Just wondered if anyone had installed a Masonry Stove in Ontario. We are looking at installing on in our cottage. Just wondered if you had advise , pics pro’s or con’s on this type of fireplace.
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"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
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http://mha-net.org/
Great site - we love our masonry heater!
Would you mind telling me what make you have.? and what you used on the exterior of it, did you just leave it Firebrick or did you clad it with some type of stone. We would like to use a turkish chiseled Limestone on the exterior but I don't know yet if we still need the fire brick. I will check the Web-site, thanks alot.
I built it of firebrick, then stone exterior - I adapted plans from an old Fine Homebuilding article. I helped Norbert Senf (the MHA guy) on one of his installs, and gained the confidence to try it. I have the article if you are interested in building one. Combustion temperatures get very high when these are fired - firebrick and refractory mortar are necessary (and square bricks are easy to build with, I might add)
Pixely pictures attached.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Brian, I'm interested in one but the price of those kits is astronomical.
Which FHB did you find the article in?
Nobody local in Utah on that site, so I'd be on my own.
Joe H
Joe,
Awhile back Sphere was talking about building one and I sent him construction drawings from a Finnish catalog I have. Up to you to locate the materials.
Moved here expecting to build one, then realized there was no point. Our house functions like a large stove.
Here're a couple examples:PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Tom, Las Vegas is the closest get anything source. I don't know about Salt Lake, it's an avoid it place. Reminds me of Los Angeles small scale.
Joe H
FHB#42 - from 1987 The article was "Masonry Heater Hybrid"
The issue is out of print - FHB published a book called Masonry - the Best of Fine Homebuilding. I found a copy at the library.
I basically built it with firebrick - dipping it in thinned sairset clay - very straightforward for a non-mason - and used cast refractory slabs for the "baffles" Check your email - I am sending you a detailed picture.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Hi Brian, the article would be greatly appreciated. I have been on the Masonry Site before and have not been able to find anyone other than the one manufacturer so I would greatly appreciate you contacting your masonry guy and e-mailing me I will give you my numbers so he can contact me.
Nice job, it looks like it is a massive unit, our unit is 5' x 4-1/2' floor to ceiling retangular like yours.
It was massive, but it was in a 20x32 room with 27' ceilings, so scale mattered. The next one will be in our basement, and a little smaller, since I have learned to build more modest houses.
We could burn really big logs in the first one, and it was still warm 3 days after a fire. I think it weighed around 14K lbs.
Check your email for details.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Do you have a pic standing further back? I have a hard time getting the scale of it.
jt8
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."-- Buddha
Yes, here's one - the file is big, but when I reduce the size the stones look purple and pixely - its a handsome heater, I just am a novice at irfanview - all my resizes look pixely & weird.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Yeah, that's a neat one. Are we looking at the whole unit, or does it extend off to the left? The mantle timber didn't get hot?
View Image
That is a good size. I hate to see the ones that look like they take up 400 sq ft. Unless you're at the north pole, those huge ones are a waste of sq ft.
jt8
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."-- Buddha
Thats the whole thing - 4'x6', minus the chimney area. It "defined" the room pretty well. This time I'm building it in the basement, and only the front wall will be visible, the rest will be back in the "storage" area.
The outside of the heater never got too hot to touch - maybe too hot to keep your hand there a long time, but not too bad. This was good, since our kids were young. The mantle only touches the heater in a spot or two - it is on 1/2" anchor bolts and hangers - so there a gap - never got really hot. But the stone held heat for almost 3 days after a good firing. One critical detail is the chimney inside the house - more mass with heat.
The fire door features the Grand Teton, Mt Owen and Teewinot, but I guess I'm the only one who'd care about that.
btw - I like the Buddha quote - it reminds me of one by Anne Lamott - Not forgiving someone is like eating rat poison and expecting the rat to die.Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Brian, the chimmney is in that wood chase to the right rear?
Do you have the cleanout doors in the magazine article?
Do you clean out that part of the stove & if so how often and what amount of crap accumulates?
Joe H
Yes, chimney in the wood chase. Regular cleanout doors on the left side, positioned so I could vacuum the flue above or below.
We burned really hot fires - wide open all the time - so things stayed very clean compared to most woodstoves I have known. I never felt the need to actually vacuum them in 3 years of use - just some light grey dust, no creosote. I would add - very little visible smoke from the chimney. I burned mostly Oak and Locust.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Jt8,
That is a great looking heater. What material is the chimney made of?
Edit: read the rest of the thread now... chimney block and wood/metal chase, right?
Edited 1/10/2007 5:47 pm ET by shearwater
I simply resized Brian's pic.
