“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
~ Leonardo DiVinci.
This engine was designed in the 1920′s. It’s simple: the gasoline enters the cylinder after passing through a carburetor, where it is mixed up with oxygen. Once it’s in the cylinder it is ignited by a spark. The energy from the resulting explosion causes a piston to turn a crank, which changes the energy of movement that the piston produces into a spinning energy, which is run through a transmission and into the wheels, thus moving the car. In the case of a restored engine like this, the work might be applied to something like a sawmill or an ice cream maker.
The engine under the hood in your driveway right now runs conceptually the same way as the 1920′s hit and miss engine. The primary difference is that you get a lot more work out of each bit of fuel, because the modern engine has been engineered to work better. More variables have been taken into account than most would consider important.
Every masonry stove functions conceptually alike:
Dry wood fuel of any type is placed in the combustion chamber. A volume of air is allowed to enter the combustion chamber and the wood burns – the heat thus produced warms the thermal mass of the stove. How well this is done depends on many factors.
We take into account everything from altitude and maximum fuel load to friction caused by channel direction changes, and height changes within the system. Our stoves function at the peak of what’s possible because during the design process we take into account every possible variable.
Anyone can put together a brick box that will warm up after you put some quantity of wood through it. To get that box to the right temperature for the right amount of time on as little fuel as possible requires an engineering approach.
Even a simple masonry heater will outperform a metal woodstove, but our engineering produces a stove that functions at the absolute peak of efficiency, and it doesn’t cost any more. In fact, because we’re giving you the right sized stove, often times we can come in at lower cost than a kit or a one size fits all solution.
Our stoves are just as simple to use as the less well engineered stoves, but much much more goes into them, so they give you much much more.
Check out our PDF downloads on the freebie section of the “interact” page or just “contact” us for more information.
Hey Eric thanks for all of this.
Here are your ?’s with answers.
how big will the house be? – Not too much over 2000 sq’
How cold does it get there in BC where you live? – hovers around 0 (C) for three months-ish.
What kind of wall and roof construction are you planning (thinking of insulation levels here)? I’d like the roof to be flat and natural. So it’ll b thick and well insulated. The wall will likely be concrete “piers” with a lot of glass and timber.
Ceilings 11′ range.
Will the heater be the primary heat source for the whole place? Well that’s the question. I’d like it to be. But I will also install radiant floor pex, which if could be heated as well, then great!
Thanks again,
alex
Dear Alex,
Will this be a single story or a 2 story home?
You’re going to have a north wall in here somewhere, and likely will want to minimize glazing there. If you’re considering concrete, I’d suggest you look into Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs). They provide the benefits of concrete walls, along with ease of assembly and flexibility.
Are you considering earth sheltering in addition to the sod roof? If so, check out a product called lite deck. It’s a foam form made for pouring roofs and such out of concrete with channels for your re-bar and such. It’s a really neat product for people who want to build bomb shelters or like the idea of a lot of thermal mass in their homes. It’s also fairly user friendly. I came across it because some clients are using it.
I get a lot of customers who are considering pex tubing in the floor as a back up to the masonry heater. I recommend against it for anyone with a limited budget (which most of us are on). If the house is suited for a masonry heater to heat the whole thing, and you insulate the slab well, you’ll find that you don’t need the radiant floor heat one bit.
Radiant heat from one of our stoves is similar to the heat that comes from a radiant floor with 2 big differences:
1) The temperature of the stove will be higher.
2) The radiant heat wave runs horizontally off of the face of the heater, rather than vertically from the floor. This means that no matter whether you are standing up or sitting on a plush couch in front of the stove you will feel the comfort of the radiant heat on your whole body.
In my place the wood floor gets to be about 75 degrees (feels pretty good on my bare feet) about 4 or 5 feet from my stove, and that’s up on a pedestal, so the heat is further from the floor than it could be in a slab application like you have.
Radiant heat of any kind is wonderful, but the radiant heat from one of our stoves is better by far than that from a floor.
I know there’s a mouthful here, but I trust you will be able to digest it. Reply with any questions and we’ll go from there!
Sincerely,
Eric