1. Is it correct that hand-built masonry heaters are much more expensive than prefabricated ones?
2. Is it true that a masonry heater can heat the whole house?
3. Can conventional fireplaces be used for a back-up heating system?
4. Masonry heaters vs. Metal stoves?
5. Isn't too expensive to heat the house with wood?
1. Is it correct that hand-built masonry heaters are much more expensive than prefabricated ones?
It is not correct. While hand-build heaters are labor-intensive, materials are relatively inexpensive. With prefabricated heaters, the situation is exactly reverse: you pay 80% for the components, which are expensive, and 20% for labor. It results in the fact that we can easily build you a hand-built heater core for the cost of a prefabricated KIT core. The only but big difference is much greater flexibility with the hand-built option.
2. Is it true that a masonry heater can heat the whole house?
It depends on many factors such as size of the house, location of the heater, etc. Masonry heaters can produce enough heat to cover the total combined heat loss of the whole house, but we have to keep in mind the nature of radiant heat. Heat waves radiating from heater's surface cannot travel through the walls. It means that the best location for the heater is central and the best design is open concept. Such design in conjunction with decent insulation of the outside walls will make heating of the whole house with a single heater a doable task. If your house is large, long, has irregular shape, or has many partitions, consider building two smaller heaters or install a water heating coil into the heater so you can use hot water produced by the heater for supplementary heating. Another option is to build a heater dedicated to water heating (essentially a wood-fired boiler) that will serve the whole-house hydronic heating system.
3. Can conventional fireplaces be used for a back-up heating system?
Efficiency of most conventional fireplaces falls in the range of - 10% to + 15%, meaning that a fireplace can draw more heat out of the house than it produces. Besides this, conventional fireplaces pollute atmosphere and create a chimney fire hazard by depositing creosote on the flue's surface. Therefore, they shouldn't be considered as a wise and efficient choice for back-up heating.
4. Masonry heaters vs. Metal stoves?
Masonry heaters are fired only once or twice a day. Large thermal mass of the heaters allows them to store much heat in the masonry, releasing it steadily and slowly for the next 12 to 24 hours. It results in comfortable environment around the heater and in the whole house. The combustion in the heaters is vigorous, clean and complete, leaving almost no wood smoke emissions. At the same time, most of the metal stoves use smoldering fire to extend firing and limit the temperature of the walls to an acceptable level. That means such stoves are deliberately designed for a dirty burn - they pollute and produce hazardous creosote. Some metal stoves of the latest design have improved combustion but they still lack one of the major feature of the masonry heater: heat-storing thermal mass. Low mass of metal stoves means they have to be fired almost on a constant bases using much more fuel and requiring almost constant supervision. Besides that, metal heated to high temperatures creates ionic misbalance in the house's atmosphere. All these facts make masonry heaters much wiser and healthier choice.
5. Isn't too expensive to heat the house with wood?
It is actually much cheaper than other types of fuel, unless you live in a large city. It is proven by masonry heater's owners that 1700-2000sq ft house can be heated using about 3 bush cords per heating season (which is about half year in Ontario). Current price of the firewood is around C$250 per bush cord. $750 per season for the fuel is about 2 times less than it would cost to heat the same house with natural gas and 4 times less than it would be with propane. Besides that, firewood is renewable source of energy that doesn't contribute to the greenhouse effect and is environmentally friendly.
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