

Of course, it can again become debatable as to just how harmful blinking lights or loud noises can be.  But there is pretty uniform acceptance that air pollution is a threat to everyone’s health.  Recent elections resulted in widespread prohibitions on smoking in public places all over Ohio.  It doesn’t take a scientist to realize that breathing all kinds of chemicals and particles not normally part of the natural atmosphere is going to have unhealthy results.

Regardless of your overall feelings about the various kinds of pollution and their impact on health and well-being, you should be aware that a masonry heater is one of the lowest impact ways of heating in the world when it comes to any kind of pollution.

Consider sound. A masonry heater burns for a few hours a day at a time of your choosing.  The resulting “noise” is the crackling of a real wood fire.  There are no motors, fans, or blowers vibrating and running on and off all day long.

Consider the materials.  A soapstone heater is just that – thousands of pounds of soapstone, an all-natural stone simply cut to the right shapes to make a heater.  Or a kachelofen is simply fired clay - hardened earth. This means waste is an all-natural bunch of minerals.  It also means that the product has low embodied energy – the amount of energy needed to produce the stove.

Consider air pollution and CO₂ emissions.  Masonry heaters are the cleanest-burning woodburners in the world, burning its fuel at combustion efficiency approaching 100%.  This means that the exhaust of a masonry heater is mainly CO₂ and water.  What’s more, the quantity of CO₂ emitted is no more than what results from wood rotting in the forest.

                In short, masonry heaters are low-impact ways of heating that don’t depend on foreign oil or expensive electricity.  Masonry heaters are an intelligent choice for a cleaner, healthier, energy independent America.

Current Project Update

Here are a few photos of the sandstone/soapstone heater in progress.  More to come soon! 

Entire base-course complete showing 7" diameter air inlet in the far right and base-course flues. Red sandstone dominates the esterior finish stones.  The two square holes in the foreground are clean-out accesses into the flues.

Here the base course has been covered with 60mm thick soapstone bench slabs.  Notice the curved  shape to the back right stones and the foreground stones.  The big opening in hte foreground is for wood storage.  The red knob in the lower right is the control for opening the air-tight air intake.

Another view with bench tops in place.  Notice the steel column (covered in wood) in the upper right of the photo that  passes through the bench top.  The owner plans to lean against that columns while sitting on the heated bench with her legs up.  Lower left corner shows the 7" diameter air intake that will eventually be covered with an antique iron grate.

Upcoming Project

One of our several upcoming projects is in northeastern Ohio.  In keeping with the claim in my book, Masonry Heaters: Designing, Building, and Living with a Piece of the Sun, I assured my clients that the design of a high-performance masonry heater begins with creating a "container" which will hold the firebox and all the flues of the heater.  The outer appearance - the container -  of the heater can be designed almost by anyone in a myriad of shapes and sizes.  There are some limitations surrounding the need to be able to house a firebox of sufficient size and to provide enough space for enough flues to make the heater efficient.  But once those items are accommodated adequately, the design can proceed in many directions.

In this particular project, the clients opted to have their architect design the container.  Here is my first rendering of the heater designed by Martin Johannessen of Harmoni Designs: 

Red Sandstone combined with Soapstone.

This masonry heater is to be built with a combination of red sandstone (represented in red) and soapstone (represented in gray).  Although I personally would not use sandstone for the masonry heater because of its inferior heat storage and heat transfer qualities - especially as compared to soapstone - the heater does make use of a fair amount of soapstone.  Generally, I am not interested in building heaters that don't use the best performing materials.

Though this photo makes the heater look like it is almost all red sandstone, the fact is that the soapstone, which covers all the horizontal bench surfaces and is shown to the right of the firebox door, wraps all the way around the back and even the left side (it is barely visible in the shaded left side of this rendering).  In actuality, most of the lower half of this heater is soapstone.  On the other hand, most of the upper half of the heater is red sandstone.

As the rendering portrays, this heater goes all the way to the ceiling.  In fact, part of the heater will continue on the next floor in the form of a heated sitting area.  Also not visible is that on the opposite side of the heater is a baking chamber.  This masonry stove will have a white oven on the reverse side..

Check back later for photos of this project in progress.  It is scheduled for construction in March.

A New Maonry Heater Starts Here

As built.

Original AutoCad Rendering

In my January 11, 2011 post I show photos of a recent project.  As I pointed out both in my book and in my blogs, projects like this are one-of-a-kind.  No one else on Earth has built this heater before.  There is no pre-made, pre-designed, pre-engineered kit for making this masonry heater.  Every aspect, right down to the size and configuration of the firebox as well as the spacing and size of the shelving are completely unique to this project.  You won't find this heater in some manufacturer's catalog and, chances are, this heater will never be built again.

When someone comes to me and wants a custom masonry heater, I don't just look for a different way to wrap a factory-made inner heater core (called the "inner life" in my book, Masonry Heaters: Designing, Building and Living with a Piece of the Sun) with a new combination of masonry materials.  Rather, I try to discover what it is the person really wants.  Do they want something unique, interesting, unusual?  Do they want or need something short? Tall?  Skinny? Broad?  Do they like modern or minimalist design?  Do they like rounded shapes or boxy shapes. Do they want something that looks soft and organic or hard and crisp? More importantly to me as the "salesman" of a masonry heater, do they understand that the masonry heater will become THE PLACE that they will want to be in their house during the winter?  Therefore, do they want seating areas?  If so, how much?  It is from gleaning information like this that arises designs for a truly custom masonry heater.

The next step is to translate the apparent desires of the owner-to-be into a design.  But how can the new owner know if he likes the design if he or she cannot properly visualize it?  Now, I have seen some designers, who are more artistic than myself, do pencil sketches of masonry heaters for their customers.  In mere moments they can draw a representation of what they have in mind for the masonry heater.  This enthralls and fascinates me.  I can do drawings and sketches by hand, but they never seem to reach the level of artistic expression some of these designers can attain.  But I have found a different way.

When I do a design project, I begin by drawing the concept using AutoCad professional computer design software.  This is the same software used by engineers at Fortune 500 companies to design and detail everything from soda bottles to the volume control knob on the radio of  an automobile.  It is also used by architects for designing homes and skyscrapers.  It's used by civil engineers to design bridges and roadways.  I use it to design both the inner life and the exterior appearance of masonry heaters.

As built

Original AutoCad Rendering

Using AutoCad, I first design the "container" - the outer, visible appearance of the masonry heater - in an attempt to capture what my customer wants.  Sometimes I get it largely right the first time.  Sometimes I have to try many different styles before I strike a chord with the owner-to-be.  In order for a decision to be made, my drawings must realistically portray what I intend to build.  The more realistic I can make it look, the better the customer understands what to expect.

The Illinois project described below is such an example and within this text are two preliminary views of how this heater was designed.  I think you can see from the pictures that the preliminary drawings well portrayed the way the heater would look.  We did make some subtle changes from these renderings as the project moved toward actuality, but the flavor and scope of the design stayed very true to these original AutoCad renderings.  This is the start of a custom masonry heater.

Current Projects/Better Photos

As noted in my post below, better pictures were in order.  My client thankfully has a better camera than I and graciously provided these shots - and with a fire burning no less!  As you can see, this heater is unique from all perspectives.  The upper photo shows a chaise lounge styled sitting area, two different shelving units and decorative soapstone pieces.  There is no shortage of warm places to sit on this one-of-a-kind masonry heater.