I replied to him with your question.
jt8
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."-- Buddha
Brian, do you have any electrical hooked up to this such as a blower of some kind.? Do we need a blower to move the heat around.? Do you have your fireplace heating your water at all.? Just wondered.
There is no electric at all involved. The plans we used had a temperature activated blower, but our floor plan was quite open, so we went 100% radiant - no regrets. You could feel the gentle heat from across the room wherever you were.
Someone sells a stainless loop for masonry heaters to heat water. The issues can be complex - we heated water this way at a camp I worked at, with simple 1/2" iron fitttings through a stove - the water temperatures would regularly set off the pressure valve on the water heater we used for storage. I wouldn't know the best setup for heating water safely.
I have thought of piping a "preheat tank" between my pressure tank and water heater - just a metal tank close to the back of my heater to take the 58 degree water from the well and warm it to 100 degrees or so from proximity to the heater, and save on water heating costs.
The masonry heater builders often put a heated bench in their heaters - where the smoke actually loops around a flue in the bench. We found the hearth is plenty warm anyway, so that is not necessary - but have a place near the heater to take sit/sleep/get dressed on cold mornings - its very nice.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
What were the hardest parts involved in building that wonderful example you show in your pictures?
I cannot claim the stonework - a friend did that. The hardest part for me was the chimney - each chimney block weighed 135 lbs. I spent 3 days on the first half, and 1 day with 2 helpers on the 2nd half - synergy.
As for the actual heater, the dipping method of laying firebrick with sairset is unbelievably simple.
Other than that, I borrowed a welder to make the door - It was a slow process, but I learned to weld! (and got a tan) Next time I'll use MIG - its reputed to be a lot easier.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Well I'm up for more details. Is there a basement under the pictured one? I assume it has its own footing? Is it block through the basement (if there is one)...
4x6 is a nice size. Is there a guesstimate on what kind of sq ft can be heated with a 4x6 unit the size of yours? (I realize there are gobs of factors involved)
More details man!
jt8
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."-- Buddha
Edited 1/10/2007 12:20 am by JohnT8
John, with the unit we have designed our footing is massive in the basement, the block will go all the way up to the ceiling, we will have block on 3 sides all the way up and partial block on the 4th wall so we can install a woodburning stove inside the hole, therefore we don't waste space putting the fireplace somewhere else in the room. Also, the heat from the woodburing stove will heat up the block and radiate off of it. Our 4 -1/2 x 5' unit will heat 2200/ft2.
John, with the unit we have designed our footing is massive in the basement, the block will go all the way up to the ceiling, we will have block on 3 sides all the way up and partial block on the 4th wall so we can install a woodburning stove inside the hole, therefore we don't waste space putting the fireplace somewhere else in the room. Also, the heat from the woodburing stove will heat up the block and radiate off of it. Our 4 -1/2 x 5' unit will heat 2200/ft2.
So you have the regular burning portion of the masonry heater on the first floor and then a wood stove in the basement, or is the basement the whole burning portion?
And if stove in basement and burner on 1st floor, is that two flues?
Be sure to give us photos on the project!
jt8
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."-- Buddha
Yes it is 2 flues, you can build these units with 2 flues side by side or behind each other and then vent into one chimney. Since we need heat in the basement we thought that the the woodburning stove would be great. We are not putting in a furnace system but we will be putting in 2 propane wall heaters (35,000 BTU) one for the basement and one for the main floor . The masonry heater will be our main source of heat. We will need to leave the propane heaters on in the winter and use as a backup system.
I will definately take pic's we are just putting the walls up this spring, the basement is in and the subfloor is on ,the walls will go up in the spring, we will have the solar system come in before the fireplace so it might be awhile before the pics are around.
Sounds like you've got enough progress to start a thread in the Photo Gallery. You can run the whole house. We can oooooh and aaaaah and the parts we like and nit-pic the parts we don't like :)
A couple in Michigan ran a thread a year or so back on their house expansion that they did with UBuildIt help.
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=53790.1
I found it refreshing to see regular folks going through 'fun'. It makes for a nice balanced viewing experience because we also have threads from pros like Mike Smith.
jt8
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."-- Buddha
when we first started designing the cottage I was asking questions on this forum and received excellent advise from everyone that had an interest. One step at a time. One of the readers even checked our drawings out and redesigned a few area's for us along with giving us great advise which saved us massive headaches that we would have had in the future.
Your right pics are in order, I will see what I can do. We are using Turkish Limestone on the fireplace exterior along with having slabs of Eramosa Limestone with a brushed finish this stone is quarried in Sudbury and will make up the hearth. Since the floors will also be limestone the radiant heat should also warm up the floor and the floor should retain the heat.
