I don't know about kits (other than the Beacon Stoves type you mentioned) but you might like to look at a more DIY type, the Rocket Stove - http://www.rocketstoves.com/index.htm. The principal seems broadly the same as a ceramic stove.

Alternatively you could opt for the fabulous but expensive Tonwerk Lausen range (http://www.twlag.ch/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=48&lang=en) - their Topolino Stove is available from just a few UK companies and I think the nearest to you would be Construction Resources in London ( the Ceramic Stove Company used to list it too I think).

Other useful resources are Woodheat in Canada http://www.woodheat.org/ and for a more alternative approach checkout Wood Fires That Fit (http://journeytoforever.org/at_woodfire.html) from Appropriate Technology. One of the most efficient of all wood burning technologies seems to be Wood Gas, but whether anyone has combined this with ceramic or masonry stoves I can't tell.

Hi,
This stove maker (Ovnsætter??) in Denmark has an interesting site

http://www.stenovne.dk/englishpage1.html

I found it interesting, the bits in English, but I am unsure if he would travel to you to build you a stove.

This site
http://homepages.phonecoop.coop/highlandeco/
Describes a masonry heater workshop in Scotland, where they had an expert come over from Scandinavia and show them how to build one.


Peter

Hi Ads

Just checked out Topolino prices and they are around £3000 plus Vat at construction resources so $2500 seems pretty cheap to me even with shipping and duties. Also we are looking for something that will heat two rooms either side of an existing chimney and a new room to be created out of the loft space above so building something like the Tempcast or maybe the Finnoven into the chimney seems like the best bet to heat as many spaces as poss. We are trying to use this as an alternative to installing central heating as neither of us likes the heat you get from radiators particularly. Underfloor heating is another option if ripping out the chimney proves too complicated, but ripping up floors is pretty radical too!

Another possibility we are exploring is seeing if we could get the tigchelkachels guy over from Holland to run a workshop to install a finoven at our old stone coach house in Hastings. Any interest from anyone in attending if we ran one?

Hi Henry

Keep me posted on your thoughts about Finovens - we may be veering towards these as I think they are slightly smaller than the Tempcast. What part of the world is your friend who installed a finoven? Do they fancy installing another one in Hastings?!

We are hoping to get something installed before this winter so if you decide to go to Holland sooner let me know. I am going to talk to someone in Scotland next week who has installed his own masonry stove. The one mentioned in Peter Clark's posting.

http://homepages.phonecoop.coop/highlandeco/

I hope to have a clearer idea of which way to go after that.

Are you fitting a finoven into an existing house or a new build?

As a matter of interest I have come across another Finnish manufacturer - Tulikivi. They even make a model with glass doors on both sides of the firebox for the 'fire in each room' option. I got to their online brochure via http://www.alaskamasonryheat.com/ although there seem to be a number of companies in America who use them. As usual there is not a distributor in the UK!

Rachel, interesting comments - was yours a built-on-site type or an off-the-shelf stove? And how well insulated is your property?

All the components were brought on site and then built there. An osier ceramic stove. Our house is super insulated: straw bale and thermafleece roof. But it is quite open plan and there isn't a huge ammount of thermal mass, so we need to go for a hotter stove.

Hi everyone,

thirteen months on, I am wondering if anyone has proceeding with one of these beasts and can say what they are like to live with?

