I built a Russian stove out of cinder blocks for my garage, works great. General idea is to superheat the fire to get near 100% fuel burn without smoke. My main fire burns at over 1200 degrees F and the exhaust is near smokeless at about 150 degrees F. The heat gets trapped in the thermal mass. Step 1 is to build a rocket stove. Step 2 just add the down flow routes. Step 3 add the flu. I spent a few hundred bucks and a few days on the weekend.
Well done, thx. We bought a similar masonry heater kit 25 yrs ago from a Toronto outfit. Had it professionally installed. Love it. Your comment about not being to explain how nice they are until you live with one is so very true. One huge distinction between the contra flow masonry heater and a Russian stove is efficiency. The contra flow design like the Tuli Kivi achieves critically high temperatures in its upper chamber. Time, turbulence and temperature allow complete combustion of the woodsmoke at > 1200F releasing more heat energy. The resistance of heat having to travel down also contributes to greater heat absorption by the thermal mass for later release. Exiting flue temps are 250F. Very nice workmanship on your stove ! Keep up the good work.
Congratulations! Unbeatable will be to custom build it but you need a professional mason who really know this, very rare these days. Real Russian type it’s like 10 times bigger and you cook on it and can sleep on it, only survive in villages and farm homes. Hope they will come back again for private homes as it’s a greatest efficiency of all house “heaters”. Well, you made yours and it’s amazing
Great vid. I have been looking for a good explanation of a masonry heater and here it is. I have an off grid home currently heated by a wood stove. Masonry heater on the way! I am currently a slave to my stove. 6 hours maximum burn time and very fuel inefficient.
There is no draft involved in a contra-flow masonry heater. That which appears to be 'down-draft' is, in fact, just the exhaust being pushed from the starting point- the firebox. The same principle permits for the use of a serpentine route in the large masonry heaters. The several cleanouts found on the larger heaters are really there just to satisfy building codes. The size of a masonry heater and whether it has a simple contra-flow or complex serpentine exhaust route has no effect on how much ash accumulates within the route. In eastern Europe, where these heaters are most commonly found, they have one cleanout and rarely have anything to clean. If anything, extra cleanouts are more used to inspect for cracking of the structure. The one instance where draft might be useful is where a shortcut is used to the chimney to ease the start-up of a masonry stove. That is, until the fire is hot enough to push the exhaust through the serpentine or contra-flow and suck in fresh air, the drafted shortcut gets the fire going quicker. But using good kindling should make the lack of such a shortcut quite acceptable.
I built our house around the Heatkit core here in Alberta. Under-fire air, white stove, and a heated Tyndall stone slab bench to sit or sleep on, along the back. Cinder block construction from the reinforced basement slab up to a cantilevered Q-Deck. I figure 7 tons of stone all in. The veneer was enlarged to hide a mechanical raceway on the opposite side to the chimney connection, leveraged it to preheat cold air by running it over top of the core, down the side into the basement forced air furnace intake. When your architect says "I don't know what a masonry heater is", find another architect. Don't build a house without one. Oh, and don't burn spruce, pine, or fir.
@@johnstack4316people have been burning what they have available for millennia. Just try to season it as best as you can, check your fireplace regularly to stay on top of build up, and if possible, utilize some of the techniques here with masonry or russian stoves for more heat efficiency.
@@JS-jh4cy Alberta has hardwood, sure not as much as the Eastern provinces. Birch is common, green ash. But he's correct, burning softwood is fine but you need to be careful of buildup and it is less efficient.
Hey Takota, thanks for making this video and sharing the experience. I'm thinking about going this route as well using a tempcast core kit. What kind and size of brick did you use? And what type of mortar did you use? Thanks for your time and answers!
Awesome job mate! I ordered a core from Temp-Cast and will be installing it in the log home we are building. If I do half as good a job as you I'll be happy! Cheers
The prices for these kits are outrageous. Refractory cement is not that expensive. I would rather build my own forms and pour the cement in place than spend $10,000 on a pre-fab kit.
