I’m interested in masonry heaters, did you build yours or have it professionally installed ? Any information about these is appreciated…..
Had it professional built. Its unique to the house.
Our house has a basement so there is a block foundation that goes up to the first floor.
The main heater part is there. I have a heated bench as a hearth and a oven on the backside which is in the kitchen.
It does a great job of heating the house. The brick is about 120 degrees approx 18 hrs after a fire. It does not loose heat very fast.
The heat is very even. burns very clean. You have to use dry wood tho, no wet stuff. No creosote.
The house design is important. Open is better. Our 2nd story is about 5 degrees warmer.
Also a well insulated house helps alot as the heat is held in and allowed to even out in the whole house.
There is a main floor bathroom that is the coldest room in the house. Its about 2-4 degrees cooler than the rest.
The heat has to travel down a hall, thru a bedroom then into the bathroom.
All other room are pretty much the same temps.
As long as you leave the doors open.
The ceiling above the living room is insulated between the 1st and 2nd story.
That allows us to close off the guest bedroom which is above it when not in use.
It'll get maybe 10 degrees cooler with no heat getting in there.
Some of the downsides.
I wish I would of made it so the ash could fall down into a decent sized container in the basement. It would allow more time between cleaning out ash.
Right now there is a square ash container in the bottom of the firebox that holds about 4 days worth of ash.
So before the next fire I scrape the ash into a grate that allows the ash to fall into the container.
As the heat as very even you can't adjust the heat output easily. Its about a day behind what you do.
Because the house is very energy efficient a sudden swing in temps. doesn't mean the house will get cold, it means at worse case I may have to burn 2 fires in a day on the day the temp drops.
But for most times when the temp is in the teens or above one fire a day is plenty.
Obvious downside is the cost, ours was about 20K 6 years ago.
But it is a big improvement over a wood stove, fireplace or outside wood boiler.
No maintenance is really required, maybe check the flue once every 5-6 years thats it.
You get some fly ash but because it burns hot and fast no deposits in the flue.
It should last the lifetime of the house otherwise.
any more question just ask.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.postimg.cc/8zztCP3Z/ugly-trees-005.jpg)
Firebox/living room side on 1st floor, the hearth is heated, the flue winds up, down, horizontal thru the heated bench, then up again, horizontal, up again, horizontal around the heated bench on the second floor then finally up into the stove pipe.
All that time in the masonry allows the hot gasses to be adsorbed and stored.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.postimg.cc/dVNnZccw/ugly-trees-007.jpg)
Kitchen side on 1st floor, back side of firebox, oven gets to 325-375 a couple of hrs after starting a fire.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.postimg.cc/CLNcYfvZ/ugly-trees-003.jpg)
2nd story.