Hay John, sorry its been awhile since I've been on the post. We are now back to looking at building in the next month. If we can get thru the snow. Anyway, we are putting in a double flue in the basement and we are also going to clad the basment footing in vermont slate. I don't think we will get to this this year but I am still looking for all the info for it.
Still interested here too, but it'll be a future project.
Seems like it's something to have planned from the start as the foundation needs quite a bit of extra concrete.
Joe H
Wish I had a dollar for every person i've met that expressed an interest enough to plan on building one sometime in the future.
b1. I am 1 2.
I never had a problem with character, people've been telling me I was one ever since I was a kid.
Seems a fairly straight forward project, but my usual trial & error method might not be best for something that ends up with 5 tons of mistake in my living room.
We are planning one more move in about a year (hope) to it's time to try it then.
Joe H
Ya, I have the brick and the want to, now it's a little problem of a round toit.
I never had a problem with character, people've been telling me I was one ever since I was a kid.
Gunner will come help you when he finishes helping Duane.http://logancustomcopper.com
http://grantlogan.net/
"We have enough youth, how about a fountain of smart?"
Why, does he have extra toits?
I never had a problem with character, people've been telling me I was one ever since I was a kid.
Yeah, but they're not the round ones.http://logancustomcopper.com
http://grantlogan.net/
"We have enough youth, how about a fountain of smart?"
maybe he'll lose them if he stays with the rice.
I never had a problem with character, people've been telling me I was one ever since I was a kid.
Funny this came around again, Dewayne AKA DW...is nipping at my heels, just to get his mitts on my rocks..awe man that sounds bad.
Anywho, we're in touch., I mean, uuh, he wants to come here..to help out.
Jeezeus, I aint even out yet ( of jail) and I am pushing limits.
Gunner only see's rocks in his mind, he ain't the lifting and toting kinda guy.Inmate # 40735 At Taunton Federal Penitentiary.
really---hummph, by the way their called stones not rocks, anyway i'm starting my new job in a couple of days----auto zone----- I reckon my "stone "handling days are over, for a while. I never had a job where I could walk to work. maybe I can break this BT addiction. these new masonry kits for these stoves seem like the way to go, The two heaters that I built were from plans from Mother Earth News -from scratch, ya,ll take it easy D.W.
Thanks for the site, lost of interesting articles in that site.
Limits?
We don't need no stinkin' limits!
be limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns...
I never had a problem with character, people've been telling me I was one ever since I was a kid.
This was a planned feature of the cottage, the footing we have is massive, we are not putting in a furnace, so this will heat the cottage year round. Just wondered if the market really was cornered in Canada by one supplier. Most of the manufacturers are American which are not CSA approved on this side of the boarder.
There is a crawlspace under half the house, and under the masonry heater there is a block "cave" where I could access an ash dump - but I closed it off and never used it, instead I'd just shop-vacuum the ashes occasionally. I laid 10" block under the structure and thickened the floor slab to 12" under the heater.
The footers for the heater are 12" thick, with a 6" #4 rebar grid. I don't know the engineering #'s so I just overbuilt. Lots of concrete.
Assuming good insulation, I would think just about any house under 3,000 s.f. could be heated, but I would think an open floor plan would be helpful.
We'd generally burn one fire a day, but on colder days you could burn two. Each firing could hold a wheelbarrow full of wood if necessary.Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Brian,
Thank you for your reply.
It would be greatly advantageous to me if I were able to know more of the many details surrounding the building of your masonry stove.
As mentioned earlier I have already secured the firebrick and outer brick along with numerous plans from different individuals but lack any real experience involved in the construction.
Hence, I devour any tidbits of information regarding the building techniques required to complete a project of this magnitude seeing it's my first time through.
Being concerned of a major snafu not being discovered until after completion when one discovers it doesn't burn correctly.
In agreement with the previous poster's desire for details. Or photos if you have them. Thank you.
Edited 1/10/2007 7:16 pm ET by shed
Shed - the design I used is very simple - just cast shelves the same profile as firebrick with either the left or rightmost "shelf" missing each course. The smoke snakes its way up, and heats everything.
The biggest advice I would give would be to use the sairset mortar - you thin it to pancake bater consistency and then dip the bottom and one end of each brick as you build. The only trowel I used was a small margin trowel, and that was mostly just to clean up and for buttering corners. In this picture you can see the whiter "bricks" which are the castings I made - they are the full depth of the heater, but the height and width of a firebrick.
Every thing you need to know is in the FHB article, but I gained confidence by helping a master build one.