@@GENECARP, it seems unlikely that with such a short path through the masonry that the flu gases would have cooled dramatically by the point that they reach the stove pipe. Maybe I'm wrong though and the contraflow is able to pull out more heat than one would expect in such a short distance. I would be curious to see what a temperature probe in that pipe would read. I would guess at least 300° - 400°F.
That is how we do it here in Finland.brick all the way.And building it in the middle of the house .I have electrical heating but I have it set on 15c but they never switch on the masonry heater takes care of it all.And I have a brick cooking stove in the kitchen to.It is the best insurance if the power goes out in snowstorms.No freezing waterpipes here.And living on a farm in Finland means firewood is not a problem.Masonry heaters has been tested over here for hundreds of years.I don't understand why metal stoves are so popular in north america.
I wonder why water tanks aren't commonly incorporated into masonry heaters for heat storage. It would obviously need to be in a part of the stove where the water wouldn't boil, but that seems very doable. Water can store so much more heat in a given amount of space than masonry, I think something like 8-10 times as much heat if the masonry is only being heated up to temperatures below the boiling point of water.
I've been dreaming lately of building a home with a central masonery heater like this one and thinking I could incorporate glycol/water blend tanks with a water pump to pump the warm fluid through a system of floor heating tubing.
Simplicity and longevity. With water, you have to worry about corrosion. With masonry, you don't have to worry about pumping. If the power goes out, you have the same heat as with it on.
Have you heard of a rocket mass heater? Same principle but cheaper, can be ugly depending on how much work and money you want to put into them but some people have fancy ones.
@13:28 You know, you could just pile concrete blocks around a cheap wood stove from Walmart, and that's your thermal mass on a budget. -Or stack it all the way up to the ceiling if it's not too high.- Less than $200 for a cabin-sized small wood stove, $1500 for house-sized. It's a great idea but $10000 sounds like a scam.
It's not just thermal mass but routing the hot fumes through the structure of the oven. Ie the cheap stove is still way less efficient which is costly over time.
If you look up broaudio, on TH-cam. He designs a variant of these that you can use as a stove. The ones he has as a design can heat 1000sqft to 1500. And those are smaller then this one.
~5 tons of bricks can take quite time to heat up .. but when hot .. warmth for long time. By north-european standards it's quite small one ;) You don't want to make fire every day (unless it's -30C outside)
I'd be interested in turning my standard fireplace into a masonry heater and I want the oven too but also a cook top. I have two rooms on the backside of the all brick chimney and wall and had considered a boiler and radiator system to heat those rooms for sleeping but I'm considering a different thermal mass system instead possibly. Trying to decide between hydro or air. Or both to heat bedrooms or beds. But also have outdoor pool and shower just on the other side of the bedroom too and figured somehow I can have hot water, hydro radiator with boiler and thermal mass air exchange too. All on one fire 🔥
You could build your own using firebrick and refractory morter. This video gives you a model. I built my own rumsford fireplace and brick oven 8 years ago and looks great and performs well. Masonry heaters are the cats meow.
Is it possible to remove the whitish coating from the brick so that more of the color of the brick shows? Great intro to masonry stoves, keep up the great work!
Wire brush as soon as mortar is dry and gray, around an hour after laying brick, not sooner or you'll smear it. If smeared or dry'd too long, people use muriatic acid to clean bricks, i don't 'cause it's nasty and can burn you
I mean....who doesn't have a John Deere tractor to receive and get your order inside... I'm from Argentina but unfortunately not from a country family..... currently trying to leave city for ever in a first stage, but my farm will mainly produce craft whisky(ey). Great Channel... Greetings.
It can be. The oxygen source comes from the room. But it can be done with an outside source. The area for an oven is a secondary burn chamber where wood gas is burned. The inner core gets to 1500 degrees. These are very efficient. What a conventional stove burns like 12-15 cords of wood. This would burn 3-5 cords. There really is only one to two burns in a 12hour period. So the cost is worth it if you are really burning with wood. Considering the cost of installing a class a chimney and some stoves costs 3k- 5k. This could be a better option.
