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Masonry Heaters and Bake Ovens
Commercial and Residential
Read this article
on Masonry Heaters
Here's what you should know about
Masonry Heaters...
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Masonry heaters are the most efficient way to heat a
home!
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One load of wood every 8-12 hours can heat a home up to 4,000 sq.
feet. The thermal masonry mass and specially designed interior
channels retain the heat, then disperses
it through the home.
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No ductwork or fans are necessary, so no
electricity is used
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Most heaters pay for themselves within 10
years.
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Cost is approximately $18,000 -
$30,000 depending on materials and size.
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The heater will be cool enough to
touch, yet provide even heating for the house.
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This is a true green
building method using the renewable resource of wood. You will
burn approximately 1/3 of the amount of wood to heat the same space normally
heated by a wood stove.
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Masonry heaters are very efficient, clean burning,
and environmentally friendly.
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This is a project for an
experienced mason who has been trained specifically in the area of masonry
heaters. Inexperience can be very costly. Some heater masons will contract for
the homeowner to assist with the project to help keep your costs down. Expect
to provide room and board for the crew unless the mason lives nearby.
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Allow 3-6 weeks for construction to
be completed.
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Best if used in new construction only so the
right planning can be made for the heater to work properly. The
heater mason must work with your builder or architect
before plans are drawn (preferably). Occasionally, heaters can be added to
existing structures.
Hint: The ideal location for your masonry
heater is in the center of the home. The best floor plan is
open. If you floor plan is not open, you may need an additional small
heat source in some rooms.
Options Available:
-Pizza/bread/bake oven
(taste the difference! - and you can cook full meals if
desired)
-Non-heated bench (nice)
-Heated bench (nicer)
-Mantels (to put stuff on)
-See-through heater with doors on both sides
-Wood storage bin
Materials That Can be Used:
-Brick
-Stone
-Soapstone
-Tile
-Stucco
-River rock
-Slate
To schedule a consultation :
Please call 816-461-3665 to request an appointment when you have your plans
ready. Please allow at least 4 months advance notice for construction.
We usually do this type of work in the Spring and Summer and will travel.
We charge a fee up front of $100 per hour for consultation and planning with
you, your contractor and your architect.
SAMPLES OF OUR WORK:
Photo of an old town bake oven still in use in Europe.
 MARK TWAIN on the Kachelofen in
"Europe and Elsewhere"
Take
the German stove, for instance - where can you find it outside of German
countries? I am sure I have never seen it where German was not the language of
the region. Yet it is by long odds the best stove and the most convenient and
economical that has yet been invented.
To
the uninstructed stranger it promises nothing; but he will soon find that it is
a masterly performer, for all that. It has a little bit of a door which you
couldn't get your head in - a door which seems foolishly out of proportion to
the rest of the edifice; yet the door is right, for it is not necessary that
bulky fuel shall enter it. Small-sized fuel is used, and marvelously little of
that. The door opens into a tiny cavern which would not hold more fuel than a
baby could fetch in its arms. The process of firing is quick and simple. At half
past seven on a cold morning the servant brings a small basketful of slender
pine sticks - say a modified armful - and puts half of these in, lights them
with a match, and closes the door. They burn out in ten or twelve minutes. He
then puts in the rest and locks the door, and carries off the key. The work is
done. He will not come again until next morning.
All
day long and until past midnight all parts of the room will be delightfully warm
and comfortable, and there will be no headaches and no sense of closeness or
oppression. In an American room, whether heated by steam, hot water, or open
fires, the neighborhood of the register or the fireplace is warmest - the heat
is not equally diffused throughout the room; but in a German room one is
comfortable in one part of it as in another. Nothing is gained or lost by being
near the stove. Its surface is not hot; you can put your hand on it anywhere and
not get burnt.
Consider
these things. One firing is enough for the day; the cost is next to nothing; the
heat produced is the same all day, instead of too hot and too cold by turns; one
may absorb himself in his business in peace; he does not need to feel any
anxieties of solicitudes about the fire; his whole day is a realized dream of
bodily comfort.
America
could adopt this stove, but does America do it? The
American wood stove, of whatsoever breed, it is a terror. There can be no
tranquility of mind where it is. It requires more attention than a baby. It has
to be fed every little while, it has to be watched all the time; and for all
reward you are roasted half your time and frozen the other half. It warms no
part of the room but its own part; it breeds headaches and suffocation, and
makes one's skin feel dry and feverish; and when your wood bill comes in you
think you have been supporting a volcano.
We
have in America many and many a breed of coal stoves, also - fiendish things,
everyone of them. The base burners are heady and require but little attention;
but none of them, of whatsoever kind, distributes its heat uniformly through the
room, or keeps it at an unvarying temperature, or fails to take the life out of
the atmosphere and leave it stuffy and smothery and stupefying...."
Here is some recommended reading on
masonry stoves:
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