This looks like a simple add-on to the woodstove for this winter, anyone tried it before?
by andaugb
This looks like a simple add-on to the woodstove for this winter, anyone tried it before?
by andaugb
15 Comments
I read an article about 15 years ago in backwoods home magazine that did something similar. Mass around the stove. The author claimed a 70% reduction in wood while simultaneously being much warmer in the winter.
It’s great to have a strategy for increasing the efficiency of the stove you might already have (while you are scheming about eventually building a super efficient stove). I remember we built brick walls around our wood stove back when we lived in Wisconsin and that helped keep things warmer longer.
Makes complete sense from a physics perspective. It makes you wonder why wood stoves have largely remained boxes of metal.
Thermal mass is good
Mass around the stove? Of course! As a Nordic I have always been wondering if the iron stoves are very efficient. And they seem to be very common in North America, but they do not store much heat.
This is how you make a masoned stove (Finland): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7xvStZUXGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7xvStZUXGY)
This is such a smart move. So easily explained. Makes total sense
great narration and I like that guy in the overalls.
When I got one of these [thermal powered fans](https://a.co/d/0aQ0fHgS) to sit on my stove, it warmed my room like a convection oven.
The next step is a rocket mass heater
This is why, if you can manage it, a brick or stone surround around the stove (instead of sheet metal) is better.
I just have a chunk of soapstone that I heat directly on the cooktop. Then wrap it in wool and you can bring it to bed with you.
Soapstone has very high thermal mass. Close to water.
Wool has a very high combustion point and even if it hits that it tends to smolder rather than ignite. Obviously you’re not going to bring a 300°C rock to bed but wool gives you a large margin of error if you leave your rock on the stove too long
If you want to see these taken to the extream, look up rocket mass heaters. So efficent, so much thermal mass.
Hear me out: What if your walls were the mass that absorbed and released in the heat from the stove?
I highly recommend looking at free permaculture books, rocket stoves, and my personal favorite Vermont Bun Oven with soap stone plating. I saved so much money, time, and energy. The oven came with a stone insert that you could take out and cook eggs in the middle of your table for breakfast.
Mook for Russian stoves they are masssive blocks if stone.
There are also a lot of stoves that have special stones inside or soap stones on the outside.
Just be careful to not take any stone you find and put them on your stove, natural stones can contain water that turn them into frag grenades