10k for core is high..........library instructions..........make core youself. ...........buy doors and vent plates. you are paying for somones labor and transport.....
the diy version of this is the rocket mass heater which other people have pointed out here, but remember if you are planning on selling your house there can be benefits to using a product like this because it will make people feel more comfortable about purchasing it.
Radiant slab and a gasification wood boiler. A hydraulically linked Russian fireplace. Then you can heat domestic water and other buildings all with 1 fire.
Nice heater. Agonisingly painful explanation to listen to. I'm sure there were more pauses, swallows, ah's and umm's than there were actual words, but we got there in the end.
I know he layed tiles before by the amount of ass crack you see when he builds the masonry heater :P But seriously, I need one of those. I'm just wondering how to make sure it won't crash through the floor
$10,000+. Masonry vs. $500-1,000. Rocket stove...Rocket stove, hands down. Remember to lite your fire, top down. p.s. Why did you build this right next to a door?
Nice project and looks good 👍. But your presentation/explanation was akin to watching a young primary student, presenting in front of the class… and I say this to be taken as constructive criticism; no malice intended.
I built a Russian stove out of cinder blocks for my garage, works great. General idea is to superheat the fire to get near 100% fuel burn without smoke. My main fire burns at over 1200 degrees F and the exhaust is near smokeless at about 150 degrees F. The heat gets trapped in the thermal mass. Step 1 is to build a rocket stove. Step 2 just add the down flow routes. Step 3 add the flu. I spent a few hundred bucks and a few days on the weekend.
Nice smart Build Man !!
Hi, do you have any drawing to share? thanks.
Well done, thx. We bought a similar masonry heater kit 25 yrs ago from a Toronto outfit. Had it professionally installed. Love it. Your comment about not being to explain how nice they are until you live with one is so very true. One huge distinction between the contra flow masonry heater and a Russian stove is efficiency. The contra flow design like the Tuli Kivi achieves critically high temperatures in its upper chamber. Time, turbulence and temperature allow complete combustion of the woodsmoke at > 1200F releasing more heat energy. The resistance of heat having to travel down also contributes to greater heat absorption by the thermal mass for later release. Exiting flue temps are 250F. Very nice workmanship on your stove ! Keep up the good work.
Good insights! Thanks :)
Congratulations! Unbeatable will be to custom build it but you need a professional mason who really know this, very rare these days. Real Russian type it’s like 10 times bigger and you cook on it and can sleep on it, only survive in villages and farm homes. Hope they will come back again for private homes as it’s a greatest efficiency of all house “heaters”. Well, you made yours and it’s amazing
Great video. Your explanations of each type of heater/oven is really clear. I understand more now how these ovens work.
Glad it was helpful!
Hahaha, buddy just wants some attention and a good back scratch 😄 Looks like a great dog and the video was excellent as well!
Haha yes he is a great dog!
I would love to see how your parents designed their house around the heater. It looks comfy @14:33
Nothing beats a masonry heater. Had one built in one of our previous homes and it was awesome. Really miss it.
Very smart heating. Would love that in a future house/cabin.
Great vid. I have been looking for a good explanation of a masonry heater and here it is. I have an off grid home currently heated by a wood stove. Masonry heater on the way! I am currently a slave to my stove. 6 hours maximum burn time and very fuel inefficient.
TuliKivi heaters are built just down the road from us up here in Finland. 🇫🇮 😊
There is no draft involved in a contra-flow masonry heater. That which appears to be 'down-draft' is, in fact, just the exhaust being pushed from the starting point- the firebox. The same principle permits for the use of a serpentine route in the large masonry heaters. The several cleanouts found on the larger heaters are really there just to satisfy building codes. The size of a masonry heater and whether it has a simple contra-flow or complex serpentine exhaust route has no effect on how much ash accumulates within the route. In eastern Europe, where these heaters are most commonly found, they have one cleanout and rarely have anything to clean. If anything, extra cleanouts are more used to inspect for cracking of the structure. The one instance where draft might be useful is where a shortcut is used to the chimney to ease the start-up of a masonry stove. That is, until the fire is hot enough to push the exhaust through the serpentine or contra-flow and suck in fresh air, the drafted shortcut gets the fire going quicker. But using good kindling should make the lack of such a shortcut quite acceptable.
