Masonry Heater VT

Comment

Comment by Brad Vietje on October 24, 2009 at 12:07pm

Friends of mine are making Masonry Heater cores and kits here in Newbury, VT; I've asked them to have a look and consider joining. Their intent is to offer engineered cores so the heater will work well with no trial and error, and to cost less than commonly-available kits. I think they now have two sizes available.
I'll post a photo of their smaller kit fully assembled with Drury brick exterior.

Clear skies,

Brad Vietje
Newbury, VT

Comment by Dennis Steele on September 29, 2009 at 9:36pm

Attention Free Vermont Radio wants to help support local transition businesses. We are doing this by offering free audio ads. If you are interested please send a 30-60 second recording to us at freevermontradio@gmail.com If you have a website we can include a link as well.

Sincerely,

Dennis Steele

Comment by George Lisi on May 4, 2009 at 8:56pm

I am not a builder, so this may be totally off. I'm just looking for how you combine serious heat storage, cooking, and hopefully hot water, in one appliance? If ideas below have no merit, don't bother with a detailed reply why not. Just lookin' for how we're gonna do all those functions most efficiently, post oil.
Would it be possible to control the amount of heat/flame reaching the cooking surface - perhaps by a louver arrangement below the cooking surface, (with airspace between), that would work like a horizontal venetian blind. If heat to the cooking surface could be tempered in this or another manner, would this allow larger fireboxes and higher firing temps to heat the mass more efficiently.

Comment by William Davenport on May 4, 2009 at 7:50pm

Hi Ben-

It's common to build masonry cookstoves, which are a bit like a conventional wood fired cookstove (like gramma's) but are built with masonry. They use a cast iron top with a variety of burner set-ups. You can also build in a bake oven. You could add a water coil too, but it may not work as well as some other water coil set-ups. The challenge with the cookstoves as far as serious heat storage is that they are fired at lower temps so that the cooktop doesn;t overheat so hot that it would be un-practical to cook on. So you are running at a lower temp, with a smaller firebox so that you have a sensible cooking surface. The mass does heat up, but it's slower and not as soaked as it would be with a firebox set up for some serious combustion. You do get some good quick heat through the cast iron cooking surface though.

Comment by David R Young on February 9, 2009 at 9:30pm

Hello all ... I'm very happy to see a Masonry Heater group in Transition VT. I have been studying the history, use, design and construction of these wonderful appliances for some time and am thoroughly convinced of their superior efficiency and utility. I am looking forward to building one some day of my own design, but figure I will have to first apprentice myself to a master mason. I suspect there may be at least one in this group?

Comment by John Ellery on January 22, 2009 at 10:19pm

hello Justin i enjoyed working with you in Stowe. Let's hope we get some nice work this year! Just wanted to let people know that we are producing a green, holistic, sustainable living expo in Burlington Feb.21 & 22 at the Sheraton Hotel. If anyone is interested, please visit the website TheWholePictureShow.comIt would be great to have some alternative heating people there! Thanks, John

Comment by Justin Boland on January 20, 2009 at 5:38pm

Installing Masonry Heaters: probably my favorite job I've ever had.

Comment by Ben Falk on January 18, 2009 at 7:56pm

This is great guys... I look forward to learning more. Indeed, it seems masonry heaters will be central, no pun intended, to the transition.
I wonder also about wood gasification, especially at community scales.
You seen this?
http://victorygasworks.ning.com/
How well do M ovens gasify compared to active gasifiers like commercial units out there?

Comment by Ben Graham on January 18, 2009 at 1:59pm

William,
This is great, I was wanting to call yesterday to urge you to start this.
I was thinking it would be cool to have a discussion on tweaking the firing process for new MH owners. Having had one for 4 years now, thanks to you, I am finally feeling like I am firing it consistently well.

Ben

Comment by George Lisi on January 17, 2009 at 10:00pm

Yes! I was thinking of posting a discussion on masonry heaters since they seem a key technology, just to get something going on them, not 'cause I know anything! For substanitve discussion, it works better to use the discussion format - use comments for quick, well, comments! I'm gonna start a discussion here asking about rocket heaters.

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