New Woodstove For The Yurt

[Jafo]

The air intake is sealed with silicone, it is air tight. I have tried different configurations of small/large splits. I have adjusted the intake to different levels. If I fully fired up the firebox wide open, it could easily get up to 450-500 degrees. They specifically say you shouldn't do that in the stove manual.

The entire firebox is lined with soapstone as is part of the outside.

[Bob Rowlands]

Off topic comments. The simplest low tech way to 'store' heat from a fire is in thermal mass. I convinced that's the reason behind the massive multi sided Victorian and earlier era masonry fireplaces centrally located in the two storey home. Heat all that masonry up and it radiates into the home for hours. This idea predates all modern type furnaces heaters boilers radiators forced air etc. The fire can be quite low and burning unregulated in an inefficient open fireplace and the heat just keeps radiating into the room even after the fire has turned to coals. wood stoves are WAY more efficient but have a fraction of the mass. My wife and I have been on anniversary several times, sat by such a fireplace and even unstoked the warmth radiating into the room is absolutely wonderful when it is cold out.

Mass walls in sunrooms and of course the concrete slab operate on a similar principle.

[Bob Rowlands]

Couple other off topic comments about heat. Never done it but have read baked potatoes could be stuck in the coat pockets when outdoors in cold weather. Gonna have to try that sometime. Also, a comment on another thread about radiant heat floor. I've worked on a few houses in the winter that have had the radiant floor system operating while we were inside carpentering. Gotta say for

heating

radiant is so far superior to forced air it is like night and day. You really have to experience it to understand just how great it is.

[dc92974]

It's been quite a while, any updates on the stove? Still using / liking it? How are the burn times? Any issues with the stove being too large for the yurt (aka too hot)?

[Jafo]

Sorry for the delay. We have had a rather warm El Nino winter here, but we did get up there once for a sub zero weekend. The stove performed pretty good, but no matter what I do, you can't get 8 hours of heat out of it when the temps fall below 20F outside. Don't get me wrong, the stove will stay at around 300-350 degrees for that amount of time, but you need it to be 400+ in a 30' yurt when the temp falls down to that range. You are loading it every 3-4 hours at < 20F.

Once we get above 20 degrees, and once you have the yurt warmed up, you can maintain heat with very little wood. Every 3-4 hours I would just throw another log or two in it. If I was going to leave, I could just pack it full and if I came back 8 hours later, it will still toasty in the yurt.

I have used only a 1/3 of the wood I used last year. Of course, weather is completely different this year, so that is a factor too, but even so, that is quite a difference in efficiency.

So the answer to the question of whether it is too much stove, no. It is a great stove and it works pretty well for yurts. It looks beautiful and has basically become the centerpiece of the camp.

[Jake]

Re to masonry stoves, my wife and son were born in Siberia, older freestanding homes almost universally had large centrally located Masonry stoves, most with sleeping platforms built on. These were necessary for shortage of hardwood for fires, the big masonry stoves were used both for cooking and

heating

. A blazing fire for a short time, and they would hold the heat for days if doors were tight. I am told most of the fueling was for cooking, and the actual heating fires were just a little short time one in evening.

Labor costs for masons here make these prohibitive for most of us other then self building. Building one for a yurt would need building on a slab.
That's why to me the old Stanley and Elmira stoves are treasures to be searched for and found.

[Bob Rowlands]

I have looked online at photos of colonial era fireplaces. In general they are massive and great at absorbing heat and radiating it into the home after the fire is out. I also have a 'fine homebuilding' construction techniques 1 and 2 books from the 1980s that feature a few articles about building thermal mass masonry heaters.

Thermal mass is not new at all. Romans fired their public bath houses using the technique, and it likely predated them by a considerable time period. A real masonry fireplace built with block, stone, bricks and lined with firebrick is very expensive nowadays, but FAR SUPERIOR to the builder grade prefab fireplaces installed in todays homes. My parents had a real brick fireplace and chimney. WAAY nicer then the prefab junk I installed in my house. Although we have enjoyed the unit, I'm really starting to consider tearing out that crap and installing a good wood stove with hundreds of pounds of thermal mass.

[Jake]

I think that you'd be way ahead to do that. I have thought often of doing it by building up a good stone or brick 'wall' around a large iron stove, just to make more thermal mass . Somewhere the law of diminishing returns will kick in, but it seems that gradually adding brick/stone will show when the heat radiation is diminishing.

[Jake]

Heres some food for thought, should work really well in a yurt, on Amazon.com

Robot Check

Obviously only on a slab or the ground.

[Bob Rowlands]

I have a Hungarian friend that literally built his own house. The full masonry fireplace is in the middle of the home. Initially the fireplace was conventional design with exposed firebox. Then he started modifying it. Enclosed the front with doors. Installed water piping to pick up 'free' heat. Installed a blower.

Ultimately, he had torn out the piping and doors, and installed an old school 1970s era Fisher wood stove that probably weighed three hundred pounds if not more. It sat on the raised hearth and was installed about half way into the old fireplace opening. Being a fully airtight stove it used the least fuel, and needed the least attention. This was at about 9000 feet btw.