0:43 That yawn is hilarious! LOL :D
I built our house around the Heatkit core here in Alberta. Under-fire air, white stove, and a heated Tyndall stone slab bench to sit or sleep on, along the back. Cinder block construction from the reinforced basement slab up to a cantilevered Q-Deck. I figure 7 tons of stone all in. The veneer was enlarged to hide a mechanical raceway on the opposite side to the chimney connection, leveraged it to preheat cold air by running it over top of the core, down the side into the basement forced air furnace intake. When your architect says "I don't know what a masonry heater is", find another architect. Don't build a house without one. Oh, and don't burn spruce, pine, or fir.
Great quote, I’m going to use that!
Pine and fir are the trees that grow where I live. Why shouldn't I burn them?
@@johnstack4316people have been burning what they have available for millennia. Just try to season it as best as you can, check your fireplace regularly to stay on top of build up, and if possible, utilize some of the techniques here with masonry or russian stoves for more heat efficiency.
@rexhavoc5643 so what the hell do you burn if you done burn confers in the west, back east has hardwood
@@JS-jh4cy Alberta has hardwood, sure not as much as the Eastern provinces. Birch is common, green ash. But he's correct, burning softwood is fine but you need to be careful of buildup and it is less efficient.
Hey Takota, thanks for making this video and sharing the experience. I'm thinking about going this route as well using a tempcast core kit. What kind and size of brick did you use? And what type of mortar did you use?
Thanks for your time and answers!
Awesome job mate! I ordered a core from Temp-Cast and will be installing it in the log home we are building. If I do half as good a job as you I'll be happy! Cheers
Did you end up building your tempcast? I'm about to do the same
The prices for these kits are outrageous. Refractory cement is not that expensive. I would rather build my own forms and pour the cement in place than spend $10,000 on a pre-fab kit.
@@herbsthewerd1 True. The challenge is to find optimally designed plans to follow.
I would think down draft with a simple secondary combustion would be very good
Curious as to why you didn't make the chimney from brick and transition to stove pipe at the roof in order to soak up more heat from the flu gasses.
I would say that the metal flue helps heat the room faster, and the masonry keeps the room warm longer.
What @Eeton said!
Also, the flue gasses should not be that hot during the cycle, the masonry has drawn most of the heat by that time.
@@GENECARP, it seems unlikely that with such a short path through the masonry that the flu gases would have cooled dramatically by the point that they reach the stove pipe. Maybe I'm wrong though and the contraflow is able to pull out more heat than one would expect in such a short distance. I would be curious to see what a temperature probe in that pipe would read. I would guess at least 300° - 400°F.
That is how we do it here in Finland.brick all the way.And building it in the middle of the house .I have electrical heating but I have it set on 15c but they never switch on the masonry heater takes care of it all.And I have a brick cooking stove in the kitchen to.It is the best insurance if the power goes out in snowstorms.No freezing waterpipes here.And living on a farm in Finland means firewood is not a problem.Masonry heaters has been tested over here for hundreds of years.I don't understand why metal stoves are so popular in north america.
I wonder why water tanks aren't commonly incorporated into masonry heaters for heat storage. It would obviously need to be in a part of the stove where the water wouldn't boil, but that seems very doable. Water can store so much more heat in a given amount of space than masonry, I think something like 8-10 times as much heat if the masonry is only being heated up to temperatures below the boiling point of water.
On my Russian fireplace. There is a hole in top. Filled with sand.
I've been dreaming lately of building a home with a central masonery heater like this one and thinking I could incorporate glycol/water blend tanks with a water pump to pump the warm fluid through a system of floor heating tubing.
Simplicity and longevity. With water, you have to worry about corrosion. With masonry, you don't have to worry about pumping. If the power goes out, you have the same heat as with it on.
im in saskatchewan so what was total cost shipped installed for 2 models mentioned in 1st 5 min?
really good presentation! thank you!
