The Gun Counter

I used a high-efficiency wood stove in the outbuilding I used for a gym during undergrad -- worked quite well. In PA, several of my family members have switched to corn stoves (basically a pellet stove, but feeds dry corn.) They're very happy w. how cheap it was, even w. the really high corn prices.

W. that said, if you live in an area where you can get it, don't over-look coal, esp. if you want to stockpile it for an emergency heat source.

(The more recent installs have been corn stoves.)

I have one uncle, who's house is always absurdly hot, who has a brick house, where the only heat source is a high efficiency woodstove in the basement, built into a large masonary stucture.

I'd have a few points -- one, look into ventilation "windows" over the doors, for the interior -- a big part of keeping homes warm w. a single heat source is getting the air to move properly through the house. Two, I find those open house plans too noisy, but my childhood was in pre-Revolution houses, so... You must already know about heavy drapes from Boston, but hopefully that doesn't matter in a modern house... Oh, and humidifying the house -- although, frankly there's usually just some container of water set on a radiator/stove on most of my family's farms.

Oh, and yet another uncle had good results, even in cold climates (and I would think more so in a sunny, but cold climate) w. a solar hot water heater along his roof -- but he must have winterized it.

Oh, and vermin-proofing your wood or corn storage is another thing to consider -- as well as storing it somewhere that doesn't require going outside.

My uncle w. the very hot house dedicated much of his basement to wood storage, w. it's own external door, and a very tight sealing door from that room to the wood stove, w. tight sealing, built-in, metal boxes by the stove to store the wood for immediate use.

Our house in NJ had a neat, central ash container in the basement -- again, from there it could go right outside w.o. going through the house. (The house was first built in the 1680s, and the ash could be swept through the typical door in the bottom of a fireplace, into a chute to the basement. I don't know if a modern stove is available, designed to be hooked into a chute, but I know mine could be modified to do so.

Chris, what you're talking about is "Russian" or "Finnish" stoves.

The idea is you heat up the thermal mass, with a short quick burn, and it radiates all day, keeping the place warm. Most of them, the smoke exiting is only a coupla degrees above ambient.

They are, among the most efficient ways to heat with wood.

Here's a site for the cast iron bits for building them(ash clean out doors, front doors, etc), and some diagrams for the general design. If you've done any basic masonry, they're easily buildable. Be warned, they're easier to design in, rather than retrofit to an existing house, because you're talking about a large(often 4x8 feet), heavy(several tons of brick, mortar and cement) lump of stone in your living room.

The Missouri Masonry Stove

Ideally, The Masonry stove would be in the middle of the room, to give off as much heat as possible. I keep daydreaming about a "cabin" in the woods, using one, where it the "floor"(in actually, a concrete block column coming up through the basement) would be an ingregral part of the foundation, and would actually support part of the floor.


HTRN

I sent the .pdf for that Missouri stove to a friend of mine in Homer, who grew up in PA, has done masonry, and apparently knows a bit about those stoves. He had the following to say:

I know this design intimately, and darned if they don't work as advertised.
These Russian fireplaces are a big part of my culture. Nearly every
farmhouse in Western PA built by Ukrainian or Russian immigrants have these.
Just about every "authentic" one I've seen has an oven also, usually
actively baking SOMETHING.

These things are very "kid safe", but give no cooking surface, and take up a
fair amount of real estate in a room. On the plus side, you can let the
fire go out at night and still have enough heat retention in the masonry to
get you through the coldest winter evenings, and most of the next day.

The negative for them here in Alaska is the weight. Unless your structure
is built on a rock, the soil here is rotten for these things. Nearly all the
stoves in PA are made of stone collected from the fields. Bricks were rare
and more expensive.

My specialty is stone masonry, but I've done enough brickwork and block work
to know I like stone better.

If I might suggest an alternative--my sister and her husband built an Ekose'a passive solar home in the Colorado mountains nearly 30 years ago. It is airy and spacious, and uses a fraction of the utilities of other conventional homes in their neighborhood. At the time they built the home, local building codes required some form of conventional heat, so they put in some cheap baseboard heaters, but never use them. They did put in a nice Vermont Castings woodstove, and in a typical winter (over 9,000 ft elevation in ski country), might burn 1/3 cord of firewood.

http://ekosea.googlepages.com/

I'd be tempted by a woodfired boiler along these lines: LINK

Several of our target properties are in regions that average below 32 degrees 160+ days per year; and average 20 degrees or below 120+ days per year.

Now, that's interesting, since right now where you're at it's 160 degrees 32 days per year, and 120 degrees 20 more days per year!

I have nothing to say about the stoves and heaters, but part of the design of your house (as someone mentioned) must include an "out-room" off the exterior doors. If you're not familiar (but I'll bet you are), these are a small room to don and remove wet, cold winter gear, but also to get in and out without splashing mud, ice, and wind through your house, and letting the heat out.

Radiating your heat outside is a criminal waste, skip the pizza oven, you will be better served baking everything indoors. Honestly there is no upside to wasting all that great heat you are capturing to what? Bake a pizza outside every once in a while? I think the addition of a hypocaust is perfect, when I first read your title I thought of it with this setup.

Sounds like you need an Aga. My parents' house (built 1960) was not originally centrally heated, and the Aga in the kitchen kept the whole house warm. My father still misses it. His family home (a West Cork farmhouse from the 1800s) still has one, and the fabulous smell of rashers cooking on the wood-fired Aga is one of my "memories of childhood" triggers.

The German version of that Missouri stove would be a Kachelofen (tiled oven). Some of Mrs Denis' relatives have those. Very cosy, but not as good for cooking on as an Aga.

CombatController wrote:Radiating your heat outside is a criminal waste, skip the pizza oven, you will be better served baking everything indoors. Honestly there is no upside to wasting all that great heat you are capturing to what? Bake a pizza outside every once in a while? I think the addition of a hypocaust is perfect, when I first read your title I thought of it with this setup.

I sort of agree, in that I'd build the russian stove/oven completely indoors and a seperate pizza oven/barbeque pit/smokehouse outdoors on the patio. Actually the pizza oven and pit/smokehouse would be seperated as well, as their design critera seem diametrically opposed.

pizza oven
barbeque pit

I used to live in an old farmhouse that had something like the AGA installed, but it looked more like this. Placed as a kitchen stove, and connected to the central heating system, it will keep a good size home heated without any problem, and you can also cook on it if you want. The winter I lived there had regular temperatures down to -20C, sometimes colder, and it was no problem at all.

It will also keep the heat during the night, but it's impractical if you are the only one living there and have to go to work for a full day, it wont last 10+ hours. But as long as someone is at home to add fuel once in a while, it will be all you need.
I still have friends that have this sort of system installed. If you live in an area prone to loose power during bad weather, all you need is firewood to keep the house warm and be able to cook. You'll also be able to get warm water if you keep a big pot on the stove.

I miss it, if I ever build myself a new house I will have one installed.

Currently I have a geothermal system, which has been a real PITA. I've had lots of problems with it, it's really caveat emptor when you buy those.