The Masonry Stove Project...
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We are in the process of building a masonry stove in our house.
We expect this stove to...
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Make Hot Water
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Heat our house
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Bring fresh air in to the house
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Cook and bake our food.
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Be efficient, safe, and convenient.
It is built out of mostly inexpensive material or of things I already had on hand or things people gave to me. I'm building it so I can change the size of the firebox to meet the amount of heat I need. It has a 'black oven', which means you build a fire and heat the stove up. Then you bake in the firebox.
Click here to see more pictures of the stove on Facebook.
I plan to be adding pictures as the building progress.
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See below for pictures that we took as we were building the stove. You can learn a lot by looking at pictures.
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This the original stove I had before I built the masonry stove. I used a bunch of the design features from this old cook stove to help me design the new masonry stove.
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This is how I heated my water on the old stove. It worked good. But was very limited on how much hot water I had. Even if the stove wasn't going, it still warmed the water to room tempature.
Starting to lay bricks.
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Starting to lay bricks.
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Here is a picture of the construction of the base. This stove is built on a wooden floor. Therefore we needed to be extra careful about fire safety. There is a peice of 1/2 inch cement board on the floor. Then there is a brick on each corner of the stove. Then there is a metal plate with angle iron welded to the underside with the angle turned down. Then we poured a mixture of 1 part Portland Cement and 3 parts Perlite. Then there is another peice of cement board. Then we layed the firebrick core and the red brick face on top of the cement board. The Perlite mix is an insulation to keep the heat from the firebox from going down. The air gap under the stove lets the air move and disipate any heat that does come through.
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Mark fixing to cut a brick.
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Melvin thinking.
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Looking down into the "third" bell. This is under the water tank.
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Melvin looking at the blueprint.
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Notice the cardboard between the face and the core. Notice the rod for the bypass damper in the center.
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Notice the form around the base to hold the Perlite/Portland mix.
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There is soapstone to bridge the gap above where the door goes.
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We used the Story Pole to get the correct height when we were laying the bricks. It sat on top of the form, which has been removed in this picture. A Story Pole is very helpful.
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This is the firebox door. The ash door at the bottom tips out. The main door has glass so you can see the fire inside and more heat comes out. This is a Pisla door and cost a few hundred dollars. I got this door from Mark Seymour of Radiant Hearth Masonry Heaters. My original plan was to not have any door at all, but only be able to put wood in the top. No door would be much cheaper and simpler to build. The door lets lots of heat out, so I stack firebricks inside the door to keep the heat in in the summer time when I'm running the stove for hot water.
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The door taped in place.
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The fire bricks almost finished.
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The bypass damper rod without the damper. The bypass damper has proved to make almost no differance in the amount of draft when the stove is starting and no noticable differance when its hot. I wouldn't put the bypass damper in again.
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Looking into the "second bell". One brick is removed so you can see in.
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Melvin and Mark laying bricks.
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Copper water heating loop being layed in the bricks. Knotches are cut into the back of the bricks to make room for the copper pipe. The copper pipe is wrapped in masking tape.
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Another view of the copper heating loop. There are two copper heating loops like this, one on top of the other.
Copper heating loop.
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Notice the secondary air inlet pipe at the left. The pipe is from a propane heater flame tube.
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The two secondary air inlet pipes.
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The secondary air inlet pipes butterfly valves. I made these valves out of pipe steel, a rod, and 3 screws. The rod is smashed flat where the screws are.
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Secondary air inlet hole inside the firebox.
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Looking into the firebox through the glass door. Notice the dark circle where the secondary air is coming in.
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David, a good friend who was helping me.
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Looking into the smoke pipe inside the water tank. This tank was a oil fired water heater that I modified. I had to torch all the fins out of the center of the pipe.
The pipe I welded on the bottom of the water tank to keep the hot smoke from quickly going up the chimney.
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Heavy angle iron welded to the water tank to span the bypass damper opening.
The water tank is being placed. There is fiberglass rope and fire mortar to make a seal between the bricks and the tank. The weight of the tank is on the outside red bricks and the seal on the fire brick.
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The water tank is over the firebox in this picture. The bricks you see is where the water tank will be.
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The water tank in place.
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Besides the copper loops in the brick face for making hot water, I made two 9 inches by about 1 3/4 inch openings going into the smoke channels for inserting a copper pipe loop for more hot water.
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Melvin, (I), by my stove.
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Getting ready to lay the cook top.
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The frame/outside of the cook top.
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Smokey firebricks after the first fire. It's important to build small fires until the bricks are dried and cured.
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Cooking supper.
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Getting ready for tile floor. I wanted tile floor around the stove for fire safety. I ended putting tile on the whole kitchen.
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Expect more pictures and info when I get to uploading them.
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Written 4-14-14: I have the stove finished enough that we are using it. I really like it, however I see that are some 'bugs' I need to work out of it.
There is a hot spot on the cook top that I need to put some insulation under it to make the tempature even.
The insulated panels for the sides that I orginally planned to make for summer time use is very important for me to complete. The bricks on the inside are too cool for a clean burn and the house gets too hot in comparison to each other. If the outside of the stove gets over about 110-120 F, the house is 80 F.
We don't have enough hot water. However, we always have cool or warmer water, and we still didn't hook any water loops in. I think if I hook the two copper loops in that are in the brick face and I put the insulated panels on as is planned, that we will have lots of hot water. I origanally planned to make two water heating loops for in the flue channels, however, for now I plan to seal those opennings and not make the loops.
I noticed that the heat in the water tank is trying to go up the chimney. For my situation, this design is the best; however, it would be better if the chimney didn't go through the water tank. I already have a damper in to slow the heat loss down. However, I'm considering to put a tee in the chimney with a second damper so I can allow air from the house to go up the chimney instead of hot air from the water tank going up the chimney. With cool air going up the chimney, the chimney will not be trying so hard to pull air out of the house.
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