You're very welcome!
Have you heard of a rocket mass heater? Same principle but cheaper, can be ugly depending on how much work and money you want to put into them but some people have fancy ones.
But most rocket stoves whether just a rocket or rocket mass heater design are not UL certified. You have a home fire your insurance won’t cover you.
@@beebob1279 the insurance factor is the biggest downfall of the rocket mass heater.
@@timyanke9559 Yep. The only one I know of that's legal is the Liberator Rocket Stove.
@13:28 You know, you could just pile concrete blocks around a cheap wood stove from Walmart, and that's your thermal mass on a budget.
-Or stack it all the way up to the ceiling if it's not too high.- Less than $200 for a cabin-sized small wood stove, $1500 for house-sized.
It's a great idea but $10000 sounds like a scam.
It's not just thermal mass but routing the hot fumes through the structure of the oven. Ie the cheap stove is still way less efficient which is costly over time.
@wio2189 True. If you have the metal-working tools and know-how you can redesign the exhaust pipe for the woodstove. 😁
Beautiful stove
Thank you for the presentation.
Excellent explanation
If you have a tighter airsealed house, could you modify the heater to have an air intake that is connected from the outside?
yes , a combustion air supply would be necessary and running through the heater will prevent cold drafts
I love it but seems like a lot of money. I wonder if there isn't a less expensive way to build one .
Is this company alive? Trying to find their website dead please share we love this stove!!!
Very cool and have not heard of them yet.
I really enjoyed the video, I would like to build my own core using fire brick, do you know where a person can get a set of plans?
Not sure how you would be able to clean the inside of that fireplace for creosote unless you design in cleanouts. I don't see any on their designs.
That was great! Thank you!
What kind of square footage could a heater like this keep warm in winter temperatures that range from lowes of -12°C to highs up to +10°C?
In Russia these heat a whole home, when the house is built with this type of heating in mind.
If you look up broaudio, on TH-cam. He designs a variant of these that you can use as a stove. The ones he has as a design can heat 1000sqft to 1500. And those are smaller then this one.
@@TheTyrial86, thanks. Will do.
If it is well insulated, about 1500 sq ft
~5 tons of bricks can take quite time to heat up .. but when hot .. warmth for long time.
By north-european standards it's quite small one ;)
You don't want to make fire every day (unless it's -30C outside)
Im trying to build a Romanian Terracotta heater. Should be interesting
How much does it cost to make ?
I'd be interested in turning my standard fireplace into a masonry heater and I want the oven too but also a cook top. I have two rooms on the backside of the all brick chimney and wall and had considered a boiler and radiator system to heat those rooms for sleeping but I'm considering a different thermal mass system instead possibly. Trying to decide between hydro or air. Or both to heat bedrooms or beds. But also have outdoor pool and shower just on the other side of the bedroom too and figured somehow I can have hot water, hydro radiator with boiler and thermal mass air exchange too. All on one fire 🔥
That's a shame they charge that much for that material. Love the concept but they don't have near that much in material there. Good job great video.
You could build your own using firebrick and refractory morter. This video gives you a model. I built my own rumsford fireplace and brick oven 8 years ago and looks great and performs well. Masonry heaters are the cats meow.
Brick oven.
We need fire rezistant bricks?
@@angetodac called kiln bricks
No creosote issues?
Yes... Avoid serpentine style masonry heater pipe styles because it allows for more debris to build up and requires more cleaning in more pipes
2:17 distribución del calor, interesante
Am i correct you said this was a crosfire kit. Where there different options to choose from
That is correct!
Like in floor heat in a wall.
Is it possible to remove the whitish coating from the brick so that more of the color of the brick shows? Great intro to masonry stoves, keep up the great work!
You have to wash the bricks. It takes about 5-6 washes to get it off.
Yes you can, but I like the rustic look! The bricks are actually 100 years old. I reclaimed them from an old farm house.
Wire brush as soon as mortar is dry and gray, around an hour after laying brick, not sooner or you'll smear it. If smeared or dry'd too long, people use muriatic acid to clean bricks, i don't 'cause it's nasty and can burn you
It’s in your garage?
