Masonry Heater for my Yurt

[hierony]

Well I've come to like the heater. Once I cut done on some more drafts (mainly the platform/canvas seal & door), it should actually keep the yurt at room temp--right now it's generally 50 F in the morning after a load in the evening. It's nice to lean against in the mornings (surface temp 80-90 F).

The firebox only fits 10-20 lbs of wood (I wanted a small footprint & 5-10k btu/hr), so I burn a load in the morning & a load in the evening. I have to place the wood vertically (the firebox is only ~10" wide, maybe 15" deep) to get that much wood in. With the air inlet open I make a tiny little fire of fine kindling near the door, give it a teaspoon or so of ethanol, then set a misch metal spark to it; once that's going, I open the key/stove pipe damper and build the tiny fire up until the bigger splits start to catch. Then I close the door and ignore it for an hour or so until everything is mostly ash and maybe a little charcoal. Close the stovepipe damper and the air inlet and the thing slowly radiates heat.

My first loads were a little too small (5-8 lbs), I wasn't using small enough kindling or enough intermediately sized pieces, the matches were going out inside the firebox, I was trying to set splits horizontal (harder to catch fire), and maybe some other things. But it's working nicely now (except when the wood is too wet...).