View Image
edited to add picture.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
Edited 1/11/2007 9:26 am ET by Brian
Brian, how did you cast the pieces for the shelves?
The article is pretty slim on detail for some of the work.
Or it's my zero experience that makes it seem so.
Joe H
I cast them using melamine forms and a regular mixer. I made them horizontally, and didn't trowel them perfectly flat, which caused some problems. I usually cut the sides of the forms to height, and pocket screw them where they need to be on an oversized piece of melamine.
I am planning on casting the next set vertically, all at once, using 3/4 melamine again, but 1/4" masonite between each slab in dado grooves. I tried to draw the form with sketchup, but I have no skills there. Picture a melamine box with 1/4" dividers dadoed in.
This should make the slabs smoother and more accurate dimensionally. The refractory casting material suggested a mortar mixer, but the drum mixer worked just fine. I used Mt Savage Refractories material, b/c it is only an hour drive for me.
Treat every person you meet like you will know them the rest of your life - you just might!
This was meant for you:
From:
shearwater <!----><!---->
4:44 pm
To:
JohnT8 <!----><!---->
(36 of 36)
83865.36 in reply to 83865.21
Jt8,
That is a great looking heater. What material is the chimney made of?
Edit: read the rest of the thread now... chimney block and wood/metal chase, right? jt8
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."-- Buddha
Your link gave a link to another site with some nice pics:
http://www.gimmeshelteronline.com/masonry/
click on "Portfolio"
jt8
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."-- Buddha
Checked out the web-site, wow.... nice work. Makes me wish I lived in there neck of the woods so they could do my fireplace. Anyway that web-site just confirmed that I can use the limestone that I was looking at.
I copied a few of their pics to show Ma. She might include a masonry heater in her next house.
jt8
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."-- Buddha
We installed a TuliKivi on a house a while back with a pizza oven. I was not entirely happy with the process and it burned the pizza too much. Looked nice though. We're really keen on the RSF Opel from Canada or the Cozyheat(knock off)which are both airtight woodstoves that install into a masonry wall to look like a wood fireplace insert.
poorgirl,
I trust you know the operational techniques that make a masonary stove so desirable.
Are you planning on having a manufactured unit installed of having one built from scratch?
pg, I'm sure you'll have fun looking at the Heater Assoc. site. A very valuable source for information and even referrals in your neighborhood that can do the work for you.
As far as the "view" side, you can put just about anything on it, tho surfaces that hold the heat and dissipate slowly are the best. We have a Tulikivi (since '89) and the question about whether you know the operation of a masonry heater is an important one. There is little quick heat in these things, but the economy on wood burning is first rate. A log bag a day (18-20 lbs.) of wood in two firings keeps this 2700ft house toasty in the living areas and comfortable in the BR's.
You want a hot, non dampered fire till the fuel goes out. Ours burns about and hour and a half-raging, not slow. Embers die out, shut it down. Heat radiates for easily 24hrs. Two firings a day keep the hot radiation, rather than hot.......then warm. They are clean burning, smoke only on start up. Ash is minimal. Flues stay clean provided you burn dry wood, not much pine and don't burn slowly.
The custom builts can be made in many configurations. Heat, oven-cookstove..........benches, etc. Location is important also. We have ours centrally located in an open floorplan. It radiates 360 degs, so don't limit it.
Best of luckA great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
When we first came up with the idea we contacted one of the manufacturers who helped us design a fireplace for our cottage that has already been approved by the Building Inspector (on paper anyway). We have the footing poured for the unit, we plan on installing a double flue so we can insert a wood burning stove in the basement base. We are not so familiar yet with the workings of this unit. Our cottage is going to be solar powered with a propane backup so we don't know yet how we move the heat into the other rooms. The cottage is 1100/ft2 horseshoe shaped and the fireplace should heat up to 2200/ft2. We are putting in Limestone floors which also will retain the heat so we thought that the fireplace would look nice in the chiselled finish in the same material. Limstone it's not as dense as a granite or a soapstone, we just wondered if anyone has used a different material than the soapstone . We don't know if the limestone will be as efficient as someother material.
We have only been able to find one supplier/manufacturer of this type of heater in Ontario, there is one company in Nova Scotia and I have contacted some of the suppliers in the U.S. market but there products are not approved for our market, do you know of other companies or independent masonries that can build from scratch in the Ontario market.
There is. Find anything at the MHA site? If not, I can contact my mason buddy, he should have an MHA contact up there.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
If I could help you I would but I'm a novice in the experiencal working knowledge of the masonry heaters, aka Finnish stoves, aka a Russian fireplace. :o)
All I've done is collected the building supplies in preparation of building one from scratch when the time comes.