Can you combine with rocket mass?
Thank goodness for subtitles.....couldn't follow his voice.
You might want to get your hearing checked. The presentation was fine and easy to hear.
Why is it next to a door ,in a strange spot
I mean....who doesn't have a John Deere tractor to receive and get your order inside... I'm from Argentina but unfortunately not from a country family..... currently trying to leave city for ever in a first stage, but my farm will mainly produce craft whisky(ey).
Great Channel... Greetings.
You are amazing already based on the fact that you use celsius and not fahrenheit.
It’s because he’s Canadian
I hope thays not a 4 in floor under that.
No its a truck garage
Note: The website you mention early in this video no longer exists...just a scam site, now.
He/where to access to clean long term soot built up?
Very hot fire just about precludes it
Seems very expensive.
What is the oxygen source?
Is the top box used as an oven?
It can be. The oxygen source comes from the room. But it can be done with an outside source. The area for an oven is a secondary burn chamber where wood gas is burned. The inner core gets to 1500 degrees. These are very efficient. What a conventional stove burns like 12-15 cords of wood. This would burn 3-5 cords. There really is only one to two burns in a 12hour period. So the cost is worth it if you are really burning with wood. Considering the cost of installing a class a chimney and some stoves costs 3k- 5k. This could be a better option.
@@TheTyrial86 I totally agree. I plan on building one in my new home.
@@TheTyrial86 The air inlet is outside.
I'm looking at upgrading to a catalytic stove for my mobile. They are supposed to be able to burn slower if you need them to.
I don't understand why this is in your garage and not in your house. Is it heating your house is my question? We have a masonry heater and love it.
10,000 fires, figuring one fire per day every day, is over 27.4 years.
usually 2 fires a day. One in the morning and one in the evening.
10k for core is high..........library instructions..........make core youself. ...........buy doors and vent plates. you are paying for somones labor and transport.....
so this is similar to a rocket mass heater?
Yes.
Where does your combustion air come from - the house - outside air???
Looks like there is an air inlet on the front near the floor.
Only subscribed cause of the g. shephard
I'm from Alberta but the website looks like something from the 90's, Geocities lol. Cool fireplace though man 👍
haha yes it is a bit outdated! But he is a good guy
I dont understand why build that Masonry Heaters in your garage I would want it in my living room. And most Masonry Heaters I see are in living room
the diy version of this is the rocket mass heater which other people have pointed out here, but remember if you are planning on selling your house there can be benefits to using a product like this because it will make people feel more comfortable about purchasing it.
Radiant slab and a gasification wood boiler. A hydraulically linked Russian fireplace. Then you can heat domestic water and other buildings all with 1 fire.
$10k for a box and a pile of bricks. Ouch! $10k buys a lot of propane. I’m looking for a true DIY heater.
Nice heater. Agonisingly painful explanation to listen to. I'm sure there were more pauses, swallows, ah's and umm's than there were actual words, but we got there in the end.
@@bennapper1302 you can always make your own video providing a better explanation.
I know he layed tiles before by the amount of ass crack you see when he builds the masonry heater :P
But seriously, I need one of those. I'm just wondering how to make sure it won't crash through the floor
$10,000+. Masonry vs. $500-1,000. Rocket stove...Rocket stove, hands down.
Remember to lite your fire, top down.
p.s. Why did you build this right next to a door?
brilliant heater, heat with wood, avoid paying carbon tax as much as possible
Only Americans spend 10K for that simple design.
Please, write a script before you record. Trying to patiently listen to this was painful.
Or, you could shut the fuck up and just listen🤷🏼♂️
The company looks like it’s out of business…
friggin things cost the price of a piece of land
These are really neat, not useful where I live.
Nice project and looks good 👍. But your presentation/explanation was akin to watching a young primary student, presenting in front of the class… and I say this to be taken as constructive criticism; no malice intended.
You kinda sound like Jordan Peterson. I wasn't looking, and thought I was listening to him talking about heaters lol.