Peter

In our old Farmhouse renovation when we were dismantling some of the interior we came across an old doorway which had been covered over with asbestos sheet.This was directly under the Flue ways to the big old chimney which now due to alterations some time in the past had a spare flue and pot at the top. I had an interest in the masonry stove idea from seeing them on the net - http://mha-net.org/ is a good site to see them but most of them want to sell you a construction at a fortune.But on http://dnr.mo.gov/pubs/pub781.pdf I came accross the Missouri stove with designs in detail of how to build one. Don't be put off its not as complicated as it looks . They specify an external air supply through pipes and a shut off valve. I didn't pursue that route instead I have a hole at the bottom to take out ashes and slide two firebricks accross the entrance to shut off air.More importantly an airtight damper about 2metres up is the key preventing the heat being sucked up the chimney after the fire has gone out. To give you an idea of how it operates the best firing cycle is as follows. Load the firebox with the biggest logs on the bottom working upwards to the kindling which sits at the top.Light the top and let it work its way down that way a gradually increasingly hot fire develops which burns everything - no smoke at all ! I have tried the other way bottom up which is what I was always used to and I get loads of dark coloured smoke and an acrid smell which implies wasted energy. The absolute key to operating it is this fast burn about an hour 20 minutes. >then immediately the fire is left with just a few embers shut of the air supply and close the damper at the top. then you have a giant storage heater radiating until the next morning. Miss that critical shut off by an hour and I have so I know then you have lost about 50 percent of the heat sucked up the chimney. They reckon that for every 10 logs you put on one of these you get about 9 in heat whereas an open fire is the other way round. I built the horizontal flue channels 3 in all in the shape of a u lying on its back each one with a riser to the next and finally exiting to the chimney by the shut off damper. Cost about 600 quid mainly the firebricks for the firebox and the first flue run High Aluminia cement also. After that ordinary engineering bricks and portland cement,sand and granite concrete for the lids to the flueways.the firebox needs refractory concrete and stainless steel reinforcing bars cos that gets very hot.I also laid all the firebricks from some night storage heaters in the upper flueways - theres not much to see in the living room just a brick safetey wall where the doorway was and all the works-door cleanout damper etc are in a boiler room I built on at the back using insulated walls etc to trap the massive thermal mass of the walls and the heater. Fuel consumption about a level wheelbarrow daily although because mine has a firegrate in the bottom I have also been experimenting burning Anthracite with just enough wood to get it going then it was burning about 8 kilos a day and last year I fetched 460 kilos in my trailer for 64 pounds so it has been cheap to run.
It does need a bit of maintenance around the grate area after the coal which burned hotter but that was my fault using pumice when i should have used crushed firebrick.
Anyone interested could look at http://www.grannysstore.com/Do-It-Yourself/masonry_stoves.htm which is an alternative design for consideration.

Rachel- just a couple of questions to try and find out why yours performed so poorly
1 did you have an airtight damper at the top to close off the heat from escaping up the chimney ?
2 give us an idea of the physical size of the unit in cubic metres
3 give us an estimate of the quantity of wood burned each time.

After a good burn with ours it is hot until the next day but we live in a relatively mild winter climate.

Rachel- comparing what you had with ours(home built) I guess ours is about twice to three times the thermal mass.
Presumably ours then stores more heat and I suspect that some of your heat was escaping during the firing cycle.
just a guess though

Thanks Rachel and welshboy,

Rachel that sounds irritating, so the clearview uses LESS wood than the ceramic stove? and for less heat!(edit. I mean more heat)

welshboy, you sound like a pioneering sort, well done. I would be too nervous of wrecking my house or causing a problem with fumes.

How about Ads, juliahilton and HenrySears, no one installed a finoven or tempcast?

Peter

Yes, Ads that's what I thought. The Clearview is great, although I am looking to have more thermal mass in my straw bale house and wondering about building a clay wall close to the stove to hold the heat for longer...

I read this thread with interest because I am planning a straw bale house and want a wood stove with back boiler (I love the sight of burning wood and need to heat water in winter when solar is not efficient).

Other threads have pointed out that Passive houses are to well insulated for wood stoves as their heat output is too great in a well insulated house (Viking House) therefore I was impressed with these stoves as they promise low heat output over longer periods of time which in theory would suit a passive house.

I wonder if a compromise would be building a high thermal mass fireplace (inglenook type) and instaling a cast iron woodburner. If the area above the stove (behind the lintel) was hollow to the ceiling and capped with concrete it would trap the rising hot air and this heat could soak into the brickwork.

Also I like the idea of an "inserted" wood stove (built into a wall) but I have a question, do they transfer their heat into the surrounding brickwork because if that was the case they also could act (a little) like a masonary stove?

I like the woodfire stoves which are modern, efficient, more heat to water than room (essential in a passive house) and have a kit for external air supply and they come as an inserted stove version if you wish.

.