A new look at an old technology
Russian stoves once were prized for the way they looked and the way they worked, burning efficiently and heating homes.
Our engineer asks this burning question: Should Russian fireplaces find a place in American homes?
Something deep within us is soothed by the penetrating warmth and glow of a wood fire. Many people in Chelan County use wood heat to reduce the amount of electricity used to heat their home, and/or simply because of the comfort that it adds to their home. While we are familiar with fireplaces and wood stoves, Chelan PUD Engineer Jim White recently stumbled on an old technology that has been used for hundreds of years to heat homes in Russia. The following are his thoughts on the different ways to heat with wood.
I became interested in Russian stoves after reading an article in Alaska magazine that mentioned that prior to 1860, wood stoves made of iron were unknown in Alaska. Instead of iron stoves, the Russians used a “pechka,” a homemade furnace built of stones, bricks and locally made mortar. It served as both a cooking and heating appliance. Mark Twain came across similar wood stoves when he traveled to Germany and wrote the following:
“…At half past seven on a cold morning the servant brings a small basketful of slender pine sticks and puts half of these in, lights them with a match, and closes the door. They burn out in ten or twelve minutes. He then puts in the rest and locks the door… The work is done.”
These mass fireplaces and stoves work by absorbing nearly all the heat from a small but intense fire. Once the firewood is consumed, the chimney damper is closed to keep the heat and air from escaping up the chimney. Nearly all of the wood’s heat is stored in the fireplace brick; the heat is slowly released inside the home throughout the day. Many of the mass fireplaces also contain an oven that gets hot enough to bake bread. Some Russian fireplaces even had a flat area on top that was used as a warm place to sleep on those cold Russian nights.
While beautiful to look at and wonderfully warm stand near, the American brick fireplace seems very inefficient in comparison. Instead of being inside the home where it can be used to store heat, a majority of the brick in an American fireplace usually is located outside the home. The heat that is absorbed by the brick is either wasted up the chimney or conducted outside. Although some fireplaces have channels or tubes built into them that duct or blow warm air into the space, the typical fireplace is more of a campfire than a furnace. The flames and coals warm the surfaces they shine on, but do very little to actually heat the air around you. Most of the air heated by the flames and coals goes up the chimney. Unless there is a separate outside air supply to the fireplace, warm or hot air flowing up the chimney also draws cold air into the rest of the home that has to be heated.
A traditional wood stove is better than a fireplace at capturing the heat produced by the fire. The hot surface of the stove quickly heats the air and radiates warmth throughout a room where it is located. While warm and comforting to enjoy at first, eventually it is necessary to reduce the amount of heat produced by the wood stove. The most common way to do that is to restrict the amount of air flowing through the stove to slow down the combustion of the wood. While this is effective at regulating the output of the wood stove, it also causes the wood to burn very inefficiently, generating soot and air pollution.
So if these Russian stoves are so efficient, comfortable and can also be used to bake bread, why don’t we see more of them in United States? One of the advantages of wood stoves and conventional fireplaces over Russian stoves is their ability to provide almost instant heat. The other drawback to the Russian stove is that their design and construction has become a lost art. It is difficult to find an experienced mason who knows how to build a long-lasting and well-functioning mass stove. In their day, qualified fireplace masons were highly prized in Russian society. A well-designed stove would be the highlight of a Russian home, providing warm, even heating throughout the day and night, while also cooking food and providing comfort. Poor designs, on the other hand, did not draft properly, creating smoke problems and performing poorly as a stove or oven.
One group in North America that is hoping to change that is the Masonry Heater Association of North America.
Have I fired up your interest in Russian stoves? View a photo gallery of the Russian pechka here. Follow a lively discussion among energy pros about Russian stoves here.
We have a masonry heater in our home. It is our main source of heat for the main floor and upper story of our log home on Chiwawa Loop. During the recent power outage we had pot roast with vegetables, baked ravioli, potatoes, and apples, scones, quiche…all baked in the oven. In the past we have baked bread, cookies, pizza, and we traditionally roast our Thanksgiving turkey in our fireplace oven. We love it. Ours is faced with river rock. The only drawback is if you’re away from home in the winter, it takes up to 48 hours to warm the house back up to a comfortable temperature. For the coldest winter months, we burn 2 fires a day, morning and evening. If temps drop below zero for more than a day or 2, we will usually squeeze in a third fire mid-afternoon and push the evening fire to just before bed. We find we go through about the same amount of firewood in a winter as friends with a wood burning stove and our power bills are consistently lower. Plus we don’t have to tend the fire all day and it does burn very clean.
Mary Ann Derr has first-hand experience with this type of stove. She sent this response in an e-mail:
When I built my home in Plain I selected a radiant heat stove with an oven that fit the size of the home. I purchased the inside bricks from a company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and then selected the glacial deposited rocks (river rock but not from the river) that are on my property to have a mason assemble the stove. When it is cold I fire up the stove two times a day and then try to match the high heat for bread baking, baking potatoes or any foods that are oven prepared. There was enough excavation done on the property that I was able to free up enough stones for the project.
Beware of your advice to close the flue at night. Once the stove is burning and drawing the oxygen needed to keep the fire going then one can close the damper enough to hold the heat but not let the carbon monoxide fill the home. One must install a CO detection unit in the house.
The heat disperses in the home as a radiant heat which does not cause cold drafts like a fireplace. The most effective use for these stoves is to have them away from an outside wall. When on the outside wall you are allowing the heat to go out and then you lose heat.
With the traditional Russian stoves, to avoid the carbon monoxide problem, unburned coals were removed from the fireplace before the damper was closed. The charcoal could then be burned later in a samovar for making tea. The samovars could be attached to a separate small chimney to duct the exhaust outside the home.